Baroness Caterina de Renzis Sonnino on transforming a former fortress into an idyllic winery that inspired Gucci. Inside photos of historic home in the Chianti region of Italy
The wonderfully complicated and all too brief (and happy) life of Pio Boffa
A fond remembrance
There are moments in life when a particular event
happens, that sends ripples across the water.
Such was the moment yesterday when I heard about the passing of a friend
in Italy, Pio Boffa. Pio was just 66 years old, and another victim of the relentless
Covid19 virus.
How does this happen, a little over a month after
another friend, Barone Alessandro de Renzis Sonnino, passed away at the age of
62, also from Covid?
Right now, Michigan and New York states are posting
higher daily new cases than Italy, with half the population. Italy has imposed
I never met Alessandro de Renzis Sonnino. And I regret that.
De Renzis Sonnino, the elegant, silver-haired and bearded Tuscan aristocrat who took over his family’s Castello Sonnino and its Chianti vineyards in Montespertoli more than 30 years ago, succumbed to COVID-19 at the beginning of this month. He was 64 still in his wine prime.
“It is a big loss for us, but also for the world of wine,” lamented Castello Sonnino enologist Renato Iaconi, who worked closely with the man many knew simply as the Barone. “He was the kind of figure who is disappearing from the world. A romantic figure who is not interested in business, but in caring for his estate as in the past.”