Montesecondo, Toscana Rosso, 2020

Red berry, Spice, juicy

Grapes are handpicked before natural fermentation with indigenous yeasts. Wine is aged for 9 to 12 months in a cement tank. This is a lighter and juicer style of Sangiovese more reminiscent of Pinot than the big bruising wines usually assocoated with tuscany.

Notes on the producer

In a previous life, Silvio Messana was a New Yorker. But as the son of a winemaker, Silvio's passion for wine was longstanding. With the absolute impossibility of finding affordable rent in New York and with three growing sons, Silvio decided to take over the family farm, turning the Chianti Classico estate into their home with a portion of the farm converted as a bed-and-breakfast. Montesecondo wines have come into conflict with the powers-that-be in Chianti Classico. While Silvio's methods in the vineyard and cellar yield what many consider pure, classically expressive wines; the way he gets there, and occasionally the results (higher acidity, lighter colour or darker colour, etc.) means that he can only bottle one Chianti Classico and the rest are labelled as IGT Toscana. His wines exhibit incredible freshness, with the ageing done in very old barrels or concrete tanks and clay amphora for his flagship wines.