Pinchiorri, Two Voices that Become One. Giorgio Pinchiorri’s Wine Cellar 14 Maggio 2013 – Posted in: . ENGLISH TEXT, WINE

I have known Giorgio Pinchiorri for more than forty years. From the time when he worked at Buca Lapi, the historic trattoria located in the cellars of Palazzo Antinori. At the time, we were both very young and I loved eating in that place that was so ‘familiar’. I didn’t even have to make a great effort to get there, all I had to do was leave the house to go eat … at home!
In the dining room, Giorgio was very active and with his incredibly vital personality, recommended wines to the guests trying to explain their origin and characteristics. This singularity of his struck me, since at that time, wine was not given the same attention as it is today. We became friends, but I would never have thought that he would one day become one of the most respected and reputable wine connoisseurs in the world.
Then the entrepreneurial leap followed with the opening of the Enoteca Nazionale and shortly afterwards the Enoteca Pinchiorri, today the most important wine cellar of a restaurant in the world.
During this long lapse of time, I kept a friendly but also interested eye on the constant development of this temple of wine collecting. A development that Pinchiorri has taken care of with the love and passion of someone who was preordained so much that, in his case, I like to talk about vocation, because I think the happy, often courageous choices he made over time were, almost always, marked by the talent of intuition as well as by his extraordinary competence. Very few people in the world know French wines like him, and no one gave the commercial impetus to wines from Tuscany and Piedmont during years when our wines began the difficult and exciting challenge of their renewal like him.
Recently, I organized a vertical classification of every Tignanello vintage in our wine cellar, but had no bottles left of the first year of production, 1971. I immediately sought out Giorgio Pinchiorri’s help who, naturally, was extremely happy to provide me with a bottle, saving me from an embarrassing situation. It was unimaginable that his wine cellar would not have the first vintages of major estates, and unthinkable that leading wines from around the world would not be part of his very personal collection.
However, his success was certainly facilitated by having met Annie Féolde who, with her verve, enthusiasm, savoir-faire and extraordinary sensitivity in the kitchen, was able to, together with the wine cellar phenomenon, create another one, a restaurant recognized worldwide for its exceptional quality and great creativity in the wake of Tuscan tradition.
This was therefore a meeting of two leading players who represent a point of reference and example for Florence and for the entire universe of wine.
So, as a wine producer as well as a curious gourmet I thank Giorgio and Annie for their outstanding achievements, and as a friend, I wish them many more years of discoveries and successes.