Salcheto: Noble Wines Made with Noble Methods

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Last November, I traveled to Montepulciano in the heart of the Tuscan wine country to meet Michele Manelli of Salcheto - a winery that, under Michele’s leadership, has emerged at the forefront of sustainability awareness and innovation in the European panorama of winemaking.

Throughout his career as a winemaker, Michele has earned a reputation in the industry as a visionary and innovator, respected for the quality of the wine he produces just as much as his alternative means of producing them. Like most visionaries, Michele’s inspiration stems from the recognition of a problem, and a desire to make a personal contribution toward resolving it:

“Growing up in the Italian country side, the outdoors were my playground. I was particularly fond of playing in a small river near my home. As I got older, though, and developers built up the surrounding area, the outdoors turned into a less welcoming environment. My favorite river became polluted, and it was transformed from a childhood friend into a fiume nemico (enemy river).”

Salcheto is more than a vineyard, and much more than a business; it is Michele’s life work to stem the tide of environmental carelessness within his sphere of influence by exploring synergies between man and nature so that each can benefit (rather than harm) the other.

Over the past 15 years, this mission has driven Michele and his team to make Salcheto the first sustainable, energy independent vineyard in Europe. The team has gone to impressive lengths to transform this vision into a realty: the presence of thermal springs in Montepulciano and the surrounding areas has enabled them to derive geothermal energy to power their refrigeration systems, they burn their own waste (such as vine trimmings) to heat their facility and generate hot water, they grew a vertical garden on the facade of their cantina to facilitate natural temperature regulation, they even built a network of ducts that illuminate the depths of their cantina with natural light, drastically reducing the need for electricity-powered lighting. A combination of these and many other efforts positioned Salcheto to become the first company in the world to have certified the carbon footprint of a bottle of wine - a big step in further reducing emissions on their estate as they continue to produce quality wine that marries modern technology with time-honored tradition.

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Since he founded Salcheto in 1997, Michele’s values of sustainable living have influenced his relationship with the surrounding agricultural community as he embraces collaboration between businesses. The result is a vibrant community of like minded people that share a common respect for the environment; among these is Alessandro of Tartufo Montepulciano.

It was the height of truffle season when I visited Salcheto, so Michele and his team put me in touch with Alessandro and gave me the opportunity to witness their common environmentally synergistic approach first hand. I accompanied Alessandro and his lagotto romagnolo, through the woods as they worked in remarkable coordination to forage for truffles. Just as Michele leverages nature’s properties to produce exquisite wine with minimal environmental impact, Alessandro’s process is based on a wholesome collaboration with his craft’s two most important contributors: his dog and his land.

Our time in the woods was fruitful, and we returned to Salcheto’s “Enoteca” for a truffle lunch prepared by their resident chef. In true Salcheto style, everything we ate (including the homemade tagliatelle!) was sourced locally and paired with Salcheto’s award winning Vino Nobile.