Made from 95 percent Sangioveto (the local Sangiovese clone) with the balance of Canaiolo, grown in calcareous clay loam at 1,450 feet elevation. Yields were low, only 2.5 tons per acre, and vinification was in stainless steel. The wine spent the legal minimum of one year in French barriques.
It’s closed at first, with a wet wool character, requiring an hour in a decanter and even a day’s repose back in the bottle. But after that it’s charming, aromatically quiet—just fruit and earth—but with a body suggesting pure cherries: tangy, ripe, red-steeped, succulent, with fine-grained tannins. A solid weeknight wine.
(The label celebrates the Eurasian siskin, Carduelis spinus, whose habitat has been threatened by the indiscriminate use of vineyard chemicals.)
13.5% abv | $20, Imported by Winebow
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