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Dear organizers of the 2011 en primeur tastings of Chianti Classico, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Brunello di Montalcino,

We thank you for the invitation to participate in the tastings, from February 15 to 19, of the new releases of your wines. It is always a pleasure, for those of us who do not live in Tuscany, to return there from all parts of the world, and for those of us who do live there to attend these by now classic tastings.

We look forward to several tiring but rewarding days of tasting, days to which we undertake to devote our full commitment and professionalism. However, the number of samples to be tasted are many (even though, most regrettably, a growing number of important producers decline to submit their wines), and the time available for tasting is much reduced compared with previous years.

In Florence, for example, during the second day of the Chianti Classico tasting, it will no longer be possible to taste the samples seated, with sommelier service, but we will be obliged to tour round the producers’ tables.

In Montalcino, indeed, we are asked to sacrifice a substantial section of the time available to attend an interesting meeting on “150 years of Italy, 150 years of Brunello”, in which “many protagonists of the production of wine in Italy and in Montalcino” will be participating.  We are thus constrained to make a choice between tasting (which after all is the principal motive for our presence in Montalcino) and the presentation.

The same dilemma presents itself on Saturday 19th, when at 11:00 we will have to interrupt our tasting (in which we will have been engaged only since 9:30) to attend the Teatro degli Astrusi for “an indepth examination of the 2010 vintage”.

What can be done about this? It will obviously be difficult (though not impossible), now that the programmes have been printed, to make changes, such as delaying the Montalcino presentations until later in the afternoon, or, in Florence, or to allow us to continue tasting seated at tables during the second day of the Chianti Classico Collection. We the undersigned, however, without wishing to create problems, would like to hope that you will succeed in finding some solution.

Juancho Asenjo, Nicolas Belfrage, Riccardo Farchioni, Roberto Giuliani, Carlo Macchi, Gian Luca Mazzella, Kyle Phillips, Eckhard Supp, Stefano Tesi, Franco Ziliani.