Matthew Fioretti is not everyone’s cup of tea. The man at the helm of Cerbaiona doesn’t mince his words – and he’s got firm views on, well, I suspect pretty much everything. But he’s also unwaveringly honest, with a frank approach that is enjoyably refreshing – and rather unusual in the fine wine arena. He’s got a vision and story, one that he wants to tell, but it’s not one that’s been spun by a PR agency; it’s his. Fioretti has long been involved in the world of wine, running an import business in the US (Summa Vitis), which focused largely on Italian wine. He moved to Italy in 2004, and shut down the Summa Vitis operation in 2009 as he set his sights on making wine himself. After a few false starts, he heard that Diego Molinari – the longtime owner of Cerbaiona – was looking to retire. Along with a group of investors (the most significant of which is the American collector Gary Rieschel), Fioretti purchased the property in 2015, reportedly for €5.8 million. Molinari was in his 80s and it was clear that – while the site itself was exceptional – the property was run down and needed work. As we reported a few years ago, he promptly embarked on a radical project to restore the property and unexpectedly decided to declassify the 2014 and 2015 vintages to Rosso di Montalcino, only releasing the first Fioretti-era Brunello in 2021, with the 2016 vintage – the first to be made entirely by the new team.  Now, almost a decade later, he’s starting to be able to realise his vision for the estate – as we discovered on a visit earlier this year, with problems that “aren’t easy to solve”. The challenge, he explains, has been evolving from an “artisan” to an “atelier”. Under Molinari, the property developed a legendary reputation, but the operation was rudimentary – a traditional, family business, doing things the way they had always been done. Fioretti wants to bring the estate into the modern era, elevating the terroir with technical precision to craft wines that continue the Cerbaiona legacy. It is, he says, “a transition I wasn’t expecting to make”, but one that he feels is essential to safeguard Cerbaiona’s future. The distinction between artisan and atelier is a nuanced one – but one that comes down to an emphasis on craft rather than art, with a commitment to consistency, for which precision and hygiene in the winery are key, as well as a high level of technical knowledge. He confesses that he had envisaged having a more hands-off approach in the winery, having imported a lot of natural wines in his previous career, but has rapidly realised that top-level winemaking is full of “necessary compromises” (diving into issues like the fault quercetin). As a craft, winemaking can’t just be subject to the “whims of the producer”, as he suggests is the artisanal way. “I prefer to work more meticulously,” he explains. The American talks at pace, flitting from TS Eliot and the concept of “the pure critic” to Albertolli and neoclassicism, in amongst technical detail about fining and filtering. The estate is closed to visitors, deliberately to avoid distraction from what Fioretti wants to be spending his time on – making wine. As he whizzes us round the winery, our heads spinning as we try to absorb every detail, he talks us through exactly how he’s bringing new exactitude to the operation. The vineyards have all been replanted and a steep-sloped olive grove replaced with vines, all with selected rootstocks and clones sourced from France’s Guillaume nursery, to give them the best possible raw material. Once seen as too labour-intensive to farm, he’s convinced the ex-olive grove might just be the best site on the property. The rustic old stables and granary that acted as the cellar and winery have been carefully renovated, with water and drainage installed throughout, and the equipment all updated. Importantly, Fioretti has added a full in-house laboratory – something that is exceedingly rare for a property of this size, let alone Italy where the high-tech approach is far from the norm. The fruit is now all chilled after harvest, de-stemmed and cold-soaked, using inert gas to protect the must. While he used upright wooden tanks for fermentation for his first five vintages, Fioretti switched to stainless steel to allow for better hygiene and temperature control (preferring a maximum 26̊C), as well as allowing him to programme them for automated punch-downs and pump-overs. He’s started co-inoculating for primary and malolactic fermentation, meaning the wines go into barrel very clean – and can be sulphured right away. These are tweaks, minor modernisations, but one of the most significant changes Foretti is making is the time the wine spends in wood. While Molinari favoured four-plus years in 500-litre tonneaux, Fioretti has gradually started bottling the wine earlier and uses a combination of 350-litre barrels and 15-hectolitre casks. “Even two years [the appellation minimum] in wood is too long,” he says – before quickly acknowledging that such a view is far from accepted, and he cannot legally reduce it any further. The various consorzios may not like it, but it’s a view that is increasingly common among younger producers in Italy, who are frustrated by minimum oak-ageing requirements and their contrast with the wines today’s consumers want to drink. As Fioretti says, however, “The notion of wood is very delicate.” And while he’d rather be able to age his wine in other vessels during their first two years of life, he acknowledges that élevage in oak has a beneficial impact on the chemistry of wine – aiding stability. With such a beloved wine, it might seem controversial to change anything – especially the way it’s made, but that hasn’t stopped Fioretti. Looking back at older vintages from the estate, even the legendary 100-point 2010, he is sometimes underwhelmed, feeling that there’s much greater potential. Part of his plan to reflect that potential is bottling earlier, allowing the fruit to shine through and give the wine better balance – something he feels is key for ageing potential. He’s also keen to make sure the wine is moderate in alcohol with maximum 14 or 14.2%, even in the warmest years. And most importantly, he says, good wine has to be delicious. Having tasted the 2019 and 2021 with Fioretti – the results so far really are. There’s a vibrancy and purity that makes them irresistible, while not sacrificing the structure that will allow these wines to go the distance. Alongside Cerbaiona, Fioretti has also created the M.L. Fioretti label, one he describes as “part garagiste, part petit château”. He was keen to explore indigenous grapes, which “are part of the family – but not all thoroughbreds”, as well as plots of Bordeaux varietals (grapes with undeniable pedigree) – provided they’re planted in the right place. The Casaglia Colorino is bright and spicy, while the San Vito (sadly the last vintage of which is 2021) is a beautifully lush and vibrant Merlot. These are fascinating wines that allow Fioretti to experiment more – outside the constrictions of the Brunello di Montalcino appellation. Controversially, Fioretti has declared Cerbaiona a “No Scores Zone”, echoing the sentiment of Teobaldo Cappellano that numerical ratings are divisive, at best – and don’t do justice to the craft of winemaking. In his notes on the 2018 vintage, Fioretti wrote: “This is another vintage for the connoisseur, that true lover of wine and the vine. So be it if the ‘collector’ misses out.” Feathers might be ruffled by such remarks, but the motivation here is clear: an earnest passion for wine. It’s something that shines through in our conversation – and in the wines he’s making. You won’t find ratings online for new vintages of Cerbaiona, but one thing’s for sure: you’ll want them in your cellar. Explore all current Cerbaiona and M.L. Fioretti listings, or read more about Italy

