Fontodi

Fontodi is at Panzano in Chianti, in the valley immediately south of the village that everyone calls the Conca d'Oro, the golden shell, because of the way the hillsides curve round it into a natural amphitheatre. It is widely held to be the best growing position in Chianti Classico, and Fontodi sits in the heart of it.

The Manetti family has owned the estate since 1968. They were not wine people first. The family has been associated for centuries with the other great Chianti craft, the terrecotte, the terracotta tiles and pots you see all over Tuscany, so the estate was bought by people who already knew the ground they were standing on. Giovanni Manetti runs it today and is also the sitting President of the Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico, the body that governs the appellation, which tells you where Fontodi stands among its neighbours.

The estate covers 130 hectares of which around 70 are planted to vines, and it is certified organic. The stated approach is to close the loop as far as possible: no chemical products, and the estate's own resources used in preference to anything bought in. The soil is the calcareous clay-schist of the zone, the altitude is high, the light is good and the microclimate is the reason people talk about Panzano the way they do. The cellar is modern and built on descending levels so that the wine moves by gravity rather than by pump, which the estate does specifically to keep the fruit intact.

What Fontodi is famous for is Sangiovese in purity. Flaccianello della Pieve is the estate's most collected wine and one of the most sought-after reds in Tuscany. Alongside it the estate makes the Chianti Classico Fontodi, the Gran Selezione Vigna del Sorbo, Terrazze San Leolino, Filetta di Lamole, a Vin Santo, two Case Via wines from Pinot Noir and Syrah, a white called Meriggio, and two olive oils.

Two of them mark the two ends of the Chianti Classico story.

Filetta di Lamole comes from around eight hectares of terraced vineyard at Lamole, at 600 metres above sea level, which is high and cool for the zone. It is 100 per cent Sangiovese, trained to Guyot at 6,000 vines per hectare, fermented in concrete vats with indigenous yeasts for at least three weeks and aged 18 months in French oak casks. About 25,000 bottles are made.

Vigna del Sorbo is a Chianti Classico Gran Selezione, the top tier of the appellation. Under Consorzio rules a Gran Selezione must be at least 90 per cent Sangiovese with no more than 10 per cent of other indigenous red varieties, must come from the estate's own grapes and be estate-bottled, must reach at least 13 per cent alcohol and must be aged a minimum of 30 months including three in bottle. Fontodi's own specification for this wine is 100 per cent Sangiovese from a single south-west facing vineyard of 55-year-old vines, fermented in stainless steel with indigenous yeasts for at least three weeks and aged 24 months in French oak barrels and casks. Also around 25,000 bottles.

Between them you get the two extremes of the appellation from one set of hands: a high, cool, terraced site at 600 metres at one end, and the estate's own Gran Selezione vineyard of 55-year-old vines at the other.