Producer
The Poggiotondo estate is situated in the hills to the northwest of Empoli in western Tuscany. These hills are south and southwest facing, and are planted primarily with Sangiovese. Alberto Antonini’s estate has been certified organic since the 2014 vintage. His aim is to make wines with a strong sense of place, which exemplify the very best from Chianti.
Vineyards
This wine is made soley from Sangiovese grown in a one hectare vineyard planted in 1990. It is situated on top of a south-east facing hill and is called “Vigna delle Conchiglie”. The name comes from the old marine soils which are rich with calcareous seashells (conchiglie). Planting density is 5,950 vines per hectare, trained with vertical shoot positioning and Guyot pruning. Yields are kept low at less than a kilo per vine, the equivalent of 5 tonnes per hectare. In 2011, Alberto started the conversion to biodynamic production, and became certified in 2014.
Vinification
Grapes were hand-picked into small 16 kilogram cases. Fruit was then gently destemmed and crushed and loaded into fermenters using a gravity flow system. Fermentation took place in varying sizes of oak barrels with native yeasts at a maximum temperature of 28°C for 10-12 days. Native yeasts were used to preserve the character of the single vineyard. The cap was punched down several times a day to optimise extraction of colour and flavour. The wine underwent an extended period of maceration on the skins post-fermentation. It was then racked off the skins into tight-grained French oak barrels, of which 20% was new, where it underwent malolactic fermentation. It was aged in barrel for 20 months before being bottled without fining or filtering.