Old-Vine
Sangiovese
of Tuscany

Terroir & Philosophy

Sergio Manetti purchased this forested hilltop estate in Radda in 1968 and planted the now-legendary Le Pergole Torte vineyard — the first single-vineyard, 100% Sangiovese wine ever produced in Chianti. When the Consorzio demanded the addition of white grapes and international varieties, Manetti withdrew entirely, exiting the appellation in 1981 and releasing his wines as IGT Toscana. His son Martino maintains this defiant purity.

The estate sits nearly half a kilometer above sea level on the historic galestro and alberese hillsides of Radda. This combination produces wines of arresting transparency: you taste the altitude as cool-climate brightness, the galestro as saline, flinty minerality, and the thin, rocky soils as concentration without heaviness.

Winemaking Approach

Resolutely traditional. No international varieties, no new barriques. Fermentation and aging in large Slavonian oak casks (12–18 months). Organic viticulture. Grapes harvested in early October — late by most standards, but at 450 m the cool nights extend the growing season and produce skins Manetti describes as croccante (crunchy), ensuring powerful but finely structured tannins at ~13% alcohol.

Aging Profile & Wine Character

Le Pergole Torte begins austere — nervy, mineral, blood-orange tannic — but rewards patience profoundly. At 8–15 years, the galestro terroir asserts itself as a persistent stony salinity underpinning layers of dried cherry, forest floor, and iron. The wine's transparency is its hallmark: no new oak mask, no extracted density — only the pure language of a specific hillside.

Terroir & Philosophy

Between Gaiole and Radda, Castello di Ama occupies one of the fresher microclimates in all of Chianti Classico. Winemaker Marco Pallanti has spent four decades mapping the estate's four vineyard parcels — San Lorenzo, Bellavista, La Casuccia, and Montebuoni — each with subtly different soil compositions between 420 and 525 meters elevation. The estate goal is unambiguous: each wine must be an honest, singular expression of its terroir.

Soils are predominantly chalky clay-calcareous at depth, with limestone scree increasing at upper elevations. The higher plots deliver the estate's characteristic cool-climate finesse: floral delicacy, restrained alcohol, and a mineral salinity that carries the wine through its finish.

Winemaking Approach

Pallanti is thoughtfully modern in technique — indigenous yeast fermentation in stainless steel, malolactic in stainless, then aging in second and third-passage French oak barriques (12–18 months). This controlled approach preserves the terroir signal without imposing oak character. San Lorenzo Gran Selezione, from the oldest vines, sees slightly longer aging and reflects the purest expression of the site's limestone-calcareous character.

Aging Profile & Wine Character

Ama wines are distinctive for their floral precision and mineral elegance — violet, dried cherry, and a cool-climate graphite note that persists through long finishes. The clay-calcareous soil interaction creates wines with silky but present tannins and bright, natural acidity. San Lorenzo at 10+ years reveals extraordinary complexity: the limestone minerality deepens into something almost saline, the fruit becoming more dried and spiced, the structure finally integrating.

Terroir & Philosophy

The Manetti family's Fontodi estate occupies the Conca d'Oro (Golden Basin), a natural amphitheater south of Panzano with some of the finest aspect in Chianti Classico. Vines sit between 400 and 500 meters on calcaire-clay-schist soils saturated with galestro — the combination that delivers both the freshness of altitude and the aromatic intensity of mineral-poor, well-drained soil. Giovanni Manetti describes the microclimate as warm and dry, with a dramatic diurnal shift that preserves acidity even in hot years.

Winemaking Approach

Certified biodynamic. Giovanni Manetti is one of Tuscany's most compelling advocates for the amphora — Fontodi produces a fraction of its Sangiovese in terracotta vessels made from local galestro-rich clay, which impart micro-oxygenation without oak flavor. The flagship Flaccianello della Pieve (100% Sangiovese, IGT) ages in French barriques (25–30% new), while the Chianti Classico uses older Slavonian botti. Native yeasts throughout.

