From: Tuscany, Italy
Varietal: Sangiovese
Tasting Notes: The color of the wine is ruby red with garnet shadings; a fruity flavor with traces of cherry and ripe fruit. On the palate, the wine has a medium structure with a pleasing balance and full flavor. Persistent in its aftertaste.
Pairing: Chianti Classico pairs best with meaty, tomato-sauce-based Italian dishes like Spaghetti and Meatballs, Lasagna, Chicken Parmesan, Baked Ziti, Pizza, and Bruschetta. Is anyone else craving meatballs?? We love Melissa Clark’s recipe for Meatball Parmesean.
About. The Capponi family has owned the Villa Calcinaia and its surrounding estate nestled amongst the hills of the Greve valley (between Frienze and Siena) since 1524. To clarify, the Greve area is situated in the center of Chianti Classico, near the town of Greve-in-Chianti. This historic estate has been home to the Counts Capponi for generations and is maintained by Sebastiano Capponi and his brother Niccolo. In 1992, Count Sebastiano Capponi (a literal Count!) became the first in the history of the family to manage the winery personally, giving new life to the vineyards and the cellar.
Today, the estate covers a little over 200 hectares of woodland, pastureland, vineyards, and olive groves. Organic farming is the standard here, where 75 acres of vineyard are planted with Sangiovese, Merlot, Canaiolo, Grechetto, Vernaccia, Trebbiano, and Malvasia. Over the last 50 years, the family has made significant investments in their winemaking to find the truest expression of quality as well as pride in the history of their vines.
A rule change passed through Italian wine law in 2021 to allow producers to include specific vineyard sites on their labels. We expect that Conti Cappoini will do that with their “Villa Calcinaia” cuvée moving forward, as this wine comes from vines exclusively planted in the Greve commune. However, you won’t see this indication on their 2018 vintage because it was bottled prior to the passage of the new rule.
“[The terroir where Villa Calcinaia lies] is on the left bank of the River Greve,” Count Sebastiano Capponi said in 2015 interview with Christopher Barnes for Grape Collective. “The left bank of the River Greve is very much like Burgundy, it's a lot of clay and calcareous soil. Hence, the name of the wine. Villa Calcinaia--Calcinaia literally means chalk quarry.
The terroir there, it tends to make ... I'm a big Burgundy buff, so I tend to think that my wine is very much like Chambolle-Musigny in the sense that the wines are very fine and very elegant and very approachable, even from a young age. That doesn't mean that they don't age well.”
The selected grapes of the traditional red varietals, Sangiovese and Canaiolo, are handpicked for this wine between mid-September and the beginning of October and fermented in stainless steel tanks for the production of Chianti Classico. The different blocks of Sangiovese and Canaiolo are aged in 30 hectolitre oak casks. After 20 months of aging, the blending is completed and aged for another 4-6 months in cement vats built inside the winery.
