The Story of Ciacci is Incredible Enough. Wait Until You Taste the Wines

There are countless Brunello lovers around the planet who gobble up the Ciacci Piccolomini allocations each year and drink every bottle with zero knowledge of the story behind it. But if you can spare us two minutes of your time today, it's definitely one of the more incredible tales in our industry.

In the early 1900s, Elda Ciacci married Count Alberto Piccolomini d'Aragona, a direct descendent of Pope Pious II, and lived in a palace where the Ciacci estate sits today. A farmer named Giuseppe Bianchini was in charge of managing the vines, olive trees, and the rest of the 220 acre property, and he worked tirelessly on behalf of the Count until he passed, then on behalf of the Countess until her death in 1985.

Knowing her passing meant the end of an era, and of his employment at the estate, Giuseppe began to prepare for life after Ciacci until something incredible happened—the kind of miracle that only happens in Hollywood movies and fairy tales: it was discovered the Countess had willed the entire Ciacci estate, including all of the vines, trees, and buildings, to Giuseppe as a gift!

The final words of her will read: ‘I am sure that by doing this my name will be famous all over the world, because Giuseppe knows exactly what I want and he has the philosophy to produce a great quality winery."

And that is exactly what happened! Today Ciacci Brunello is revered globally as one of the finest producers of wine in all of Tuscany, and it's still run by Giuseppe’s family. With fantastic press and glowing accolades year after year, there's a reason this stuff is allocated. I buy a case of the Brunello sight unseen every vintage because while there are other great Sangioveses out there, few have the depth and elegance of these. The story of Ciacci is incredible enough. Wait until you try the wines.

2017 Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona Brunello di Montalcino Riserva $59.99

93 POINTS: JAMES SUCKLING - Aromas of cedar, berry, mushroom and burnt orange follow through to a full body with medium, chewy tannins and a fluid, flavorful finish. Not overdone.

91 POINTS: VINOUS - A pretty and fruit-forward display of ripe cherries, minty herbs and sweet smoke wafts up from the 2017 Brunello di Montalcino. This impresses further with a juicy, fun mix of bright red berries and confectionary spices motivated by vibrant acidity. Hints of plum and licorice linger long over a slightly gruff coating of tannins, yet in the end, balance is nicely maintained. Well done.

2017 Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona Brunello di Montalcino Pianrosso $79.99

94 POINTS: JAMES SUCKLING - This is a beautifully crafted and polished Brunello for this vintage, with full body and creamy, lightly chewy tannins. Dark berries, walnuts and cedar with dried-flower undertones. Needs time to soften, but very pretty.

92 POINTS: VINOUS - A nuanced, delicate bouquet of dried strawberries, roses, hints of sweet spice and crushed rocks lifts up from the charming 2017 Brunello di Montalcino Pianrosso. This is remarkably lifted, yet juicy and energetic, as ripe red berries and minerals cascade across the palate. It leaves a coating of violet-tinged florals, along with persistent raspberry and cherry tones. The tannin management here is absolutely stunning, as the Pianrosso finishes structured yet vividly fresh.

-David Driscoll

Mediterranean Climate, Mountain Air

Are you ready for an inexpensive, crisp and delicious, everyday drinker that satisfies both your taste buds and your romantic ideas about French wine?

We've got just the bottle! The 2020 Closerie des Lys "Les Fruitieres," a delicious Chardonnay-based wine from the Languedoc region near the French Pyrenees: a site with both a Mediterranean climate and mountain influence. What does that mean for the wine, you ask? It means ripeness + acidity! The warm days help the grapes reach their peak on the vine, while the cool mountain evenings help them maintain freshness. The terroir is everything!

The 2020 La Closerie des Lys "Les Fruitières" Blanc $10.99 comes from vineyards deep in the Pyrenean foothills on the sides of two mountains, and is made made with equal parts Chardonnay and Mauzac, then 10% each of Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc added for pep. Balanced from front to back across all fronts, there's no better white wine value in our store right now. Crisp, mineral-driven, fresh, and snappy on the palate, the stone fruit flavors pop on the finish. If you like unoaked Chardonnay, snappy Sauvignon Blanc, or just about any clean, vibrant white wine from France, Italy, or Spain, this is a no-brainer.

