I suddenly heard the sound of horse hooves racing up behind me. I turned and found myself looking down the barrel of a gun.' After Veronelli explained who he was and his interest in the vineyards, the Prince invited Veronelli to try his wines. 'As soon as I tried his wines, I knew he truly was a prince' said Veronelli, who convinced him to sell some of the wines, up to then only for personal consumption. Luigi Veronelli stated that Prince Boncompagni Ludovisi was the first to employ "biological farming" practices in Italy. He compared Fiorano red wines to Sassicaia, and once wrote of them, "They enchant you with the first taste, burrow in your memory and make you forever better", and, "If I lived in Rome, I would beg for them at the prince's door every morning". It was the whites though that most impressed him. The Fiorano Bianco from Malvasia di Candia soared to new heights of complexity while the Semillon, a variety that has never had much success in Italy, astounded Veronelli. The relationship between Boncompagni Ludovisi and his wine merchants has been described as strained due to the Prince's eccentric manner of doing business. Over time, import of the wines ceased, and although wine was made until 1995, the sale of bottles had ended some time before. Elio Mariani, owner of the Checchino restaurant in Rome, confirms that the Prince was unusually stubborn. According to Mariani: 'The Prince never really wanted to sell the wines. He made it very difficult; one had to call up to order the wines and come in person to collect them on the assigned day at a specified time and bring the exact amount in cash. They would not give change, and cheques were out of the question.' In 1966 Prince Boncompagni Ludovisi's sole daughter Francesca married Piero Antinori, a winemaker with a reputation associated with the modernist wine movement. When Boncompagni Ludovisi pulled out nearly all Fiorano vines following the 1995 harvest while giving no explanation, subsequent rumours claimed this was in order to prevent his son-in-law from ruining the Fiorano legacy. Antinori told Eric Asimov that he believed Boncompagni Ludovisi could not bear the thought of anybody else making his wines after he could no longer do it himself. In a 2001 interview, Boncompagni Ludovisi stated that his reasons were the vines' advanced age and poor health. Due to