Wojciech Bońkowski
Master of Wine

The wines of Giovanni Panizzi


Another box of samples. 9 bottles from the stellar estate of Giovanni Panizzi in San Gimignano, Tuscany. I’ve followed Panizzi’s progress since my first trips to Tuscany in 1999, and today place him at the very top of this interesting appellation.
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.

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8 wines from Angelo Gaja

A 500€ tasting
For several years, the Piedmontese star Angelo Gaja has held a trade tasting of his wines in Poland. On our ‘emerging’ market, it is still rare for prestigious producers to see such foresight.

For decades one of the renowned producers of Barbaresco with a large cellar bang in the middle of this tiny village, the Gaja operation has spread to three different zones in two Italian regions. Apart from the classic Barbaresco & Barolo wines (themselves undergoing redefinition: the cru bottlings have been declassified into simple DOC Langhe to allow an addition of Barbera to Nebbiolo), there is now the Pieve di Santa Restituta estate in Tuscany’s Montalcino, producing two Brunellos, and the more recent Ca’ Marcanda in the Tuscan Maremma, next door to Ornellaia, Sassicaia and a couple of other aias. The two Tuscan estates share one characteristic with the Piedmont headquarters – exorbitant prices – and a similar scale, but the vinification appears to be a bit more modern.

This was surely evident in the three Ca’ Marcanda bottlings: rich, fat, dense, low-acid, lavishly oaked wines with a fair bit of sensual excitement, but ultimately a bit boring. Surely the Toscana IGT Promis 2006 (Merlot dominating, with the balance Syrah and Sangiovese) is excessively alcoholic, macerated-fruity and soft-tannic; defined as an ‘everyday wine’ of this estate, it is in fact too big for that. So how to rate such an anonymous but qualitative wine? On to Toscana IGT Magari 2006 (Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc supporting Merlot): still alcoholic but more driven and elegant than the Promis, with better balance. In short, less Merlotish (or Shirazish). Finish is really long, and while hardly very complex or individual this is really showing top-drawer winemaking and fruit quality. The estate’s flagship Bolgheri Ca’ Marcanda 2004 (similar blend) is dense, sweet, fleshy, but less atractively fresh than the above. Little evolution; a very big, very modern wine.

I was excited to try the Brunello di Montalcino Rennina 2004 and Brunello Sugarille 2004, my first taste of bottled Brunello from this outstanding vintage. But more patience will be required: they showed really tight. In general, the Rennina disappointed: no architectural interest, medium length at best, and not terribly Sangiovese-typical. The Sugarille was in another league, on the riper side of ripe but balanced, improving with airing, with a clean essential core of good cherry fruit. The style is very modern (you know it is when Sangiovese smells of menthol) but I can’t really criticise it too much. Price is the only issue.

Contrarily to past years, when we tasted the entire Gaja range including the white wines, only three bottles from Piedmont were opened. I can’t really be bothered with the Barolo Dagromis 2003, a blend of Serralunga and La Morra vineyards (akin to mixing milk chocolate with ice, perhaps), a moderately modern but carefully unacidic wine with a floral, sweet, cherryish nose and soft palate (perhaps forgivable for a 2003). It would be a good middle-of-the-road Barolo from an unknown producer but we can expect more from Gaja. And he surely delivers with the Barbaresco 2004. This is the most traditional wine here – still blended from the original 14 vineyards selected by Giovanni Gaja in the 1970s – and has consistently been the most interesting of the range in recent years, while the expensive crus here have been increasingly massaged to soft-tannic oblivion. A ‘real’ expression of Nebbiolo, peppery and sturdy, unsimplistic, not too fruity, not too modern, concentrated, with a good finish, a certain semi-traditional elegance and silky texture. Young of course, I have faith it should move into the ‘outstanding’ category with five years, or ten. Finally the Langhe Nebbiolo Sperss 2000. Technically a Barolo from Serralunga d’Alba vineyards, but declassified into Langhe DOC since 1997; 6% Barbera is currently blended in (‘for more fruit brilliance’, a Gaja manager once explained; as if Nebbiolo didn’t have enough). Unevolved in colour but slowly constructing a more aged bouquet with notes of raw and stewed meat, a certain sweet cherry elegance, and decent breadth; a nicely balanced, very pleasing glassful on the palate with quite some tannic reserve to improve further. But shows a certain limitedness of 2000: just a little muffled and unvivid.

