ITALIAN ACADEMY OF VINE AND WINE

The National Academy of Vine and Wine is an institution of wine culture in the Belpaese,
born in 1949 in Siena, at the proposal of the National Wine Committee. A “Moral Body,” headed today by Professor Antonio Calò, which, in addition to being a center for the development and dissemination of wine knowledge, is also a kind of “historical archive” of the great families of Italian wine. In the opening of academic year No. 69 on June 9 in Conegliano, in fact, an important recognition came to one of the historical families of Brunello di Montalcino, the Colombini family, which saw Francesca Colombini being “promoted” to the rank of “Academician Emeritus,” and her children Stefano Cinelli Colombini (Fattoria dei Barbi) and Donatella Cinelli Colombini (Casato Prime Donne), being named ordinary academicians of the body. A curious case, but not the only one, involving multiple members of the same family.
Scrolling down the list of 470 academicians, in fact, with three members of the same family there are also the Frescobaldi family, who have led the historic Tuscan brand for centuries, with Ferdinando, Vittorio and Lamberto Frescobaldi, while the Umbrian triplet of Lungarotti, a family that has indelibly marked regional and Italian oenology, is all female, and whose academicians include Maria Grazia Marchetti Lungarotti, and daughters Chiara Lungarotti and Teresa Severini.
And even more are the families with two exponents among the academics: from the Antinori family , at the helm of one of the most important realities of Italian wine for more than 20 generations, with Piero and his daughter Albiera Antinori, to the Fellugas, pioneers of wine in Friuli Venezia Giulia, with Marco and Patrizia Felluga, and again the brothers Riccardo and Renzo Cotarella, producers with Falesco and the Famiglia Cotarella group (now led by daughters Dominga, Marta and Enrica, ed.) and among Italy’s most successful winemakers, the Folonari, another historic Italian wine family, whose academics include Ambrose and Paul, and again, going to Piedmont, the names of Vittorio and Lamberto stand out Vallarino Gancia. Also of note, Gianni Zonin and his son Domenico Zonin (who with his brothers Francesco and Michele now leads one of the top wine groups in the Belpaese) and, from Campania, Antonio Mastroberardino and their son Piero, at the helm of one of southern Italy’s benchmark wineries. And, among the curiosities, trespassing into the world of spirits, there is also the Nonino family, with Giannola Nonino, the “Lady of Grappa,” at the head of the Friuli distillery that launched single-varietal grappas, an academician of vine and wine together with her daughter Cristina. Just a few examples of a curious journey through the genealogies of the oenological world of the Belpaese.