Tuscan Travels Cont.

Riecine (Continued)

Riecine Chianti Classico DOCG 2022 (in stock)
First bottled in 1973 and the first wine under a Riecine label – a quintessential lunchtime Chianti and capable of aging for decades. Supremely elegant and mouth-filling, savoury with expansive cherry fruit. Nicely structured with fine balancing acidity that gives wonderful poise. Very complete.

Riecine Chianti Classico Riserva DOCG 2021 (2020 in stock)
From a hot vintage [2021] – quite closed on the nose. A deeper, richer, more intense palate with ample cherry fruit, dried morello cherry and notes of liquorice. Long with beautiful balancing acidity.

Riecine Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Vigna Gittori 2020 (awaiting release)
Exceptional purity of fruit and expression. Seamlessly seductive with exquisite charm. A silken palate of cherry and cranberry fruit, with brushstrokes of dried morello cherry, spice and cloves. Harmonious with wonderful length. Truly fantastic with a long future.

Riecine La Gioia 202? (awaiting release)
100% Sangiovese made in a Super Tuscan way with no Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot in sight. Bordeaux in style, spending 24 months in equal shares of new, one and two-year-old oak. Very together and melded with sweet, ripe cherry fruit, savoury and meaty with grippy tannins and a fine vein of acidity that keeps everything very fresh. Elegantly bold. Best after ten years bottle age.

The Agricoltori del Geografico was formed in 1961 by 17 farmers seeking to improve the quality of their produce and its commercial potential. Today the group ‘Geografico’ comprises 170 members and 60 winemakers in the most prestigious areas of Tuscany, covering an area equivalent to 571 hectares, and is owned by Piccini who added it to their portfolio in 2019. Most of Geografico’s land falls under the DOCG quality standard with the main production areas being: Chianti Classico, Chianti Colli Senesi and Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Chianti Classico is produced from 250 hectares in the south of the region, at an altitude of between 280 and 600m above sea level, and in the province of Siena, a total of 160 hectares of vines produce Chianti Colli Senesi. Geografico’s aim is to produce wines that respect the traditions of Tuscany’s various regions while paying close attention to technical innovations that might further benefit their wines.

Geografico had not long since moved to their new headquarters, previously used by Piccini, where we met Marco Baldini on Wednesday morning. Situated between Castellina in Chianti and Poggibonsi, it’s a vast warehousing and winery complex with oceans of room for further expansion. Trades and shopfitters were beavering away on site, their new shop had opened just the week before, and bottling teams were still optimising their ultra hi-tech bottling line - capable of bottling a mind-bending number of bottles every week, which already seemed to be running at lightning speed. Environmentally mindful, they use their own ground water for washing thousands of bottles every day and recycle carefully. Gentle low-pressure filtration ensures no sediments and that only clean wines are bottled. Their range is vast and they are responsible for a very significant 8% of the national Brunello production, under a multitude of labels. We tried an interesting selection from their portfolio which all showed very well. Geografico wines that we currently stock are:

Chianti Colli Senesi, Borgo Alla Terra, Geografico 2023 (also available in halves)
Brick red in colour with a nose of cherries and spice, this great value Chianti comes from the hills around Siena. Medium body and mild tannins make it all too easy to drink.

Vin Santo del Chianti, Geografico 2014
A beautiful amber colour with a prominent nose of apricot jam. The palate is rich and ripe with sweet velvety texture and flavours of dried fruits, apricots, figs, raisins. The finish has a lick of citrus to keep it fresh.

Born in 1971, Tignanello is the original Super Tuscan - it stepped outside the Chianti Classico regulations of the time by abandoning white grapes; using Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc in the blend alongside indigenous Sangiovese; and ageing in barrique. Also home to Solaia, we were very fortunate to visit San Casciano in Val di Pesa for an incredible afternoon at the iconic winery, hosted by Antinori’s Carlotta Fabbretti. We tasted the 2021 Tignanello - which marks the 50th anniversary of the wine - as well as Marchese Antinori Chianti Classico 2021, Badia a Passignano 2021 and Solaia 2020. The wines were, of course, incredible – polished, beautifully balanced, expressive and harmonious; a truly amazing tasting and visit.

Tenuta Tignanello is the flagship estate of the Antinori family stable, who have been involved in winemaking since Giovanni di Piero Antinori joined the Florentine Winemakers’ Guild in 1385. Until the 1960s Antinori had in addition to vineyards cultivated cereals and fruit trees, but the years following WWII proved hugely challenging for Italy, many historic vineyards fell into neglect and new plantings of poorer quality vines gave rise to poorer quality wines. In 1966 Piero Antinori, 25th generation of the Antinori family, took over from his father Niccolò and set his mind to reviving the fortunes of not just Tuscan but Italian wines in general. Two decades of big investments, bankrolled by several huge financial gambles, paid off and have seen the company blossom into Marchese Piero Antinori’s extraordinary vision. He has been a hugely influential and inspirational figure, and the catalyst for so many of the leaps and seismic changes in Italian winemaking.