This tasting was consistent with my other recent encounters with Gaja wines. At the entry level they can be quite simple and a little heavy (especially those from Bolgheri), while the upper bottlings are undoubtedly classy, with balance, structure and potential to age well. And clearly Gaja is no more in the vanguard of iconoclastic modernism in Piedmont; other producers have pushed the frontier quite a bit farther. In fact, compared to the hyperoaky roto-fermented (and at times concentrator-aided) ‘Nebbiolos’ from Elio A. or Gianni V., Gaja is now looking like an old Italian gentleman, perhaps driving a tad fast in his sports car.

So what is the problem? Prices. The above bottles combined would have settled you no less than 500€. Gaja’s blended Barbaresco is 70€ per bottle retail in Italy; crus are north from 150€. The ‘everyday’ Promis is 20+€. There are legion equally good Barbarescos at half the price. But then, of course, Gaja has become a ‘global brand’.

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Castell’in Villa Chianti Classico 2005

Sangiovese perfection

Over the past week I have been digesting my trip to Chianti. It reinforced my admiration for Sangiovese, which is fantastic grape capable of great depth and fabulous elegance. But it is also tricky. Pick it too late, smother it with new oak or a generous splash of Merlot, and it will lose all its finesse, becoming cumbersome, obese and boring.

That’s why in recent years, I have increasingly favoured producers with a ‘light touch’, and especially those that use old large oak barrels instead of new French barriques. I won’t be making a huge discovery in saying that Sangiovese doesn’t take new oak very well. If the grapes are really concentrated and the ageing is done deftly, wines such as Percarlo, Flaccianello or Fontalloro can be excellent, but there is a unique airiness and transparence in Sangiovese that only sees the tighter grain and cooling effect of traditional Italian botti.

In a restaurant in Castelnuovo Berardenga last week, I picked up a bottle of Castell’in Villa. It is an estate that somehow I have never tasted before. A strange one at that. It is mysteriously absent from many Italian wine books (meaning, probably, that they just don’t send tasting samples), and there isn’t even that much opinion about it on the internet. Yet among Chianti cognoscenti, Castell’in Villa enjoys an enviable reputation, especially for its older, pre-1990 vintages that are said to be among the finest examples of the above-mentioned airy, perfumed, acid-driven style of Chianti.

In recent years, this producer has introduced some small oak barrels in the ageing of its top wines, but this Chianti Classico 2005 only saw large botti. And it is a fantastic wine. Exactly the sort of unadulterated Sangiovese taste I was looking for. Colour is a bit darker than I anticipated for this traditional style: a transparent purple with not so much rim. Nose is delightfully fresh and fully announces what will happen on the palate: a solid core of the cleanest, juiciest crisp dark cherry. On the finish there is a moment of assertive, if unaggressive, perfectly pitched peppery tannins. The epitome of what a real Chianti Classico should be: clean, refreshing, driven, medium-bodied, serious, with good concentration. I honestly do not remember so much excitement in any other bottle of 2005 straight CC.

Castell’in Villa is located in Castelnuovo Berardenga,
on the southern outskirts of Chianti Classico.

