VALDARNO: TUSCANY OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

Don’t forget my shoe size!’ shouted my wife, as I left home on my way to Heathrow airport for my flight to Florence. This unusual injunction was occasioned by the fact that three out of the four estates I was about to visit were owned by fashion tycoons, and two of them by shoe designers.

Valdarno di Sopra (Valdarno for short) is a relatively new Tuscan DOC that was approved in 2011. It lies just east of the Chianti Classico zone, stretching across the Arno river in the direction of Arezzo. It is the first Italian DOC to be composed entirely of organic estates.

It’s a region of mystery, as I discovered when spending an hour with the secretary of the DOC. Its potential surface is an impressive 2,200ha, but only a fraction of that is declared as Valdarno, since many growers sell their crop to large producers such as Antinori. Some of those who do sell their wines in bottle