Our Family
The history of our family holds within its storylines the breath of the Mediterranean and the special encounters which this long history has actually brought. Our grandmother Marina Paoli, a farmer's daughter from Trento, must have felt, as often only women do, how our destiny is rooted in Chianti. When she first met our grandfather Charles Bakhos, then professor of Physics in Lebanon, could she have unconsciously read the mythological origins of the name of the man she was set to marry? Could it be that she understood that her Bakhos, from Bacchus – God of wine and fertility, whom she would bring back to his native land would become the start of a journey and a destiny she is setting forth?
It is thus that our father, Henry, has carried within him this natural bond, this unconditional marriage of two cultures deeply marked by their richness and values. He is also a teacher but inside of him grew the passionate dream of the land, the wine and Tuscany. In 1997 and in Beirut, he founded a publishing house of Arabic school books which introduced an innovative technique of icons and drawings in the teaching of the Arabic language. He called it "Renaissance".
And finally, after a few years, Henry’s dream has seen the light. Our grandmother Marina’s intuition has not failed her: a domain in Chianti has eventually been established, a destiny has been shaped and has become true. It is thanks to this story scented with the Ancient Phoenicia that our products hold within the Mediterranean tale of wine, oil and travel.
The richness of the land of Tuscany married to the welcoming warmth of the Mediterranean shores will allow us to share products of unique tastes, on the background of a beautiful STORY, in addition to dreams of voyages and unexplored sensations.
A Unique Story
The Etruscans: fascinating and mysterious people. But who were the Etruscans really? Their civilization is the result of a process of integration between various peoples and cultures that took place in Etruria at the end of the second millennium. Undoubtedly there is a deep and decisive influence on the Etruscan culture of the Greek world (artisanal and artistic ideas) but also of the Phoenician world (in particular the treatment of ivories and metals).
The history of the Etruscans is therefore the history of the movement of people, of the circulation of products often carrying messages from the Mediterranean and the East. Among these products is wine. The Etruscans developed a winemaking system that resulted in a drink with singular organoleptic characteristics: aromatic, very fragrant and precious. They harvested the ripe grapes, transported them to the cellars in wooden crates to preserve their quality, then the barefoot men trampled the deposited bunches to obtain the must or first wine; then they waited about ten days for the end of the fermentation to proceed with the racking of the wine in barrels. Here, the men passed to another phase of vinification; they returned to the barrels for a new pressing of the grapes left in the marc. A second racking wine is thus obtained which, with the initial must, represents the entire production. The wine was deposited and stored in amphorae and prepared for shipment.
Today in Clantenova, thousands of years later, in the wonderful lands of Chianti, we seek to preserve the art of making wine from those values which over the centuries have made of wine a tradition, but, above all, a passion for travel and renewed encounters.
Clantenova
Marina Paoli
Charles Bakhos
Henry Bakhos
Alex Bakhos
Lea Bakhos