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In Chianti (3)

Isole e Olena: lightness, juiciness, naturalness

Our stay in Chianti is slowly drawing to an end. But it’s been immensely rewarding. Today we spent an entire afternoon at Isole e Olena. The name of the estate comes from two tiny hamlets, Isole and Olena, which are located in the middle of nowhere and nearly totally abandoned. Like the various poderi at Fèlsina, these used to house a large number of sharecropping peasants, but since the mid-1960s have been left to ruin. The entire estate together with the two villages was purchased by the father of the current owner, and now some buildings are being renovated but the place still feels desolated and incredibly remote, despite being only 5 km from the Florence–Siena motorway.

Paolo de Marchi, owner of Isole e Olena.

Paolo De Marchi’s family comes from northern Piedmont, the land of Nebbiolo, so it is no wonder he brought with him quite a different wine sensitivity. His Sangiovese is among the palest-coloured, crispest, and most elegant in Chianti. We spent a lot of time in the vineyards, talking about the impressive vineyard replanting and clonal selection work that has been done here since 1976, when Paolo joined the estate. Replanting was necessary because all the vineyards planted after the massive migration were of insufficient quality. As heroic as the effort was for the owners in the 1960s to build their operations from scratch, vineyards were planted with vigorous high-yielding clones, at low density so as to allow mechanisation, etc. It took a good decade to experiment and select the best old genotypes of Sangiovese, and another to re-establish them in the vineyards. Meanwhile, white grapes were eliminated, French varieties introduced, plantings densified, cellars modernised. Modern Chianti is only now coming out of this painful adolescence.

The hamlet of Olena.

We tasted very good Chardonnay, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon but the Sangiovese wines shone above all else. I really like the Isole e Olena Chianti Classico for how unextracted and ‘unambitious’ it is. This is a wine not about power or concentration but zest and invigoration: precisely what Chianti should be in my book. Not a winemaker’s Chianti – even less so than Fèlsina’s – but a restaurant-goer’s. Buy as much of the 2006 as you can find. For Isole’s top Sangiovese, Cepparello (still bottled as an IGT, not a Chianti), we tasted the 2005 and 2006 (the latter unreleased). Back in October, the 2005 was tight as a fist, like a crouching tiger in the dark jungle of which you only see the glowing eyes. Now it has opened into a gem of floral, cherry-scented juiciness.

Sunset over Isole.

This long visit ended with a delightful dinner at the Michelin-1* restaurant Albergaccio in Castellina. The rather traditional food there paired well with older wines from Isole. Cepparello 1995 showed a little inert but the 1991, from an underrated vintage, was excellent, fresh and pitched. There was also a light but elegant Chianti 1988 and a more complex, satisfying 1982 Riserva, but the surprise of the night was the 1995 Chardonnay, saline and stony like a good Chablis!

The essence of terroir: a wall of galestro in Isole’s cellar.
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In Chianti (2)

Fontodi: density

Today’s visit was to Fontodi, another standard-bearing estate of the Chianti region.

Actually Fontodi shares several characteristics with Fèlsina (see yesterday’s post). Both estates were revitalised in the late 1970s in what is now viewed as the first wave of quality revolution for this Tuscan appellation. At that time, 100% Sangiovese wines were introduced (bottled as vini da tavola – table wines – because white grapes were a compulsory ingredient in the blend under DOC requirements), and new French barrique barrels of 225 liters were used for ageing (instead of the traditional Tuscan barrels of 1000 liters and more). Since those early days, the consultant winemaker for both Fontodi and Fèlsina has been Franco Bernabei. The style of the wines is also somewhat similar: structured, deep, serious, ageworthy.

Panzano in Chianti in the January grey.

One major difference is the terroir. While Fèlsina is located on the southern outskirts of Chianti, and its soils are predominantly limestone, gradually receding into sand, Fontodi lies at the very center of the Chianti Classico zone, 2 minutes’ drive from the town of Panzano. Here the soil is predominantly galestro, a mixture of brown volcanic slate and compressed clay, giving concentrated and deep-coloured wines with a lot of backbone.

