In a Tuscan
State of Mind

by Antonio
Galloni

I continue to be amazed at the sheer
diversity of wines coming out of Tuscany these days. While the big guns may
still command the highest prices, the real attractiveness lies at the other end
of the price spectrum. Tuscany’s finest wines under $25 were reviewed in Issue
190, but readers will find plenty of additional wines at friendly prices in
these pages, including a number of alternatives to Maremma and Chianti
Classico’s prestige wines. The sweet spot for fine, cellar worthy bottles in
Tuscany is in the $50-65 price range, where readers will find plenty of wines
with significant cellaring potential and the track records to back it up. The
vast array of regional designations (DOC, DOCG and IGT) with their confusing
and often overlapping regulations, plus Italy’s large number of indigenous and
international varieties, creates a huge market inefficiency that savvy readers
can exploit. Poggio Scalette’s Il Carbonaione, Castellare’s I Sodi di San
Niccolò, Monsanto’s Chianti Classico Riserva Il Poggio, Felsina’s Chianti
Classico Riserva Rancia and Fontodi’s Chianti Classico Riserva Vigna del Sorbo,
all of which can be had for less than $65 full US retail, are all bottles that
would sell for considerably more money if they were made in Bordeaux, Burgundy
or Napa Valley, where producers have done a far better job in marketing their
wines. This report focuses on the wines of Central Tuscany (Chianti Classico, Montepulciano, Cortona and
environs) and Coastal Tuscany. I also included few wines from
Montalcino that I missed earlier in the year.

Overview of
Recent Vintages

It isn’t easy to get a grasp on Tuscany as a
whole. There are just too many sub-regions, microclimates and grape varieties
for general comments to be of much use. Still, I hope these broad vintage sketches
will serve as a good introduction to the vintages readers are likely to find in
the market today. Vintage 2006 remains impressive for the sheer number
of superb wines across all of Tuscany’s main winemaking regions. As I have
noted previously, the vintage is especially strong in Maremma, where a number
of producers made wines that are likely to remain reference points for many
years. The 2006s are firm, vibrant wines with significant cellaring potential.
Not surprisingly, many wines are already headed for a period of dormancy during
which they are best left undisturbed.

Italy saw virtually no winter in 2007. The
weather was warm the entire year, but without the heat spikes of 2003 or 2009.
These conditions allowed for even ripening of fruit and tannin across most
regions. Chianti Classico, where higher altitude vineyards sometimes struggle
to ripen, produced many truly stunning wines. I also tasted a number of
delicious 2007s from Montepulciano and, to a lesser extent, Cortona. The 2007s
are open, lush and very approachable. The major problem readers are likely to
have with the 2007s is deciding when to drink them. Most of the wines are
incredibly delicious today, but also seem to have the potential to improve in
bottle, which is why many of my drinking windows start relatively early. If the
vintage has a weakness it is the slightly higher level of alcohol that comes
through in some wines. In vintages 2006 and 2007 Tuscany has its best
back-to-back vintages in twenty years.

Vintage 2008 presented growers with
much more challenging conditions than either 2006 or 2007. A cool, wet spring
caused growers to intervene more frequently in the vineyards to avoid rot and
other diseases. Conditions improved later in the year, leading to a fairly
regular harvest. In general, the 2008s are mid- weight wines with neither the
structure of the 2006s nor the sheer density of the 2007s. Chianti Classico and
Montalcino appear to be the most affected regions, but in Bolgheri and in many
(but not all) parts of Maremma overall quality is on average higher.

In 2009 the defining moment of the
vintage came during mid- August, when all of Northern Italy experienced a
massive, wilting heat-wave. I spent a week in Chianti Classico during that time
and it was hot, hot, hot, even at night. During the same period in 2008 I
needed a light sweater at night, but not in 2009. You could virtually see the
leaves dropping off the plants. Old vineyards with good access to water came
through fine, but lesser sites clearly struggled. I took a quick detour through
the vineyards in Montalcino and saw vines under significant heat stress.
Interestingly, when I got to Gianfranco Soldera’s Case Basse property,
virtually all of the flowers and plants in his famous botanical garden were
suffering, but the vines looked great. So far I have only tasted the
entry-level 2009s, but this will be a fascinating vintage to follow as more
wines enter the market over the next few years.

The 2010 harvest was wrapping up as we
went to press. The spring and early summer were unusually cool and wet. The
weather took a turn for the better later in the summer, with a number of
growers reporting long stretches of warm temperatures, sunny days with few
clouds, and good alternation between hot (but not excessively hot) daytime temperatures
and cooler evenings. Everything was teeing up perfectly for a late, leisurely
harvest, but nature threw in a few last wrinkles with periods of rain in
September, the effects of which are likely to be highly localized and variable
from producer to producer. Most growers picked their Merlot in mid- September,
while the later-ripening Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon harvests stretched
into the last days of September, and, in some cases, into October.

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