The question you're probably asking yourself now is: how do they grow it, bottle it, and ship it halfway around the world for $10.99?

To which I say: don't ask, just enjoy!

-David Driscoll

Raison de Boire

As I was unpacking my suitcase this morning, setting aside the many bottles I picked up during the trip, I began working through the dialogue of a future conversation I’ll likely have later in the day. What were the best whiskies of the trip? What bottles were the most exciting? What did I use my limited luggage space for and why? What do I recommend looking for at duty free?

Here’s the thing about working in the booze industry: while we’re all generally passionate about alcohol, we invariably end up drinking the products from the people we like doing business with. As a result, pure qualitative analysis is almost never a determining factor in what I buy for my personal consumption. That’s not to say I don’t drink really good shit, but rather there’s a lot of really good shit I don’t drink. More importantly, that I won’t drink.

That’s why you have to be careful asking a booze professional about their personal preferences. It’s a loaded question because of all the emotional factors tied to business that weigh in on our decision making. The pleasure I get from drinking a certain wine or whiskey won’t resonate the same way with a general consumer. That’s why I have to be careful not to let my personal biases get in the way of my professional advice; not because I don’t want to push them in a certain direction, but rather because I don’t want to disappoint them!

When I drink a $200 bottle of Lynch-Bages, it brings me back to the château and the meal I had for dinner when I was last there. When I sip on a glass of Bowmore 15, I remember shoveling barley at 2 AM in the malting room of the distillery. My personal preferences for alcohol are often skewed towards my happiest memories and the nostalgia these beverages can offer me. When someone asks me what I like to drink, words alone cannot suffice. The emotional tie that I have with a person, place, or company often transcends the pure liquid itself.

But to simplify all this, imagine the following scenario. I’m sitting in a bar and someone tells the bartender: “I’ll have what he’s having.” That person is making the assumption that, as a booze professional, I probably looked at the list and made a strong qualitative decision based on the available options. However, that’s almost never the case. If I’m sitting in a bar with a glass of whisky, it’s likely something I’ve never tried before, or it’s the product of someone I know and respect. Quality-to-dollar is the furthest thing from my mind when I’m not at work.

I can think of countless occasions when I opened a bottle of wine for my wife, or poured a glass of whiskey for a friend, 100% ready for that person to be just as excited as I was. You learn over time, however, that it’s impossible to fully translate all of the biases that go into why you drink what you drink. I have nothing but respect for people who let the liquid speak for itself, untainted by the prejudices of the outside world.

That being said, I don’t live in that bubble.

-David Driscoll

The Grants - Part III

There’s a law in Scotland called “the right to roam,” which I learned about roughly ten years ago. While private property in terms of buildings and houses is respected and enforced, you’re allowed to access pretty much any open land for recreational purposes. Nature hikes, fishing, rock climbing—you name it. You can’t wander into random distillery buildings or bonded warehouses, but you definitely can explore the areas around just about any distillery without fear; even the legendary shuttered facilities like Convalmore, located just behind Balvenie. Closed in 1985, and purchased by the Grants back in 1992 to expand their warehousing, it casts a ghostly figure as you pass along the footpath between both sites.

Using your right to roam around the Grant family estate is a fun adventure if you’re in the area. You have to hop one fence and descend a small ravine to access an old railroad path, but it eventually takes you to the Dufftown train station. There’s a small commuter line that runs between Keith and the Dufftown and it’s as quaint as they come. Definitely worth stopping by as you make your way around what’s called the Isla Way.

Roaming through the Highlands isn’t just about perspective, it’s about the sensory experience and sense of place that links your mind to the moment and to the whisky created around you. I can’t tell you how sad and tragic the current practice of drinking and exchanging minis feels to my soul. Drinking 50ml of a particular whisky and moving on to the next sample is like taking a selfie at the airport and claiming you’ve been to Paris. Tasting a few sips of a single malt doesn’t give you any real understanding of a product other than the most basic overview. Like any relationship, you have to spend time with it. If you really want to understand a person, you go to where they’re from and meet their friends and family. The same goes for any Scotch whisky.

