Brancaia

The History

It was in 1981, when the Swiss couple Brigitte and Bruno Widmer fell in love with the at the time abandoned Brancaia estate (Castellina in Chianti) and purchased it. Only two years later, Brancaia made the first rank in an important Chianti Classico tasting and then rapidly gained international recognition.

This lead to a continuous extension of the activities resulting in purchasing the Poppi estate (Radda in Chianti) in 1989, followed in 1998 by the founding of Brancaia in Maremma, only 10km from the Mediterranean coastline.

Since 1998 Barbara Widmer, oenologist and daughter of the founders, has been responsible for the winemaking as well as for the vineyards on all three estates - she thereby relies on the consultancy of the famous oenologist Carlo Ferrini.

From 2002 and 2014 Martin Kronenberg supported Barbara in the direction of the estates while being responsible for marketing and worldwide distribution.

Today BRANCAIA is one of Tuscany’s leading wineries, receiving important national and international awards every year. The wines are successfully sold worldwide.

The Vineyards

BRANCAIA comprises of the three estates Brancaia (Castellina in Chianti), Poppi (Radda in Chianti) and Brancaia in Maremma (Grosseto) - summing up to a vineyard surface of ca. 80 hectares, about 200 acres respectively.

These three estates are different in many ways but have one common ground: one dedicated team with a clear philosophy is striving to gain maximal grape quality out of every vineyard – year by year.

Top-quality wine can only be made with top-quality grapes. At the same time, nature is an essential factor that we cannot influence. We must understand and adapt to nature, react in the best possible way, while treating it with respect at all times.

Barbara Widmer lives on the estate all year round and makes daily tours through the vineyards – this means that we are very well informed about how our plants are doing and what needs to be done. Nevertheless, with 80 hectares we need a lot of diligent hands in order to thoroughly perform all of the work. Our workers are in the vineyards for over 450 hours per hectare until the grapes reach the cellar. Most of it is manual labour. These steps are important quality controls that greatly influence the final result.

The first yield regulation is conducted early on at the pruning stage and all future work serves as yield regulation and quality assurance respectively. Therefore, it is very important that this work is correctly and carefully performed. There is no doubt that it is nice to work outdoors, but it can also be terribly cold, horribly wet or brutally hot. Sometimes the work can also be monotonous. This raises the question, how do we motivate our employees? At BRANCAIA we have a relatively large core team; people who have been permanently employed with us for many years. We only call in contract workers for roughly 2 weeks of trimming work, and, of course, for the harvest. With an operation of our size, many workers must work in the cellar and in the field accordingly, otherwise it would not be possible for us to employ them over the course of the entire year.

We try to sensitise our employees’ focus on quality through presentations, samplings and staff outings. And it works! All of our employees are proud to be a part of the BRANCAIA Team.

The Philosophy

At the core of our thoughts and actions are achieving uncompromising quality and maximum drinking pleasure for wine lovers.

All of our wines have to meet the highest quality standards – that is what the BRANCAIA team is committed to day after day, constantly searching for ways to improve our work in the vineyard and the cellar. The principle that drives us every day: Only with first-class grapes can you produce a top product.

It takes great respect for nature to achieve this goal. At BRANCAIA, we perceive the work in the vineyard as a flow of energy that must be respected to the highest degree. To put this into practice every year in the best possible way, we invest about 450 man hours per hectare with an average yield of 5,500 kg per hectare – quality matters to us more than quantity.

We work according to the Guidelines for Integrated Production (IP), which permits sustainable conservation of vineyards and also reduces CO2 emissions from vehicles to a minimum.

A BRANCAIA wine is a natural product of the highest quality. For packaging, we use only premium materials to ensure optimal storage until it is time to drink and enjoy the wine. We also try to find an appropriate balance, such as by deliberately avoiding "heavy" bottles to minimize the CO2 burden on transport routes.

The winecellars

The two wine cellars of BRANCAIA (Chianti Classico and Maremma) are a further key factor to produce highest quality. The state-of-the-art cellars built on 3 storeys allow using gravity instead of pumps in order to treat the young wines as gently as possible. 

The grapes are only picked by hand and after being stripped and squeezed go directly into the fermentation tanks without pumping, by gravity only.

Fermentation takes place in temperature-controlled cone-shaped steel tanks. We replaced the traditional pumping transfer of mash with a modern pestle. So here too the use of pumps is avoided. All BRANCAIA wines are aged for 12 to 20 months in small wooden barrels, cement or steel tanks.

The single grape varieties and single vineyard origins are vinified and aged separately - only shortiy before bottling the blending process takes place. Our constant focus on quality is finished off by bottling the wines under optimal conditions on the best machines for a safe and most enjoyable drinking pleasure on your table.