Aging Profile & Wine Character

Fontodi's Sangiovese is defined by warmth and generosity, yet always grounded by galestro-driven minerality. Flaccianello is the estate's fullest expression: dense, impeccable structure, with sour cherry, tobacco, and a distinctive saline-mineral quality that lengthens the finish dramatically. At 10–20 years it reaches extraordinary complexity. The amphora wines, remarkably, demonstrate even greater transparency — the terroir signature undisguised by any oak.

Terroir & Philosophy

Lamole is Chianti Classico's smallest and highest UGA (Geographic Additional Unit), a hamlet above Greve where the ancient Roman terraces push viticulture to its very limits. The highest plots exceed 655 meters — at the absolute upper boundary for Sangiovese — and the soils, largely ochre-colored Macigno Toscano sandstone mixed with galestro and alberese inserts, are celebrated for dramatic minerality and elegance.

The macigno acts as a natural heat reservoir: absorbing warmth during the day, releasing it slowly at night to temper extreme cold. Vines planted into fissures of underlying rock must dig extraordinarily deep for water and nutrients, yielding concentrated, low-volume fruit of intense aromatic purity. Ancient bush-trained vines (alberello) from 1945 remain the estate's crown jewel.

Winemaking Approach

Organic certification. Traditional large oak casks for the Riserva, respecting the wine's naturally high acidity and restrained fruit concentration. Minimal intervention is the principle at this altitude — the terroir needs no assistance. Extended maceration to soften the naturally austere tannins that galestro-macigno soils produce.

Aging Profile & Wine Character

Lamole wines are among Chianti Classico's most purely mineral — the combination of sandstone heat-release and galestro acidity creates wines with extraordinary vertical, laser-like profiles. Pale garnet with evolving orange edges. Red cherry, wild herbs, dried flowers, and a persistent saline-stony mineral note that distinguishes Lamole from any other sub-zone. They age gracefully for 15–25 years, gaining depth while retaining their essential transparency.

Terroir & Philosophy

Ferruccio Biondi-Santi effectively invented Brunello di Montalcino in 1865, using massale selection to propagate the estate's proprietary BBS11 clone of Sangiovese Grosso — larger-berried, thicker-skinned, with extraordinary structure and longevity. Tenuta Il Greppo sits at 450–480 meters on the high eastern slopes, where clay-limestone soils with marl and schist deliver the cool-climate precision and natural acidity that define the estate's house style.

At this altitude, Biondi-Santi harvests remarkably early to preserve acidity and aromatic tension. Young wines are austere, almost ascetic — lean, firm-tannic, and seemingly incomplete. But this restraint is deliberate: the architecture is built for the cellar.

Winemaking Approach

Brunello's most traditional producer. Fermentation in concrete vats, aging for 36 months in large Slavonian oak botti (followed by 12 months in bottle for Annata; up to 48+ months oak for Riserva from vines 25+ years old). Zero new oak, zero barriques. The BBS11 clone itself contributes to the wine's structural austerity — smaller juice-to-skin ratio than most Sangiovese Grosso, more tannin, more longevity.

Aging Profile & Wine Character

The definitive long-distance runners of Italian wine. In youth: pale ruby-garnet, floral, with iron mineral and fresh cherry under hard, drying tannins. At 10–15 years: the tannins soften to a velvet granularity, the fruit shifting from fresh to dried cherry, tobacco, underbrush, and an extraordinary mineral precision — the clay-limestone terroir expressing itself as an almost saline, chalky quality through the entire finish. Riservas from great years (1945, 1955, 1964, 1975, 1985) are still alive at 50+ years.

Terroir & Philosophy

Poggio di Sotto represents perhaps Montalcino's most compelling argument for terroir complexity within a single estate. Located in the warm southeastern Castelnuovo dell'Abate sub-zone, the estate encompasses a remarkable range: red clay and pebble-strewn soils at 200–300 m; schistous galestro and grey marl compacted with mineral conglomerates at 300–440 m. Monte Amiata shields from excess heat; the River Orcia to the east provides cooling breezes and morning mist.

This range allows the estate to harvest its lowest plots a full month before the highest — creating an internal balance of power and freshness that no single parcel could achieve alone. The Riserva selection varies by vintage: in hot years, cooler deep-clay and galestro plots; in cool years, the higher-elevation mineral schist.