Apologies to Giovanni Manetti for not coming up with a better picture…

Owner Giovanni Manetti showed us around the estate, whose impressive 70 ha are now farmed fully organic. Fontodi is moving towards self-efficiency: apart from 7,000 olive trees there are now also 22 cows. For manure, but also for meat, so that the estate can supply their own bistecca to provide a classic match with Sangiovese. While I enjoy a good T-bone, visiting these Chianina cows made me feel a bit guilty. This is a fantastically noble breed of cows going back to Roman times.

Fontodi cows.

We tasted a dozen wines. The highlight, apart from a lovely bottle of 1992 Pinot Nero, was the mini-vertical of Flaccianello della Pieve, Fontodi’s flagship wine (100% Sangiovese). Giovanni Manetti says the 2006 is the biggest wine ever produced here, and it is surely a heavyweight with a beetroot-like inky intensity. 2005 is lighter (as befits this challenging, rainy vintage) but needs another 2–3 years to open up. I was disappointed with the 2004 on release and also now: it is oddly vegetal and a little aggressive; perhaps time will help. For a slowly maturing Flaccianello, try the 1999, which is acquiring that tell-tale oily, almondy touch of aged Sangiovese, but still has plenty of power to improve. We also got an interesting comparison with Fontodi’s other top Sangiovese wine, Chianti Classico Riserva Vigna del Sorbo. Coming from oldish vines (35 years) with less new oak but 10% Cabernet Sauvignon blended in, it is a slightly less dense, more flowery interpretation of the grape that I often prefer to Flaccianello. Surely the 2004 is superlative: concentrated but very elegant. The 1999 is also very good.

Tasting several vintages here confirmed my recent impressions that since 2003, Fontodi is really at the top of the game. The wines are now denser, more textured and expressive. In the late 1990s, I found some wines a little overtannic and drying; today, they overwhelm with a sense of balance and harmony. Asked why, Giovanni Manetti answered that it is a matter of slow gradual improvement. He quoted the increasing age of the vines as a factor. I think the exclusive use of indigenous yeast since 2000 really makes a difference. I came away impressed.

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In Chianti (1)

Fèlsina: hospitality, verticality, profundity

It is our second day in Chianti. I am here with two of my colleagues from WINO Magazine to research material for a special edition on this part of Tuscany. It is a bespoke three-day tour of the best wineries, organised for us by the Consorzio del Chianti Classico. They did a great job. We try, too (although today’s 2-hour delay for our appointment at Querciabella was the most embarassing I ever suffered).

This morning we visited Fattoria di Fèlsina. My favourite estate in Tuscany, Italy, and perhaps the world. I have a weakness for their wines – especially the two top labels, Rancia and Fontalloro – that is almost physical and erotic. And incidentally, it was the very first winery I ever visited, in summer 1999 on a vacation to Tuscany before I got into wine writing.

The Fèlsina estate’s main bulding.

We first drove with owner Giuseppe Mazzocolin through portions of this large estate, looking at the vineyards for Fontalloro, Maestro Raro (Fèlsina’s varietal Cabernet), and finally Rancia.

Giuseppe Mazzocolin.

The fattoria itself (this words denote an self-sufficient agricultural estate that produces its own wine, olive oil, grain, livestock etc.) consists of 11 separate poderi (farmhouses), which are now all abandoned. While most Western tourists see the Chianti hills as a sort of modern paradise, with romantic-looking vineyards and olive groves, this area still suffers from a massive social change in the 1950s and 1960s, when the age-old system of sharecropping (mezzadria) collapsed, and most of the rural population emigrated to the cities. A farmhouse like Rancia used to be home to 5 or 6 families, with perhaps 50 people living in the buildings and caring for the adjacent land. Today, these structures are totally empty, and often derelict.

The Rancia farmhouse seen from the east.

Rancia itself even hosted a small monastery, and its imposing outer walls suggest it was a fortified granary, too (name perhaps coming from grancia / grangia).

The name Rancia probably comes from grancia, a fortified granary.