Piero realised in the late 1960s, after time spent travelling in Bordeaux and Burgundy, that quality over quantity was the way forward. He made a bold decision to move away from adding white varieties to Chanti and then started using barriques. In 1970, made as a single parcel from the Tignanello vineyard, Chianti Classico Riserva Vigneto Tignanello was released - a blend of 75% Sangiovese, 20% Canaiolo and 5% Trebbiano/Malvasia. At the time Chianti Classico laws required the use of a small percentage of white grapes, as well as prohibiting the use of non-Italian varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon. The following year they omitted white grapes from the blend, so their 1971 release was reclassified as a Tuscan table wine and so almost by stealth, Tignanello, the world’s first Super Tuscan came into being. Subsequent releases in 1975 introduced Cabernet Sauvignon, and then Cabernet Franc in 1978. Grown in the heart of the Chianti Classico region on clay and calcareous soils of galestro and alberese (a marl limestone – white stones that reflect the sun), Tignanello shares the same SW facing hillside, at an altitude of 350 – 400m, as its equally prized sibling Solaia. At vintage time Cabernet Franc is harvested first, followed by Sangiovese and finally Cabernet Sauvignon.

After a fascinating tour of the winery, followed by the old and new barrel cellars we tasted four fabulous wines.

Marchese Antinori Chianti Classico DOCG Riserva 2021
90% Sangiovese, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon – 1yr wood + 1yr in bottle
Concentrated and extremely elegant. Lovely notes of Cabernet punctuate deliciously pure red berry, strawberry and cherry fruit. Touches of liquorice, black pepper, mediterranean herbs and mineral. Very fine grippy tannins, balancing acidity. Has a beautiful flow – harmonious and complete.

Badia a Passignano Chianti Classico D.O.C.G. Gran Selezione 2021
Pure 100% Sangiovese – 1yr oak + 18 months in bottle
The 2021 had been released just 5 days before our visit. From an ancient vineyard first tended by monks, sited in the lower part of a valley that never freezes and surrounded by a protective ring of forest. A unique site that sees three pickings rather than the usual single harvest. The result is a deeper and darker wine, big, brooding and powerful with dried morello cherries overlaying wonderfully ripe fruit. Almost cherries soaked in alcohol and prunes. Very young but already round, voluptuous and supremely elegant.

Tignanello Toscana IGT 2021
79% Sangiovese, 13% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Cabernet Franc
The 50th release of Antinori’s legendary Tignanello boasts a wonderful cabernet nose with mint, dark chocolate and eucalyptus notes dancing around beautifully ripe, almost sweet pure red and dark fruit. Raspberry liqueur, tobacco, liquorice, dark chocolate and mineral on a complex, rich palate that is supremely elegant and harmonious yet powerful with it. A finely structured Tignanello with incredibly integrated tannins, and a good 20 years of life ahead of it.

Solaia Toscana IGT 2020
75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Sangiovese and 5% Cabernet Franc
Wow – what a nose! Unbelievably soft and elegant and incredibly complex. Yet there is so much power in the tank that will show itself in time. Exquisite purity of black cherry and red fruits, intertwined with spice, herb and mocha in a seamless symphony of harmonious brilliance. Amazingly fine chalky tannins, perfect balance and exquisite poise. A long future, good for 20 years, promises even more. Marchese Piero Antinori based Solaia’s instantly recognisable label design on the business card of his father Niccolò Antinori.

A steep, dusty, stony road heads down through sweeping vineyards to the beautiful La Massa estate, based in the Conca d’Or (Golden Basin) of the Chianti Classico region, where were greeted and hosted by the infectiously enthusiastic and incredibly knowledgeable Giulio Conti, cellarmaster at La Massa since 2011.

Owner Giampaolo Motta took over the estate in 1992 planting Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon on richly diverse soil types. Here there are 20ha of vineyards and 30ha of forests at altitudes from 315m to 460m, with an additional one hectare each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc being planted. Soils comprise clay schist unique to La Massa, and a white sandy schist, both marine in origin, overlaying deep sand and clay. Heterogeneous soil types mean site selection has been hugely important, and they carefully analysed all their soil compositions to select the perfect varietal clone to plant on each site.

Wireless weather stations all over the vineyards monitor rainfall, humidity and sunshine so they can respond rapidly to changing conditions. They use horse manure alongside cover crops to fix nitrogen as they are both sustainable fertilisers. Pruning and green harvests are by hand to help fully express their terroir and minimise work in the cellar. All their vines face south and so all ripen early. They ferment and age separately, only blending at the end. In Giulio’s own words “Like a painter, I have a lot of colours. I need to blend a lot to make my creations”.

In 2001 La Massa moved away from the Chianti Classico classification and have very successfully freestyled as Toscana IGT ever since. The winery blends seamlessly into the side of the hill but once inside, it is a homage to high-tech, ultra-modern wine making with gravity-fed vats and temperature-controlled barrel aging rooms all accentuated by a colour scheme which is a nod to Italian Formula 1 (black and white chequered flag floor tiles and Ferrari-red piping).