Caparzo & Altesino: Elisabetta and Alessandra Angelini | The Wine Centric Show

The people behind Château Margaux wanted Altesino. Elisabetta Gnudi Angelini, the neighbor, made an offer the owner couldn't refuse and kept the estate Italian. Its longtime director spent years afterward greeting her at wine dinners with the same line: he'd been beaten by a woman.

That's one story among many. Elisabetta was born on harvest day into a family whose name meant grape, spent eleven years producing theater and film, and only then turned to wine. Widowed with young children, she made every decision herself, starting with a Montalcino estate that took four and a half years and eleven separate owners to finally buy.

Today she and her daughter Alessandra run four estates across Tuscany: Caparzo and Altesino in Brunello di Montalcino, Borgo Scopeto in Chianti Classico, and Doga delle Clavule in the Maremma. A fifth is already planted, a volcanic-soil white wine for a region that has never really had one.

Matt Weiss talks with both women about the deals, the resistance they met running them in a corner of Italy that wasn't ready for women in charge, why Montalcino stakes everything on large Slavonian oak, and what it takes to hand a family's work to the next generation without losing what made it worth building. It's a family story, a business story, and a Brunello story, held together at once.

LISTEN:
https://media.transistor.fm/f2af751b/25a1c39c.mp3

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KEYWORDS:
Caparzo, Altesino, Brunello di Montalcino, Elisabetta Gnudi Angelini, Alessandra Angelini, Borgo Scopeto, Doga delle Clavule, Tuscan wine, Brunello, Montalcino, Sangiovese, women in wine, Italian wine, Chianti Classico, family winery, Slavonian oak, Rosso di Montalcino, The Wine Centric Show, Matt Weiss, wine interview