Scansano was renowned for its wine as long ago as the early 1800s when the
Napoleonic army decided to make a garrison there for the troops marching
to Rome, which was then
governed by the Vatican.
The coasts and plains were so badly affected by malaria that for almost
a hundred years all public structures were transferred to Grosseto during the summer; but at 500m above sea level Scansano was unaffected by the disease and the village became
the summer capital of Maremma. Some of the
officers, who knew as much about winemaking as they did about arms,
realized how suitable this area was for winegrowing and for the first
time the local products were catalogued. In 1818 the total wine production
was 5,000hl, 500 of which were reserved: truly remarkable figures
for the period.
The grenache
variety was planted here, also known as "tinto di Spagna" or
"Alicante"
due to the Spanish-owned lands along the coasts: this is the same
as the "garnacha" variety grown in Catalonia, in Languedoc to make
Chateauneuf du Pape and in Sardinia to make Cannonau;
other varieties planted here were syrah, the nero
francese or gamay, used to make
Beaujolais, and cabernet, which is still (although rarely) found
in old vineyards, known as "borḍ" to
older farmers.
The sangiovese grape which
in Scansano is called "Morellino" had
been found in this area for some time but it came into its own during
the alongside the new winegrowing boom, to the extent that Barone
Ricasoli - who hunted in this area - remarked
on the quality of the Maremman vines. When
the specifications for Chianti wine were drawn up he wanted Scansano
grafts on the rootstocks to invigorate the vineyards of the more noble
Chianti farms.
In those
days vineyards were planted at a very high density (over 10,000
plants per hectare) with the "dense and low" system. At the end
of the century there were 500 hectares of vineyards while exactly
one hundred years later, in the early 1990s, there were barely 300.
The phylloxera
disease decimated European vineyards, and war and lack of interest
resulted in a severe recession for winegrowing in Maremma.
But thanks to the agricultural reform of the 1950s, the rows of
vines that for over half a century had been used to divide up the
fields rather than to make wine once again played a leading role
in Maremma's farming economy.
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Farming was
mechanised, to enrich industry, and the vineyards were consequently
planted at a density of 2,224 plants per hectare; but because in
those days grapes were worth little, the farmers were forced to
choose the more generous varieties like the black ciliegiolo
or the white trebbiano, allowing them
to obtain over 300 quintals (per hectare) and this is still the
case in our area.This choice enabled them
to live on the fruits of their labour, as dictated by the markets
and the obtuse cooperative policies which no-one dared or wanted
to oppose.
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