An hour and a half’s drive from Siena, taking the autostrade to Grosseto and then local roads north, took us to Suvereto, a tiny DOCG region in the hills looking across the flat plains towards the Tyrhennian sea and the islands of Elba, Montecristo and Corsica. The hills were covered with forests but there were vineyards and olive trees interspersed with other crops, and amid a number of vineyards we found Bulichella.
Tim and I had discovered Bulichella as a result of a blog I enjoy reading, Mike Veseth’s Wine Economist. Last year he reviewed some wines sent to him by Bulichella (here’s his article), and mentioned some elements of their story. When in February we came out to reconnoitre visits for this trip I remembered the article and as we were driving to Bolgheri, after some minutes of online search on the phone, we did a detour and found ourselves in the company of Nicolo and Maria Julia, the grandchildren of Hideyuki and Maria Luisa Miyakawa.
Their story is astonishing, and I can’t do it justice here. In short a young lad set off from Japan in 1960 to cross the world, fell in love with the car industry and more importantly a young Italian girl who was learning Japanese. They married, had seven children (three adopted), he made his name in design and they then set up a loving home for their own family and others in a region of Italy they had never been to before.
Daughter Shizuko was introduced as the person ‘in charge’ but Nico took charge of us, leading us to see the vineyards, then into the winery (via a vintage Jaguar car, which caused a little swooning among the group), telling us more about their enterprise.
Their iron rich red schist soils and sea breezes make for great vine growing, which they do organically, amid their forest, olive groves and other crops – watered from their own lake. They and their staff (which includes a large number of bees) work together to make beautiful wine from mainly international varieties – the area was of course where Napoleon was exiled (first time round), it appears because his sister owned land here. He loved Bordeaux wine so there are some very old vineyards of Cabernets and Merlot in the region, Bulichella also grow Grenache and Syrah.
Our tasting (with some lovely local produce) was of four of their wines, a Vermentino, a Syrah Rosé, an IGT Costa Toscana blend of Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc, and their Coldipietrerosse DOCG Suvereto Cabernet Sauvignon (both the 2020 and 2015 vintages). This confirmed that this amazing family are not just welcoming, funny, dedicated and kind, they are also very good winemakers. They run a B&B as well as farming their land and making wine, and Hide’s artistic talents clearly run in the family, with Nico and his cousin designing their labels. We felt privileged to have met and connected with the family and were sorry to wend our way onwards – even towards Bolgheri!