Winemaking Approach

Wholly traditional. Spontaneous fermentation in 50hl open wooden vats with frequent, prolonged pumping-over; destemming without crushing. Transfer in January to 30hl Slavonian oak foudres for 42 months. No filtration. Organic farming. Yields kept to 3–3.5 tons/hectare. Every decision is calibrated to allow the soil mosaic to speak without editorial interference.

Aging Profile & Wine Character

Poggio di Sotto produces Brunello of extraordinary sensory range — the dialectic between warm-site generosity and mineral restraint. The galestro and marl at altitude contribute a stony, iron-laced mineral quality that frames the wine's rich fruit profile. At 8–12 years, the integration is remarkable: dark cherry, dried fig, Mediterranean herbs, and a mineral persistence on the finish that reveals the complex soil mosaic. A wine that rewards patient cellaring beyond 20 years.

Terroir & Philosophy

Artist Bibi Graetz began his wine project in 2000 at the medieval Castello di Vincigliata above Fiesole — just northeast of Florence, where his family has lived since the 1960s. His father planted the first two hectares in the 1960s; Bibi fell in love with old vineyards and, rather than buying and planting, spent years sourcing fruit from ancient parcels scattered across Tuscany like "a stripe running through the whole area of Chianti."

The sites span Vincigliata (galestro above Florence), Lamole (macigno and galestro at 450–650 m), Montefili, Londa, and south to Siena — composing a north-to-south transect of Tuscan Sangiovese terroir. Graetz's defining philosophy: all sites are above 300 m, all vineyards are old, and no new oak will obscure what they say.

Winemaking Approach

Testamatta (100% Sangiovese, 35–50 year vines) ferments naturally in open-top barrels with 6–8 manual punch-downs per day, then ages 20 months in old oak (90% second through fourth passage, only 10% new). Colore — the estate's highest expression, from the oldest parcels (70+ year vines, Lamole and Vincigliata) — follows the same protocol with even greater selectivity. The Soffocone di Vincigliata highlights the home estate's galestro parcels in 30hl casks. No filtration, no fining.

Aging Profile & Wine Character

Testamatta is defined by "purity, minerality, and transparency" — Graetz's own words, and precise ones. The multi-site blend creates a wine broader in terroir vocabulary than any single vineyard: floral aromatics from Lamole's altitude meeting the structural galestro weight of Vincigliata, grounded by the south-facing Siena sites' darker fruit. The result is a wine with unusual depth of transparency — each terroir element visible like layers of light. At 5–10 years, remarkable complexity; Colore repays 15–20 years easily.

Terroir & Philosophy

Giovanna Tiezzi at Pacina represents something increasingly rare in Tuscany: a fully organic, unhurried estate farming soil that used to lie beneath an ancient sea. The characteristic "Tufo di Siena" — a sandy limestone-clay volcanic tuff — is extraordinarily well-draining and mineral-rich, deposited from fossilized marine beds still visibly embedded in the vineyard soil. Giovanna keeps a collection of shellfish fossils from the vines as tangible proof of this geological history.

Her oldest vines, planted just after World War II, are now over 80 years old. Their balance and self-sufficiency are her philosophy made visible: "They are like old people — they have found balance and know exactly what to do. They do better if I don't intervene."

Winemaking Approach

Rigorously minimal. No chemical treatments. The Pacina Chianti Colli Senesi blends Sangiovese with Canaiolo and Ciliegiolo from 35+ year vines, aged 14 months in old oak casks, 500L barriques, and concrete tanks. Natural fermentation. No fining, no filtration. Every decision is a non-decision — restraint as methodology. The result vindicates the philosophy: wines that taste entirely of their specific Siena-adjacent volcanic earth.

Aging Profile & Wine Character

Pacina wines are distinctive for their Siena-specific minerality: the Tufo di Siena imparts a chalky, almost volcanic mineral quality that distinguishes them sharply from galestro-driven Chianti Classico. Earthy, honest, with sour cherry, dried herbs, and that persistent fossiliferous mineral note that Giovanna describes as "the sea." Younger vintages are fresh and direct; with 8–12 years the mineral complexity deepens considerably, the tannins softening to pure silk. An important point of reference for what Sangiovese can achieve outside the canonical appellations.