“The Templar”: to honor the memory of Knights Templar

The road from the north to Rome and thence to the Middle East crossed San Gimignano: the town became a sort of motel of the Middle Ages. It was one of the Knights Templar’s headquarters. Montenidoli, the hill just in front, proved to be the right place for their vineyards, needed to produce the wine to celebrate Holy Mass every morning. The wine came from the white grapes that grew so well on the marine sediments of the hill slopes. These grapes were already there, planted two thousand years earlier by the Etruscans, followed by the Romans. And the white wine of Montenidoli proved an excellent match for their Champagne and their Burgundy…

In memory of the Knights Templar’s presence, we vinify in wood, as they did, the three historic white grapes of this land, Vernaccia, Trebbiano, Malvasia, for “Il Templare”. On the back label of the bottle we record their rule about wine, dictated by Saint Bernard: “Wine has to be drunk upon necessity in order to chase coldness out” – the coldness of the mind, of the heart, of the body.