The place#
Tuscany is the one Italian wine region I treat as an extension rather than a destination. My scheduled routes in Italy go to Piedmont, Friuli and Etna; Chianti Classico and Montalcino are where I take a group that has three or four more days and wants to see what Sangiovese does at home. The region deserves the days; it does not need me to sell it.
Chianti Classico is the old heart of Chianti, the hills between Florence and Siena: roughly 7,000 hectares of vines in a territory that is mostly woodland and olive grove. Panzano sits at about 450 metres above Greve, over the Conca d’Oro, a south-facing bowl of vines. Radda, at 533 metres, is a walled town on a ridge; Gaiole has the castle of Brolio.
In 1716 Cosimo III de’ Medici drew the boundaries of Chianti, one of the first legal wine delimitations anywhere. On 14 May 1924 the growers founded their consortium in Radda under the black rooster, the Gallo Nero. Chianti Classico became a DOCG in its own right in 1996, white grapes left the blend in 2006, Gran Selezione arrived in 2014, and in 2021 the growers voted to divide the zone into eleven named villages, the UGA.
Montalcino is 90 kilometres south, a hill town at 564 metres between the Ombrone and Orcia valleys, warmer and drier than Chianti. Brunello, its wine, is Sangiovese alone. Below the town stands the Romanesque abbey of Sant’Antimo, and I have never managed to drive past it without stopping.
Terroir: galestro, alberese and altitude#
Chianti Classico vineyards lie between 250 and 600 metres, high for a red wine region in central Italy, and the height matters as much as the soil. Summers are hot and dry, but the nights at Radda and on the terraces of Lamole above Greve are cool enough to keep Sangiovese’s acidity, and harvest runs from late September into mid October.
Three rocks come up in every cellar conversation. Galestro is a friable, schistous marl that breaks into flakes and drains fast; it is the soil growers speak of most fondly. Alberese is a hard, pale limestone that gives firmer, more mineral wines. Macigno is a grey sandstone of the higher, wooded slopes.
Montalcino is another climate: closer to the sea, with less rain, so Sangiovese ripens with more flesh and alcohol. Soils run from galestro and limestone high up to clay lower down, and the north side of the hill is cooler and later than the south.
Sangiovese and what it becomes#
Sangiovese is a demanding grape: late to ripen, thin-skinned enough to rot in a wet autumn, pale in colour. Done well it gives a mid-ruby wine with sour cherry and violet, dried herbs, a firm line of acidity and tannins that are grainy when young and silky after a decade; with age it turns to leather, tobacco and dried orange peel. It hides nothing.
Chianti Classico DOCG must be at least 80 percent Sangiovese; the balance can be Canaiolo and Colorino or international varieties. The annata is released after a year, Riserva after 24 months, Gran Selezione after 30 months and only from estate-grown grapes. The eleven UGA are San Casciano, Greve, Montefioralle, Lamole, Panzano, Radda, Gaiole, Castelnuovo Berardenga, Vagliagli, Castellina and San Donato in Poggio; so far the names appear on Gran Selezione labels. A pure Sangiovese from Radda bottled as Toscana IGT is not a lesser wine than a Chianti Classico from the same slope, it is a different decision, and I pour them side by side so the label stops mattering.
Brunello di Montalcino DOCG is 100 percent Sangiovese, aged at least two years in wood and released on 1 January of the fifth year after harvest, the Riserva a year later. Rosso di Montalcino is the younger wine from the same vineyards, out the year after the vintage. Vin Santo, from Trebbiano and Malvasia dried for months and aged for years in small sealed casks called caratelli, is the sweet wine that ends a Tuscan meal.
Producers to know#
Montevertine, in Radda, made the case for pure Sangiovese. Sergio Manetti bought the farm in 1967 and made his first vintage in 1971; in 1977 he bottled Le Pergole Torte, Sangiovese on its own, when the rules still required white grapes in Chianti Classico. In 1981 he left the consortium rather than change the wine, and Montevertine has been bottled outside the appellation ever since, today as Toscana IGT. His son Martino Manetti runs it with the oenologist Paolo Salvi: 100 percent Sangiovese in large Slavonian oak, pale, perfumed and built to last.
Fontodi, in Panzano’s Conca d’Oro, has belonged to the Manetti family since 1968, a different Manetti family. Giovanni Manetti farms organically and biodynamically, raises Chianina cattle for the manure and the bistecca, and as president of the Consorzio drove the UGA project through. Flaccianello della Pieve, first made in 1981, is his 100 percent Sangiovese flagship; Vigna del Sorbo is the Gran Selezione. What biodynamics means in practice is in my article on biodynamic wine.
Elsewhere in Chianti Classico: Castello di Ama at Gaiole, Fèlsina at Castelnuovo Berardenga, Isole e Olena near Barberino. In Montalcino, Biondi-Santi is the founding estate, with the first wine labelled Brunello in 1888; Poggio di Sotto, Le Ragnaie and the biodynamic Stella di Campalto are the smaller names I look for. Natural Tuscany in the movement sense means Pacina, Podere Le Boncie and Massa Vecchia. Montevertine and Fontodi are classic in method and traditional in spirit; the distinction is the subject of what I pour, natural and conventional.
What a day here looks like on tour#
We base in or near Radda, so the day starts on the ridge. One estate in the morning, by appointment, an hour and a half with a family member or the cellar master: the vineyard first, a look at the galestro underfoot, then the botti, then the table. I ask for an annata beside a Riserva or Gran Selezione from the same vintage, to taste what thirty months in wood does to the same grape.
Lunch is in Panzano or Radda. Panzano’s butcher, Dario Cecchini, is known for reciting Dante over the counter, the other Dante. Otherwise it is a trattoria: crostini di fegatini, pici with ragù or pappardelle al cinghiale, bistecca alla fiorentina for the table, pecorino di Pienza. The afternoon estate is the contrast, a pure Sangiovese bottled as IGT, an organic grower in the Panzano bowl or a small cellar in Lamole at 600 metres, and dinner in Radda ends with Vin Santo and cantucci.
Montalcino is a day trip or, better, an overnight: Rosso and Brunello at one estate before lunch and a second after, Sant’Antimo as the light goes, and the next morning the fortress, the town’s enoteche and a slow drive north through the Val d’Orcia.
Practical#
I do not run a scheduled Tuscany departure. It is an optional extension of three or four days after my Piedmont tour, Alba to Radda about 350 kilometres and four hours by road, or the core of a private tour built around Florence. What comes before it is in my Piedmont guide.
Florence airport is 55 kilometres from Radda, about 1 h 05; Pisa is 130 kilometres, about 1 h 45. Radda to Panzano is 12 kilometres, 20 minutes; Radda to Montalcino 90 kilometres, about 1 h 30. Radda and Florence both have ZTL camera zones, so we use a minibus with a driver.
Best months are May to June, when the hills are green, and September to early October, when the harvest is in the cellars. July and August are hot and many cellars keep short hours. Questions about pace, mobility and how extensions are priced are in the FAQ.