For the first few years of my booze career, I assumed the barley, the stills, and the wood were the most important components of a whisky’s essence. After a few trips to Scotland, I quickly learned that no element is more important than water; more specifically, where that water comes from and how much of it is available. Not only does the quality of the water greatly affect the flavor of the whisky, if there’s a particularly hot summer and the spring or “burn” that supplies the distillery starts to dry up, then the distillery shuts down until the water starts to flow again. As we walked with Kirsten up to Robbie Dhu—the water source for Glenfiddich and Balvenie—she explained how her family purchased all of the land around their water source to protect that supply. Nothing is more important to their whisky than the Robbie Dhu spring.

The Robbie Dhu is like something out of a Bronte sisters novel with the shaded grove around it, the heather peeping out from the hillsides, and the serenity of the flowing water easing your troubles. This is the source of the Grant family’s whiskies. It all starts here. From melting snow high in the Cairngorn mountains, these underground springs make their way down to the Highlands, permeating the landscape into the various rivers and tributaries that weave through Scotland and the whiskies created here. Every time it started to rain, Kirsten would say: “Today’s rain is tomorrow’s whisky.” It’s an adage that’s easy to gloss over and forget, yet it’s the quintessence of what makes a whisky.

-David Driscoll

The Grants - Part II

Let me introduce you to my new best friend Kirsten Grant. In the lobby of Glenfiddich distillery there’s a family tree of the Grant family dating back to the founder William Grant. You’ll notice there’s a direct line between Kirsten’s photo up to her great grandfather Captain Charles Grant. That’s because neither her father, nor her grandfather worked for the family business. Her grandfather was part of the Grant family that separated to run Glendronach at the beginning of the 20th century. Her father chose to be an architect instead of a distiller, but Kirsten was invited back in by her uncle and cousins to help run William Grant & Sons a little over a decade ago. Just a few years older than me, we hit it off right away. She’s completely laid back, openly generous, loads of fun, has an infectious laugh, and is so damn cool. I plan on being her buddy for as long as I live.

Seeing that we’re both early birds, always on our laptops when the sun comes up, Kirsten and I decided to go for a morning walk around the William Grant compound yesterday morning to see the sights. Vic wandered out of bed just before we left, so he grabbed a piece of toast and joined us for the five mile romp around the estate. The tulips in front of Glenfiddich were popping with color against the early sun.

The River Fiddich runs just along the side of the distillery and, while not used for any of the whisky, the water is pumped in to cool down the spirit in the condensers. It’s a beautiful stream that provides the perfect soundscape for the nature hike. It passes by Balvenie Castle before eventually joining the River Spey at Craigellachie.

Balvenie Castle dates back to the 12th century and sits just next to the eponymous distillery. It’s on the Grant family property, but it’s owned by the Scottish historical society. You pass by it on the way up the hill to where the Grants keep their Highland cows. Attacked by Robert the Bruce in 1308, it was later acquired by the Black Douglasses in the 14th century. William Douglas, who became the Earl of Douglas, and his brother were infamously summoned to Edinburgh Castle and subsequently beheaded at the table during their meal. Known as the “Black Dinner,” the event served as the inspiration for the “Red Wedding” in Game of Thrones.

Shaggy-haired and sweet, these Highland cows had no fear of us as we stood up against the gate and admired their beauty. Long respected for their majesty, Queen Elizabeth herself ordered a herd to be kept at Balmoral Castle in the 1950s, where they still roam today. When we stopped by the Walker Shortbread factory later in the afternoon, you can bet I grabbed the tin with the Highland cow on it, along with the Highland cow-shaped biscuits.

When you walk around the property with Kirsten Grant, there are no off limits. Hence, when Kirsten asked if I wanted to check out the normally closed-to-the-public Kininvie distillery, located deep in the heart of the Balvenie facility, I jumped at the chance to watch the stills in action. Even though it’s been open since the early nineties, most whisky drinkers don’t even know of its existence. But for those of you who love Monkey Shoulder, Kininvie is one of the malt components that makes up the marriage.

Kirsten is very much one of the guys as well. After our walk, Vic and I grabbed some of the Cubans we secured on our visit and popped a bottle of the Balvenie 19 year old single estate malt made with 100% estate-grown barley. She sat right down with us, lit a cigar, and poured herself a drink. What a start to a fantastic day!