You won’t have seen any reviews for Cerbaiona since Matthew Fioretti took over the cult Montalcino address – and that’s for good reason. We caught up with the notorious American taking charge, and leading change, at the estate

It’s all change at the cult Brunello di Montalcino winery Cerbaiona since Matthew Fioretti took over in 2015. We sat down with him to find out more.

Change at Cerbaiona – Matthew Fioretti

Change at Cerbaiona: Matthew Fioretti

Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW has caused quite the stir. In her Bordeaux 2021 en primeur report, her first for her new publication The Wine Independent, she scored some wines below 80 points – and just 20% made it above the 90-point mark. She’s a woman on a mission, determined to bring honour and integrity back to wine criticism. The Master of Wine and Robert Parker protégée stepped down as Editor-in-Chief of the Wine Advocate – the leading fine wine publication – last year. She was tired of what had become a corporate life. Michelin took over in 2019 and her time was increasingly spent in meetings, doing reporting, looking at corporate responsibility as well as managing her team and making sure everything was going to plan – a plan, she emphasises, that was not set by her. Most importantly, her senior position took her further away from what she really loved doing – writing about wine. “I love to sit down with winemakers and capture that story that is not on their website, that is not in their marketing material. Something that is real and raw. There is not enough of that,” she tells me. Her view is that it’s the story that makes wine “more than just a drink” – and that’s why people spend hundreds of pounds on a bottle. This storytelling is what she’s looking to do with her new, small outfit, The Wine Independent. Importantly she’s partnered with Johan Berglund – a professional photographer (whose beautiful images we've used here) – to bring those stories to life, with a modern platform that is a world away from most other critics’ sites (often “a wall of words”, she says). As the name of the new publication suggests, Perrotti-Brown is making a stand against publications that she feels no longer put the consumer first. Her inspiration is Robert Parker’s original operation – the Wine Advocate started as a small newsletter shared with friends. “Essentially a mom-and-pop shop”, she explains, getting back to basics, with minimal staff and no fancy office with big overheads. For her, the goal is simple: to publish timely – and honest – reports, allowing readers to search for wines easily and helping them to discover something new. She doesn’t hold back voicing her concerns about the state of wine criticism today. She’s damning, believing there’s a trend not just to overscore, but that it’s a strategy to gain influence, helping critics be quoted by retailers and wineries – and therefore benefitting from “free marketing”. “When you see people coming in one or two points above everyone else and they hang on and wait until other people’s reviews have come out… I mean, come on, it’s definitely happening,” she says. The compaction of scores, however, is what really riles her. Everything sits between 95 and 99 these days, she suggests. “Nobody dares to go to 100 and nobody dares to go below 90.” Perrotti-Brown is outspoken about critics for whom the tiny number of 100-point scores they hand out is a point of pride. “There are a lot of critics who are just too chicken-s**t to give 100 points,” she says. “If you know a wine is 100 points, it takes a lot of bravery to put it out there.” Some critics – such as James Molesworth of Wine Spectator – don’t believe that a perfect wine exists, and therefore never give 100 points. “Which is ridiculous!” says Perrotti-Brown. “Why use a 100-point scale, if you are not going to use the top?” Her fear is that scores will lose all relevance and meaning. Indeed, she notes that retailers don’t even reference who gave the score they quote. “You go into a shop these days and look at the shelf-toppers and it doesn’t even say whose score it is – it just says 97 points. Every wine is 97 points!”  