Producer Chianti Classico, Italy
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 in 2018 he was elected 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 Chianti Classico, a Gran Selezione from the Vigna del Sorbo vineyard, wines from terraced vineyards at Lamole, Pinot Noir and Syrah under the Case Via name, a white, a Vin Santo and olive oil.
The vineyards cover a wide range of conditions for one estate. At Lamole the family farm terraced vineyard at 600 metres above sea level, high and cool for the zone. Vigna del Sorbo is a south-west facing vineyard of old vines in the Conca d'Oro itself, and its wine is made as a Gran Selezione, the top tier of the appellation, which must come from the estate's own grapes and spend at least 30 months ageing. The Sangiovese from these sites is fermented with indigenous yeasts and aged in French oak, and between them you get the high, cool edge of Chianti Classico and its warm heart from one set of hands.
Winery at Panzano in Chianti, Chianti Classico · Sangiovese · £29.95 to £67.95 a bottle