Perhaps fittingly, the 6-ha Rancia vineyard gives birth to one of the most mightily structured and ageworthy wines in the whole of Chianti. Giuseppe Mazzocolin treated us to a rare vertical, from the recently bottled (unreleased) 2005 back to 1983, the first vintage.


I did attend a Fèlsina vertical back in 2001 (see also here and here for some early notes, including a 1997 Fontalloro that remains a legend of my tasting career). But this tasting was the most extensive, and the one where the bottles (surely due to their provenance from the estate’s cellar) showed the youngest. Honestly, none of the wines was over the hill, and even underrated vintages such as 1994 seemed to have the guts for another decade in bottle. It was also interesting to observe the subtle differences from vintage to vintage, and the consistent stylistic thread running through all 11: minerality, austerity, acidity, backwardness, coupled with stupendous elegance and freshness.

The deep unevolved purples of 1990 and 1988 Rancia.

I hope to publish an extensive winery profile with full tasting notes from all these years on my main site soon. Summarizing, I can say that 2005, 2004 and 2001 are the greatest of the latest (with the former especially impressive), while 2000, 1997 and 1994 are all nicely round and balsamic, less tannic, drinking well now, but in no danger of declining any soon. I have had better bottles of the 1990 and the 1988 was a touch muted, but 1985 and 1983 were spectacular: driven, upright, intense, powerful, not even so tertiary, and so full of life! They were further enhanced by the fantastic home cooking of Mrs. Valeria. And then there is Fèlsina’s range of spellbinding olive oils – more on these soon.

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Caparzo La Caduta 1999

Tuning for Sangiovese

Later today I head off for Chianti, on a long-awaited tour of one of my very favourite wine regions. Three and a half days of drinking little else than Sangiovese.

Usually before such regime, I like to tune my palate to a given grape variety or wine style, and open a few bottles from my cellar to get the ‘feel’. Instead of a Chianti, though, I opted for a wine from Montalcino.

It is not a Brunello though, but a rare animal – a Rosso di Montalcino Riserva. (Well in all truth, the latter word doesn’t appear on the label). Rosso is often a Montalcino winery’s simplest red, produced from grapes that don’t make it into Brunello: either the vineyards are in an inferior position, the vines too young, or the quality just isn’t there in a particular vintage. But this wine comes from the single vineyard of La Caduta. (Single crus are usually used to make Brunello, but this one is an exception). The wine is aged like a Rosso, with 12 months in wood, although instead of large 6000-liter Slavonian oak casks, medium-sized barrels of 2000 l were used.

Caparzo has long played in the top league of Brunello. I remember that in my early days of tasting this appellation – when vintages such as 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 were on the market – it was one of the most reliable and good value Brunellos. And their cru, La Casa, is certainly among the very best. A hugely concentrated, tannic, brooding wine, it is best opened after at least a decade. Both 1999 and 2000 are excellent, and I recently tasted the 1995 which should still wait. As for the Brunello normale, latest vintages have been a mixed batch. 2001 and 2002 I found puzzling, 2003 is back on track. Caparzo changed hands a few years ago, and recently they have taken over their neighbour and former rival, Altesino. Perhaps this period of ownership change and reinvestment caused a certain drop in quality.

Anyhow, I cellared this Rosso di Montalcino Vigna La Caduta 1999 since release, and it is now drinking delightfully well. Served at cellar temperature and poured without decanting, it instantly charms me with a sweet, sensual bouquet which is mature à point. Typically of Montalcino it shows a rather fat, sweet-balsamic profile. It has no great depth or dimension (especially for 1999, which a stellar vintage, unsurpassed by any until at least 2005), and after 9 years of ageing the difference in structure with a Brunello is evident. There is even the merest hint of greenness on the finish, although the acidity is ripe and integrated. But while intellectually it is criticisable, sensually it shows the best characteristics of Sangiovese: intense perfume, sweet fruit, freshness, texture, length and class. A good promise for the next three days.

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