Critics should be fighting for consumers, she argues, rather than ingratiating themselves with wineries. “I know it is difficult, because we are sat there right in front of the winemaker, listening to their stories and I think the impetus is to really feel for that person, but you can’t. You always have to see it from the consumer’s perspective – it’s what Bob [Robert Parker] always told me. You are working for them.”  Hence, therefore, the broad range of scores that she felt was inevitable for a vintage like 2021. It was, she admits, a difficult vintage to assess in the evolution of Bordeaux. She’s adamant that she hasn’t changed the way she scores: “It just happens to be the worst vintage Bordeaux has had for a very long time,” she explains. Perrotti-Brown refers back to Robert Parker’s original benchmark for 90 points – an “outstanding” wine, a wine that is complex and age-worthy. For her – tasting very widely across the region – the majority of 2021s don’t meet those criteria, but she’s quick to emphasise that wines scored in the upper 80s are very good wines. “I think there has become some stigma over the wines scoring in the 80s and I don’t know why,” she says. Again returning to Robert Parker’s original scoring crib-sheet, these are “good to very good” wines and that is where, she feels, the bulk of Bordeaux 2021 wines fall.  Looking back at Robert Parker’s own en primeur scores in trickier vintages (2007, 2013, 1996), he too was awarding many wines eighty-something points, sometimes less. While Perrotti-Brown accepts the technological advances in viticulture and vinification mean you would rarely see Classed Growth wines receiving less than 80 points today, it only emphasises just how challenging the 2021 vintage was in Bordeaux. Of course, the vintage also produced some surprises. Despite everything that happened climate-wise, there were a number of wineries that produced outstanding wines, even by Perrotti-Brown’s assessment. “Some wines were absolute trainwrecks and there are other wines that are wow… you can tell these people worked their tails off,” she says.  The critic was certainly surprised and disappointed by other reports on the vintage, particularly given she’d worked and trained some of the people behind them. “When I am looking at other peoples’ scores [for Bordeaux 2021], 60% or more of the wines scored 90 points and above and that is astonishing to me,” she says, both confused and outraged. “Some of these wines, they are giving the same score ranges as the 2018 and the 2019s – I mean how is that possible?” Her report is a statement of intent. Lower scores may mean The Wine Independent isn’t as widely quoted by the trade, but what matters to Perrotti-Brown is whether consumers trust the publication. It’s a long-term game. “Eventually I hope consumers will look at all these other scores and say, ‘But what did The Wine Independent say?’” Perrotti-Brown took a huge risk stepping down from what is undeniably the wine world’s most influential publication – but she is confident she’s made the right choice. Her need for autonomy was the impetus for her to set up on her own, and she’s found freedom on her own terms. It is still early days for The Wine Independent and, for now, Perrotti-Brown is their only reviewer – although she confirms an additional critic will be announced in the coming weeks. Competing against more established publications with an extensive database of tasting notes and scores isn’t easy – but Perrotti-Brown has established herself as a disruptor in the field. She’s lain down the gauntlet – daring her peers to put the consumer back at the heart of what they do. Read more Editorial

Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW is making a stand. The ex Wine Advocate Editor-in-Chief, trained by Robert Parker, believes that critics are at risk of losing relevance – and for good reason. We talk to the wine writer about why she’s fed up of scoring strategies and set up The Wine Independent.

