Donatella Cinelli Colombini wins DoctorWine's A Life for Wine

Donatella Cinelli Colombini, who makes Brunello in Montalcino, has received the “Una vita per il vino” (A Life for Wine) award of DoctorWine's Guida Essenziale ai Vini d'Italia 2027. Daniele Cernilli, the guide's founder, handed it over at the Teatro Manzoni in Milan on 3 October.

DoctorWine published its special awards on 2 October, a day before the guide was presented. The citation describes her as a winemaker in Montalcino and Trequanda and puts wine tourism first: in 1993 she founded the Movimento Turismo del Vino and devised Cantine Aperte, the open-cellars day that the guide credits with bringing the general public into wineries. It also lists her work with the association Le Donne del Vino, her teaching and her promotion of the area.

According to a statement from the winery carried by EFA News, it is the first time the award has gone to a woman. The same statement says her Brunello Prime Donne 2021 scored 95/100 in the guide.

A career prize that cites a Sunday of open cellar doors before it cites a single bottle.

What Donatella Cinelli Colombini has built since 1993

Born in Siena in 1953, with a degree in art history, she left the family wine business in 1998 and set up her own on two family properties: Casato Prime Donne in Montalcino and Fattoria del Colle in Trequanda, Il Fatto Quotidiano reported in March. The first covers 40 hectares, 20 of them organic vineyard, by the winery's figures; the second 336 hectares of arable land, olive groves and vines. The cellar staff is made up entirely of women, the oenologist included.

Her profile at the Académie Internationale du Vin, of which she is a member, records that she was national president of Le Donne del Vino from 2016 to 2022 and chaired the Orcia DOC consortium from 2013 to 2022.

The other DoctorWine awards for 2027

Winery of the Year is Tua Rita, founded in Suvereto in 1984. Red Wine of the Year is Podere Forte's Guardiavigna 2022, a Cabernet Franc from Val d'Orcia. Tuscany takes three of the headline prizes, in a year when the Chianti Classico Expo brought 64 wineries to Greve. Winemaker of the Year is shared by Tonino Guzzo and Alessandro Cellai, and the Next Generation award goes to Giulia Cataldi Madonna, of Ofena in Abruzzo. The best quality/price wine is Bigi's Orvieto Classico 2025, at 5 euros.

The guide, in its 13th edition, reviews 3,476 wines from 1,347 wineries and flags 910 for value. It lands in a crowded season for Italian guides, with Gault&Millau preparing its first Italian edition for January.

Further presentations follow in Rome on 10 October and London on 21 October. For Donatella Cinelli Colombini the award comes 33 years after the first Cantine Aperte and 28 after she left the family estate.