Happy Birthday, Maestro Giacomo Tachis!

 On November 4th, Giacomo Tachis turned 80. A life dedicated to study and wine, the great Piedmontese wine maker has marked - more than every one else - the renaissance of Italian wine and its success all over the world. Giacomo Tachis, after a long and extraordinary career of wine maker, in 2010 retired from the world of wine or, better to say, to the active scene of vineyard and wineries. He however plays a role of absolute and indisputable importance, nevertheless, for the huge heritage and the immense wine making wealth that, with his talent, has given to Italy. I am not afraid of being denied: if today Italian wine has reached the highest successes in the world, this is because - undoubtedly - of the work of Giacomo Tachis and his wines that, being the first ones in this, have been capable of competing with the best wines in the world. A competition and a comparison that, most of the times, has seen his wines as strong and indisputable winners and, with them, Italy as well.

 Giacomo Tachis has turned 80 and, in this occasion, I am very glad to personally wish him happy birthday, while admitting in the past I frequently thought about writing a report about this magnificent protagonist of the Italian wine. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to personally meet Giacomo Tachis, but I however always had appreciated his wines which I had so many occasion to taste and appreciate. Listing the wines born from the genius and the deep knowledge of Giacomo Tachis would certainly be repetitive, “sons” so renowned in Italy and in the world everyone knows about. A worldwide success which brought Italian enology to the Olympus of Bacchus, rediscovering and reevaluating many autochthonous varieties of Italy, also with the help of some international grapes. Not so bad, for someone who has always been jokingly defined himself a “wine blender”, despite his remarkable knowledge, culture and competence everyone recognize to him.

 A man ahead of his time at least of twenty years, Giacomo Tachis had the willingness and the right vision of what would have become Italian wine in the following years: his influence is still strong nowadays. The great Piedmontese wine maker has in fact contributed to the development of Italian wine, also by reevaluating many Italian varieties which were, before of his work, almost abandoned and underrated. Carignano and Nero d'Avola are just two of the many examples which can be provided and, in these two specific cases, have also marked the strong development of enology in Sardinia and Sicily. Tuscany too is a region owing Giacomo Tachis a good part of its present splendor and success. Here he has been capable of exalting the remarkable potentials of the territory, by creating wines that - still toady - are indisputable representatives of Italian wines in the world. Likewise, in the Marches he has been successful in blending Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot to the local Montepulciano.

 The history of Giacomo Tachis is amazing and fascinating, rich of successes that, undoubtedly, were not achieved by chance or because of a benevolent fate. A man of deep viticultural and wine making knowledge, Giacomo Tachis is also a remarkable scholar and has a deep knowledge about the history of wine and of the Italian territory. A fascinating account of his life and of his extraordinary career of wine maker and man of wine, can be read on his autobiography Sapere di Vino (Knowledge of Wine) - in Italian language - a book I suggest everyone to read. This book is rich in information and wine making philosophy, it also offers a significant vision of the history of Italian wine in the last fifty years. Here, Giacomo Tachis writes about his collaboration with the great French wine maker Émyle Peynaud, one of the indisputable fathers of modern wine making, a role - with no doubt - also represented by Giacomo Tachis as well.

 Graduated in 1954 at the famous Scuola Enologica di Alba (Enology School of Alba), Giacomo Tachis is one of the few figures who witnessed the rebirth and the relaunch of Italian wine, not only as spectator, but, first of all, as an indisputable and fundamental main actor. In 1961 the fundamental step which will begin his extraordinary career and, with that, the beginning of the modern history of Italian wine. Everything begins in Tuscany, the region where Giacomo Tachis understood Italian wine was certainly capable of changing its status of mediocrity and to challenge the world. Challenging the world and win. This how it was and the results arrived very soon: in just ten years, the great Piedmontese wine maker gave life to prestigious and refined wines, in particular, of great quality. A worldwide success, wines defined as Super Tuscans by the foreign press, as they were so different and distant from what Tuscany used to make at those times.

 This could also be, maybe, because of what the market was asking at those times - different wines from what was produced in Italy in that period - Giacomo Tachis has however been successful in his intent: to show it was possible to make quality wine. He was the first to prove it was possible, it was possible to make something unique and great with what the Italian territory could offer. As simple as listening, understanding and knowing, using science and technology in a wise and conscious way, without denying the dignity and character of grapes and territories. Giacomo Tachis has started a change which can be considered a revolution, while radically and strongly transforming the Italian wine. Tachis is a man of remarkable enterprises, with a strong interest for history and archeology, such as in the case of the very rare wine “Mothya”, produced in the tiny Phoenician island Mozia, in Sicily. Here, together with Carlo Casavecchia - a wine maker author of great wines and who contributed to the rebirth of Marsala, born in Piedmont and who worked for many years with Giacomo Tachis - with the grapes of a tiny vineyard of the island made a masterpiece of absolute historical and wine making value. Eighty years, of which fifty dedicated to wine and to the pleasure of us wine lovers. Thank you Maestro Giacomo Tachis, thank you for what you taught us and for all the emotions you poured into our glasses. Happy birthday, Maestro!