Why the wine critic left the *Wine Advocate* to go her own way, determined to bring honour and integrity back to wine criticism.

Lisa Perrotti-Brown on why she left Wine Advocate

The voice of independence: Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW

Many believe Scotch blends are single malt whisky’s poor relation in price, quality and taste profile. In actuality, this could not be further from the truth. It takes great mastery to produce a blend. Some of the most exquisite single malts – that people pay handsomely for – are blended in perfect harmony by some of the most talented whisky makers in the world to create remarkable blended whiskies. And yet, this lesser label seemingly sticks to blended whisky – as it has for decades. The tide does, however, show signs of turning as more collectable and well-aged blended whiskies are appearing on the market. Few people know more about blended Scotch than Colin Scott and Dr Emma Walker. Scott held the title of Chivas Brothers Master Blender for 31 years and today, after a very short-lived retirement, produces superlative blends for remarkable spirits curators The Last Drop Distillers. Walker has also not long stepped into a new role, succeeding Dr Jim Beveridge as Johnnie Walker Master Blender. Dr Walker (no relation to Johnnie) and her trusty team of 12 highly skilled blenders preside over more than 10 million casks of whisky from 30 distilleries across the length and breath of Scotland to create all the Scotch in Diageo’s extensive portfolio. “Because it’s a blending operation, we just call it all blends,” Walker says – adding, with a chuckle, “just to confuse people.” The same team that looks after Diageo’s single malts looks after all its Scotch whisky, including the blends, new releases and highly collectable Cask of Distinction releases. At last count, there are 138 whisky distilleries in Scotland. Of these, 131 are malt distilleries and seven are grain, and Diageo by far and away owns the most at 30. It is Walker’s job to know these distilleries (28 malt and two grain) inside and out to produce all of Diageo’s Scotch whisky bottlings. “Our single malts are amazing. Our single grains are amazing. But so are the blended Scotch whiskies,” she says with unabashed excitement. Walker is three months into her new role at the helm of one of the world’s most formidable blending operations – and is clearly loving every minute, despite being “slightly terrified”. A chemist by trade, she is acutely aware of Johnnie Walker’s legacy as the world’s most foremost whisky blender and she carries this responsibility, that might weigh heavy on others, with a healthy dose of reverence and buckets of zeal. The ebullient Colin Scott has worked in the Scotch whisky industry for almost 50 years, blending some of the world’s most well-known and coveted whiskies for Chivas Brothers. There’s little he hasn’t seen and you sense he’s just as excited by the goings on today as he was as a young whippersnapper in the blending room half a century ago. “It’s interesting that everybody talks about [single] malts rather than blends,” Scott muses. “For the last 100 years, blends have actually dominated global sales – over 90% is blended Scotch and less than 10% is [single] malts.” Scott thinks the reason for this is simple: “People can understand a single malt because it comes from a single distillery. You can go to it, you can see it, you can touch it, and you can feel it. It’s a little bit more sexy than a blend because a blend has anything between three and a 100-plus whiskies in it.” But, what many fail to realise, according to Scott, is the skill required to create these blended whiskies – at all price points. “There is an art to blending. It’s quite a complicated art,” he says wistfully. And an ever-changing one at that. “A lot of people don’t understand that if you take a premium blend, it might have 50 whiskies in the blend one year, the next year it might have 60, the following year it might have 45, the next year might have 48 – so year on year, because of availability within the inventory, the actual number of whiskies in the blend will change. “And it is the art of the blender who brings and rebalances all of those flavours back so the taste experience remains consistent.” Walker picks up the point: “You take these individual great characters and you just bring them together. You’re not doing something that cheapens it. You’re not doing something where you’re trying to bulk things out, you’re trying to bring those different, individual characters together in the best way possible. You’re amplifying rather than cancelling each other out.” Walker is always trying to reach the golden ratio for the desired mouthfeel, texture, aroma, taste and length. When she achieves this, Walker says: “It’s just really exciting. To find these amazing individual things and bring them together, it’s heaven in a glass.” It takes years of experience and skill – passed down from one generation to the next – to achieve this divine state or you’d have to face the wrath of the loyal drinker who knows what should be in that bottle. “You’re always looking for that consistent quality,” Scott explains spiritedly. “Whether it’s