Colombaia (winery)

Colombaia (officially Azienda Agricola Colombaia) is a biodynamic winery and vineyard located in the hamlet of Mensanello, in Colle di Val d'Elsa, in the Siena province of Tuscany, Italy. The estate sits on a hillside at 220 metres altitude, overlooking an open valley and benefiting from cool sea breezes from the southwest. With just 4 hectares of vines and a production of approximately 10,000 bottles per year in the most generous vintages, it is one of the most respected small estates in the Italian NATURAL wine movement.

History

The Lomazzi family's connection with wine stretches back to the early 20th century, when Dante Lomazzi's great-grandfather and his brothers established a warehouse on the port of Milazzo to store and ship wines. Despite two world wars, the company — Fratelli Lomazzi — grew steadily, establishing large winemaking facilities in Puglia. By the 1950s it had become one of the most significant wine wholesalers in Italy. As mass production gradually shifted to cooperative cellars, however, a heavily structured trading company no longer had reason to exist.

In 1974, Dante's father Piero changed direction entirely, purchasing an abandoned farm and vineyard in the Chianti hills near Colle Val d'Elsa. The property, which took its name from the doves (colomba) that had used the house as a communication post, became the family's agricultural estate — a deliberate break from the world of bulk wine towards something smaller and rooted in place.

Dante Lomazzi and his wife Helena Variara returned to the farm in 1999. Helena, born in Brazil and raised in Florence from the age of seven, brought her own perspective to the project. The couple immediately began converting the estate to organic viticulture, achieving organic certification in 1999. In 2003 — a difficult first vintage by their own account — they took over full management and converted completely to biodynamic agriculture, earning Demeter certification.

In 2006, they made the deliberate decision to leave the Chianti DOCG appellation entirely, protesting against what they saw as unclear rules and historical fraud by large producers in the region. All wines have since been labelled as Toscana IGT.

Viticulture and winemaking

The estate comprises 4 hectares: 3 hectares of old vines planted in 1970, and a further hectare planted in 2005. The older parcel is planted with traditional Tuscan varieties — Sangiovese, Colorino, Malvasia Nera, and Canaiolo — while the newer parcel focuses on denser plantings of Sangiovese and Colorino. A small number of rows of Cabernet Sauvignon are also present. White wines are produced from Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia Bianca.

The soils are composed of clay, calcareous limestone and fossil shells, with the estate positioned to benefit from natural ventilation from the sea. No synthetic products are used in the vineyard, and biodiversity is actively encouraged, with grass and plants left to grow freely between the rows.

In the cellar, fermentation takes place in concrete vats using the traditional Tuscan a cappello sommerso (submerged cap) technique, with indigenous yeasts only. The cellar is designed around gravity flow, requiring no mechanical pumps, and grapes travel less than 50 metres from vine to press. Wines from old vines are aged in large Slavonian oak barrels of 26 hectolitres for a minimum of 24 months; wines from young vines are aged in stainless steel. Sulphur is used only in warmer vintages and in very small doses at bottling; many cuvées are produced with no added sulphur at all. Neither fining nor filtration is carried out.

Colombaia bottles with their vintage-specific label colours, each year hand-labelled in the cellar

Wines

Colombaia produces a small range of wines, all labelled Toscana IGT following the estate's departure from the Chianti DOCG in 2006:

  • Colombaia — the estate's flagship red, from old-vine Sangiovese, Colorino, Malvasia Nera and Canaiolo; a different coloured label is used for each vintage as a reflection of the season
  • Vigna Nuova — red from the younger parcel, with a higher proportion of Sangiovese
  • Bianco Toscano — white from Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia Bianca, with some skin contact
  • Spumante Rosato and Spumante Bianco — sparkling wines produced by the méthode ancestrale, with no added sugar, no added yeast, and no added sulphur; sealed with a crown cap and disgorged by hand

International recognition

Colombaia has been featured in several key reference works on natural and biodynamic wine, including Monty Waldin's Best Biodynamic Wines, Isabelle Legeron MW's Natural Wine, and Simon J. Woolf's Amber Revolution. The estate has also been covered by The New York Times in a feature on biodynamic winemaking in Tuscany. Its wines are distributed internationally through specialist natural wine importers in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Portugal, Italy, and Japan.