Wine & Spirits - Fall 2022 - 73

ROCCa DI MONTEGROSSI'S
VINEYaRDS IN GaIOlE,
IN SOUTHEaSTERN
CHIaNTI ClaSSICO
ITALY | TUSCANY
Rocca di Montegrossi
Marco Ricasoli Firidolfi's determination, uncompromising
winegrowing and meticulous winemaking have earned
Rocca di Montegrossi its seventh Top 100 award.
Ricasoli is the most famous and histoRic name in
Chianti Classico, but, at the age of 24, Marco Ricasoli
decided to part ways with his family's wine business
and strike out on his own. " I know it sounds naïve, " he
says, " but my aim was always to make the best wine
in the world. " He inherited the 18-acre San Marcellino
vineyard from his mother, and over time carved
out another 31 acres from the rocky hillsides in Chianti
Classico's southeast. He was-and remains-adamantly
opposed to combining sangiovese with nonnative
varieties, but he wanted to prove with Geremia
that his land in Gaiole could produce top-quality merlot
and cabernet, presented on its own, without sangiovese.
Ricasoli has also been a champion of pugnitello,
a low-yielding and potent native Tuscan variety that
he began planting in 1999 and first added to San Marcellino
in 2006. While tasting barrel samples from the
2015 vintage, he found the cabernet sauvignon and
pugnitello particularly compelling. On instinct, he
poured some of each into a single glass and was excited
by the result, leading to Ridolfo, a 50-50 blend that
combines the elegance of cabernet sauvignon with the
pugnacious personality of pugnitello. Since 2007 he
has been gradually converting his vineyards from cordone
speronato to guyot training, which requires more
vineyard work but delays ripening and helps the grapes
withstand the increasingly hot summers. It is decisions
like this that lead to the beautiful wines coming out of
Rocca di Montegrossi. -S.J.
2016 Toscana Ridolfo ($200/1.5L, 97 points) The long
and even growing season of 2016 built fresh scents of violets,
lavender and thyme; the wine's inky color suggests
deep concentration, yet the blackberry and blackcurrant flavors
are vibrant and precisely articulated, layered with notes
of graphite, tobacco leaf and anise.
2017 Toscana Geremia ($70, 96 points) Torrid, droughtstricken
2017 prompted many producers to finish picking by
mid-September, but Ricasoli waited. That decision paid off
when September rains and cooler temperatures helped to
rebalance the vines and ripen grape tannins fully. Geremia, a
blend of merlot with 30 percent cabernet, is already expressive,
the ripe black-plum and blackcurrant flavors woven with
notes of cacao and warm spice. Densely packed with minerals,
the wine seems to gain energy with exposure to air, taking
on appealing savory and saline notes on the long finish.
2017 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione San Marcellino
($80, 94 points) San Marcellino is Ricasoli's oldest vineyard,
and this wine shows how much depth and concentration
can be achieved from its rocky soils. The wine offers
deeply concentrated flavors of plum and black cherry, some
of those dark fruit tones enhanced by a small percentage of
pugnitello that's blended with the sangiovese. Notes of fennel,
lavender and red-apple skin weave through the wine,
the flavors underlined by firm, mineral tannins with the feel
of graphite.
F all 202 2
FOUNDED: 1994
WINEMAKER:
Marco Ricasoli Firidolfi
with Attilio Pagli
VITICULTURISTS:
Stefano Dini,
Dario Ceccatelli
OWNER:
Marco Ricasoli Firidolfi
ACRES OWNED:
277; 49.4 planted
ANNUAL PRODUCTION:
10,000 cases
ESTATE GROWN: 100%
FARMING PRACTICES:
Organic, certified 2010
IMPORTER:
North Berkeley
Imports, Berkeley, CA;
Skurnik Wines, NY
WINE & SPIR IT S
73
Wine & Spirits - Fall 2022

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