standard, premium, super premium or ultra ultra premium. “Working at Chivas, you would use pretty much the same amount of time on a standard blend as a niche blend,” Scott says with great candour, “because you just don’t compromise on quality – it is not part of the game.” Scott has blended at all the levels during his career. His decision to join the Last Drop in 2021 was somewhat serendipitous. Scott and the late Last Drop co-founder Tom Jago were responsible for one of the most successful blends of all time: Chivas 18. The remarkable spirits curators have championed blended whisky since day dot. Founders Jago and long-time friend James Espey OBE initially set out to bottle single malts – because the demand was there at the higher end – but that all changed when the formidable duo were bewitched by a certain 1960 blended Scotch. This became the Last Drop’s inaugural release in 2008 and is said to have been the best whisky Jago ever tasted during his lifetime. Scott is the first to acknowledge that blended whiskies carrying an age statement are an easier sell than those without – his debut for the Last Drop was a very special 50-year-old signature blend. “If you’ve got an age on a product, people know exactly what they are dealing with,” he says matter-of-factly. While the Master Blender does feel there is a groundswell of appreciation for blended whiskies, helped by older bottlings and ever-increasing auction prices, he understands there is work to be done to remove this legacy inferiority association. “People have been drinking blends forever,” Scott explains. “But because it is usually the standard blend, they don’t really consider it special.” He continues: “Many think blends are inferior and the main reason for that was way back in the day, 30, 40, 50 years ago, people regarded grain whisky as an industrial spirit because a grain distillery, even today, makes 10 times the spirit than a malt whisky distillery makes. “Malt whisky distilleries are maybe now making 10 million or 20 million litres a year – the big ones – and a grain distillery produces over 100 million litres. I wouldn’t consider it a cheaper product, because once you have bought the cask and matured the product you’re pretty much talking the same value as a mature malt. “And this concept, that this ‘industrial’ grain spirit was added to the malt just to give volume in the actual blend is basically nonsense,” he says animatedly. Scott ardently believes grain whiskies have a very important role to play from a blender’s point of view because it has its own flavour and character. He explains: “When you taste the grain and add it with malts, it actually promotes and harmonises and brings those sort of heavier flavours of the malts together. “If you change the percentage of the grain in the blend, it will change the balance of the malts and the grains, and change the taste experience of the final blend. It’s not just a case of you just blend the malts and then add the grain for the sake of it to give you volume. You have to put it all together because if you don’t, you get a different product.” Walker seconds this. “Some of the best, most amazing [grain] whiskies I’ve got to try was when I was looking at making the John Walker 50-year-old Masters' Edition with Jim and Maureen and it was just phenomenal.” Her face lights up as she recalls that time and takes a moment to finish her train of thought. “Amazing, amazing grain whiskies,” she says with a smile. “And at those ages, when you taste them, they make your mouth water, they are so luscious, and fruity and it’s just astounding. But when you mix them together with these great individual casks of single malts, you have that lusciousness and that fruitiness but you also have these other flavours coming and mixing together.” A large part of Walker’s new role is extolling the virtues of all Scotch whiskies – grains, malts, blends, single malts and single casks – to the world. A lack of in-person events, which are slowly starting to pepper the calendar again, have presented an additional challenge but you’d be foolish to think anything can stop the new Johnnie Walker Master Blender from spreading the gospel. For Scott, it’s a case of once tasted, never forgotten. “I always feel like a great blend is the blend that has huge complexity but there is no individual flavour or character that dominates from the nose to taste to finish,” Scott tells me. “You take a sip and you smile and you put it down and it just invites you to have another one. Because you think wow, that is something I must taste it again.” With more remarkable blended whiskies to be found than ever before, you feel it won’t be long before the rest of the world is singing from the same hymn sheet. Browse all Scotch or read more Editorial 

Blended Scotch whisky doesn’t always get the respect it deserves. Part of this reason is legacy, part is misinformation. Holly Motion explores why blended whiskies are just as worthy of a place in your spirits collection as single malts

Johnnie Walker’s Dr Emma Walker and The Last Drop’s Colin Scott on why blended Scotch whiskies are as complex and beguiling as single malts.

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