The wines of Giovanni Panizzi

The local speciality here is the white Vernaccia grape, made into a dry wine that’s classified as DOCG Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Vernaccia shares some characteristics with Orvieto (see here for a recent post): a structured white wine with good minerality and ageing potential, it has a bit more acidity and substance than Orvieto while usually avoiding the latter’s 14% alc. Vernaccia, especially when aged, can resemble a good Chablis, to the astonishment of the unprepared.

This series of recent releases showed Panizzi in excellent shape. The Vernaccia di San Gimignano 2007 is a model of its appellation with vibrant citrus over sea salt and limestone; a more mouth-watering and stomach-waking white I cannot imagine. The shortly oak-aged Vernaccia Vigna Santa Margherita 2008 is head and shoulders above past editions of this label (which I’d found a little clumsy): oak adding a half-layer of peach richness without obliterating the tense salinity of the straight Vernaccia. The Vernaccia Riserva 2003 is a very serious bottle indeed, though I discourage you from opening it too soon: wait for the Chablisian echoes of Jurassic oysters and clams to unravel in a decade’s time, when the honeyed-toasted bready barrique melts away. Good drinking pleasure but mixed thoughts about Il Bianco di Gianni 2004, a somewhat predictable Vernaccia-Chardonnay-oak blend that lacks originality and shows how substantially Panizzi’s handling of oak has improved in four years: where the Santa Margherita was allusive this is a bit too sewn-wood-drying.

Most interesting among the whites, in a way, was the Vernaccia Evoè 2006. Made in a historical style with a long two-month maceration of skins in oper wooden vat, this wine follows the modern ‘fashion’ of macerated whites without going over the top. The typical bouquet shows notes of ground pepper, apple skins, citrus with really good minerality (not an easy thing to obtain in this style), while the palate is broad, rich, bold, nicely fruity too (stone fruits), although the balance is a little controversial: acidity is low (again, a common characteristic of skin-contact whites) and there is what I identify as residual sugar. Alcohol is moderate (13.5%). A very engaging and not too expensive (16€) bottle that confirms Panizzi’s position at the forefront of Vernaccia today.

Panizzi also belongs to the premier producers of red wine in this predominantly white-wine district. In the past San Gimignano has limited itself to quaffable Sangiovese da tavola and made no claims to steal the show to its neighbour, Chianti (Colli Senesi in this case). In 2006 red wine pressure was acknowledged through the establishment of the DOC San Gimignano Rosso, even though many wines remain classified as IGT (as e.g. the very delicious Campore from the Casale Falchini estate). Panizzi has both: the Vertunno 2005 is a Sangiovese-driven DOC that’s full of rustic Tuscan charm, crying for a wild boar pappardelle. Rubente 2005 is a neat IGT Cabernet Sauvignon with very modern winemaking, exuding confidence in the cellar if in the end not different from all those warm-climate Cabernets around. The top red Folgóre 2003 mixes the two in a way: Cabernet and Merlot add lead-pencilly tannins and plushness while Sangiovese lends (some) freshness and Tuscan character; add lavish oak and five years of age and you get a kind of Pauillac-ised Brunello. Although it’s from a hot vintage that was notoriously difficult to balance in Tuscany, this bottle can easily age another 5 years. The style of the reds is modern and rich and while they lack the intellectual interest of the whites here, it’s really very solid winemaking.

For the pink-inclined there is also the well-made and serious Ceraso Rosa 2008.