Rosso di Montalcino -2019 - San Polino - Tuscany - Italy

Rosso di Montalcino San Polino is a full, complex opulent wine with bright fruit and fig flavours.

It is a bright violet to garnet colour with lively reflections. It has an opulent nose of blackcurrent, blackberry, black cherry, fig and sun-baked earth and minerality in the mouth bright and lively, zesty and full with medium finish.

San Polino follow organic and biodynamic farming methods with an ethos of permaculture for managing the vineyard. Hand grown with specialised pruning to allows the growth of just the right amount of juicy yet thick skinned grapes on each vine, hand harvested in fields lying to the south-east and north-east of Montalcino at 450 m and 350m altitude respectively, in fields where no chemicals have ever been used.

The grapes are harvested in early October followed by a three day cold pre-fermentation maceration, spontaneous fermentation on native yeasts in large tronic oak barrels 35hl, or stainless steel, then twenty days post fermentation maceration. Then after pressing the skins, ageing in large oak for six months, then three months stainless steel and bottling by hand.There is a small ‘nirvana’ northwest of Montalcino, where Luigi Fabbro and Katia Nuassbaum founded San Polino nearly thirty years ago. Using Luigi’s scientific experience of mapping the Amazon rainforest they decided to try their hands at “creating wines as complete reflections of the biodiversity of their terroir”.

This tiny estate of only four hectares now produces luscious and balanced wines farmed organically and bio-dynamically by this energetic couple who, it is clear, pour all their heart and energies into these sublime wines. Praised by critics and peers they have been described as having “an incredible clarity and pureness of fruit that is unequalled in the region”.

The Brunello vineyards are surrounded by forests and mediterranean shrubland, enhancing their incredible richness of biodiversity. Work on the vines is done by hand, as is the harvest. The winery is situated  under the family house, where spontaneous fermentations  on native yeasts create wines which are to be seen as true reflections of their terroir, non-interventionist and in true respect of nature. They believe that all life on this planet is linked by a single thread, forming a myriad of wondrous interconnections which encompass all of us, the soil, the vines and all of life at San Polino.

This wine is ideal with salami, medium to ripe cheeses, as well as red meat.