Chianti Classico DOCG
Grape Sangiovese

2018
This is a wine to savour, 2018 offered rounder and deeper fruit, black cherry, salt and pomegranate. A wine for all, from (mistaken) Chianti doubters to the aficionados. Truly epic.

2016
Dark cherry and cassis on the nose, cinnamon, and iron. Deep bramble and sloe, porcini and sweet red berries lift the classic sour cherry character. A pure, fresh, complex and lingering wine. 13.5%

Link to Le Cinciole producer page

Chianti Classico is a Chianti (an ancient and evolving wine) from the Classico area. The Classico area is huge and stretches between Firenze and Siena. There are a number of villages within the area that are noted for fine terroir and Panzano is one. It is not big, and it is high (450m) with a small number of producers, nearly all of whom are organic. It is a fine template for artisan wine production.

For Le Cinciole, this Chianti Classico is the classic wine; their single vineyard and Riserva wines show the estate from other angles, but the Classico is the embodiment of the estate. The terroir is galestro, a mixture of soil stones, slate and clays on an east-southeast exposure.

The vineyards are farmed on biodynamic guidelines, meaning no synthetic treatments are used and a minimum of copper sulphate. The vines are harvested by hand and the crop is sorted, de-stemmed and crushed before a spontaneous fermentation takes place in cement tanks. The wine is then aged in botti (large 20hl French oak barrels) for 12 months and then a further 12 months in cement tanks before bottling.