The passion for wine is in Erik Banti's blood. As a child on his father's farm, La Braccesca, in Montepulciano, he watched with wide-eyed wonder as the grown-ups worked in the vineyard and bottled the resulting nectar. A few years on, as an economics student, Erik drove racing cars and played golf, collecting Italian awards and prizes on the race-track and the putting green. Later, as a photographer, he worked for Vogue and National Geographic, and was a favourite on the film sets of Fellini and Zeffirelli. Still later, now a travel agent, he was the first to discover the Maldives and other exotic paradise islands.

A thousand passions, a thousand professions, using all his energy. But as a wise man said, "When the ground shakes beneath your feet go back to your roots". So one day, tired of queues and traffic lights, Erik returned to his roots, to his first passion: he moved into his property in Maremma and opened a restaurant in the medieval Montemerano house, which would be a benchmark for local culture and traditions for years. Above all, in 1981, Erik corked the first bottle of his own Morellino, a wine as yet unknown outside its local area, which would astonish the world thanks to the strong-willed "Viking", as they call him around here.
Erik has come a long way since then, and so has his Morellino. His vineyards stretch over hectares of land perfectly suited to growing fine wines. The layers of arenaceous rocks fragmented by mining guarantee perfect drainage for the vineyards, promoting excellent growth of the vines.

Emilio Guariglia