Historical vineyard with a modern touch

Our small winery in Tuscany is geogra­phi­cally located on the edge of the DOCG Chianti Colline Pisane wine-growing region. The label Chianti wine was first mentio­ned in documents by Floren­tine traders in 1398. Today, Chianti stands for an intense, elegant red wine made from at least 70% of the typical Sangio­vese grapes of Tuscany. In keeping with this tradi­tion, the viney­ard at Podere Palazzone until the begin­ning of this century consis­ted of Sangio­vese and Prugnolo. On our clay soils these appro­xi­m­ately 70-year-old vines deliver a ruby-red, balan­ced, pleasantly tannic wine with aromas of cherry and black­berry. However, we have develo­ped the bouquet of our wine over the last years and making it even more pleasant on the palate. Above all, with the inten­tion of highlight­ing its fresh­ness and fruitin­ess. There­fore, we have expan­ded the viney­ard by 20% with Syrah grapes. Syrah is a variety origi­na­ting in ancient Persia, the cradle of viticul­ture. As a result, the bouquet of our red Italian wine is now enhan­ced with spicy notes of pepper, cloves and violets.

Organic wine in Tuscany

The small viney­ard of Agritu­rismo Palazzone produ­ces organic wine exclu­si­vely for family enjoy­ment and for the guests of our holiday home. As on our entire organic farm, we do not use chemi­cal ferti­li­zers in our winegro­wing either. Also, we limit plant protec­tion to a minimum and apply the tradi­tio­nal Bordeaux broth, permit­ted in organic viticul­ture, in an extre­mely targe­ted manner.

Handmade Italian wine

On our winery in Tuscany, grape harvest takes place in the second half of Septem­ber. Guests of the holiday home are warmly invited to parti­ci­pate. The entire proces­sing is done by hand. In parti­cu­lar, we destem the grapes over a trellis and separate them from their stems. This manual proce­dure is very time-consum­ing. However, this guaran­tees maximum quality control and sorting out of defec­tive berries. The follo­wing fermen­ta­tion is initia­ted exclu­si­vely by the natural sugar yeasts on the grapes. Of course, we comple­tely refrain from adding cultu­red yeasts or sugar in the further process.

Vinification

Aerobic alcoho­lic fermen­ta­tion takes place in open vats. After about 10 days, the young wine reaches an alcohol content between 12° and 13°. The mash is then separa­ted and the spent grains are pressed in an old manual wooden press. During a further 2 weeks, the turbid matter deposits on the bottom. Then, part of the wine goes for ageing in a classic 225 litre barri­que barrel. The rest, instead, matures in typical 54 litre demijohns. We do not add sulphite to our wine. It is unfil­te­red and there­fore parti­cu­larly full and round in taste.

In the photo gallery above you can follow the single steps of work on our winery. It starts with the winter pruning, shows the growth of the shoots, the blosso­ming, the develo­p­ment of the grapes until ripen­ess and finally the harvest. It follows fermen­ta­tion, ageing in barri­ques and bottling, until finally it’s time to say: Alla salute!