-David Driscoll

The Grants

With all the consolidation of Scotland’s distilleries (hell…the world’s distilleries) into never-ending corporate landscapes, it’s easy to forget that three of the biggest and most-famous producers are still family-owned: Glenfiddich, Balvenie, and Girvan. Not only are they owned by a family company, they’re owned by the same family that originally built them. They’ve never changed hands; they’ve never been traded to another portfolio. William Grant and his sons built the Glenfiddich distillery in 1886 and today the company is run by his great-great grandson Glenn Gordon.

That’s pretty special.

Albeit being a large, interconnected, incredibly wealthy family-run company, William Grant & Sons still has a number of the same perks one would expect from an independent. As long as you know one of the family members, you can get just about anything done in minutes, unlike the lengthy and often ridiculous bureaucratic paperwork that’s required at some of the other facilities. Since we know Kirsten Grant personally and are her guests here in the Highlands, a private tour of the largest distillery in Scotland is a piece of cake.

You want to visit Macallan? Good luck. Even for large customers of the brand, getting booked into a simple tour is a month-long process. By contrast, you want to pop some barrels at Balvenie and taste some old Sherry butts? No problem! That’s the advantage of a family-run company. Nothing will endear you to a brand or a business faster than having someone look after your needs personally; hence, part of why I’m a huge fan of both Glenfiddich and Balvenie. Granted (pun intended), their whiskies are excellent. But I’m a big believer in old school customer service, especially in our a cold, tech-driven era. No drinks company right now has better customer service and relationship skills than William Grant—starting right from the top.

No Scottish company feels more authentic either. Kirsten is as down-to-earth as they come, as is her family’s archivist and historical expert Andy Fairgrieve: a dreadlocked Highlander straight out of a movie set. I spent most of last night drinking whisky with this superb fellow at the Dowans Hotel in Aberlour, sampling drams from the Grant family’s private collection on hand. They could’ve chosen the world’s most boring and pedantic professor for that role, right? But they did not. They chose Andy.

They’ve got a pretty amazing selection of bottles at the Dowans, even if you leave out the private shelves that are owned by local businesses and club members.

You also don’t expect a company as large as William Grant to have anything on those club shelves other than standard high-end expressions, but again that’s not the case. They could’ve populated their selection with the basic 25 and 30 year old releases, but they did not. Instead, we get radical single barrel samples like this super-sherried, cask strength, heavily-peated Glenfiddich from 2003. Another bottle had no label, just a Post-It note that read “40 year old barrel sample.”

As someone who has worked almost exclusively with family-run businesses, I felt right at home with those kooky idiosyncrasies.

-David Driscoll

Barrel Selections at GlenAllachie

Roughly three and a half hours north of Glasgow by car sits the epicenter of whisky distillation for our planet: the Scottish Highlands. If you think Napa is romantic with its rolling hills and ubiquitous wineries, driving around Aberlour and Dufftown is downright intoxicating by comparison—literally and figuratively! There’s so much whisky vapor in the air between all the distilleries that it’s all you can smell by the end of your first day. We’re in the Highlands for the next three days, and we’re getting down to business straight away. Our first stop was GlenAllachie, by far the most exciting independent distillery on the market right now, in my personal opinion.

I won’t go into the entire story now, but GlenAllachie is yet another example of Billy Walker’s prowess as a blender. The whisky hall of famer started his career at Hiram Walker in the early seventies and over the past two decades has proven time and time again his understanding of taste is top notch. Having successfully resurrected Benriach and Glendronach, ending with a sale to Brown Forman just a few years back, Billy set his sights on doing the same with the former Chivas distillery GlenAllachie. While he wasn’t on hand for our visit, we were able to meet with operations director Richard Beattie (pictured above) for an inside look at what makes GlenAllachie’s magic happen.

Sherry casks have long been Billy Walker’s specialty, and it’s the Sherry influence in GlenAllachie’s profile that whisky drinkers (including myself) have gone gaga for in the distillery’s chewy, unctuous profile. It goes without saying that we were very interested in securing our own single cask, particularly one saturated in Pedro Ximenez if possible. It turns out that knowing the right people in this industry can make just about any wish come true, so long as you ask nicely and show your support over time (wink wink).

This particular 14 year old full proof specimen had so much candied orange that Salpi and Vic said it tasted like a ready-made Scotch old fashioned with a citrus peel on top! I said it tasted like the See’s candy orange toffee wafers. You’ll have to see which of us you agree with when the barrel arrives.

-David Driscoll