Ficomontanino Bulgarelli Rosso Toscana IGT

The grapes are hand picked, destemmed and fermented in cement, with a short skin maceration in cement and steel vats for 8 days. After vinification, the wine is aged for at least 10 months in cement and 8 months in steel tanks, then 3 months in the bottle, allowing for a balance of structure and freshness. Unfiltered, unclarified.

Agricola Ficomontanino (literally ‘Little Fig Mountain’) sits in the hills, close to the ancient hill town of Chiusi, right where the borders of Tuscany, Lazio and Umbria meet. Whilst the general feel here is much sleepier than not so distant Siena or Perugia, there’s a quiet but palpable energy to the landscape, (think Menetou vs Sancerre), and it’s this energy that winemaker Maria Sole Gianelli is clearly excited to be working with.

The Estate, not at that stage a wine property, was originally bought by her Grandfather back in the 1960’s as a retreat, an Olive Oil property and a place to breed horses. The discovery of very ancient terracing on the hillsides, deep in the undergrowth, indicated that there had been vines here in the distant, possibly Etruscan, past, and the decision was made to restore the sites and plant vines here once again. Maria Sole’s father continued the work, experimenting with various grape varieties as he went until the vineyard plantings eventually reached the current 11ha. Maria Sole took over the reins 10 years ago after studying oenology at The Slow Food University of Culinary Arts in Pollenzo, Piemonte.

At university she studied particularly the works of Rudolf Steiner and Masanobu Fukuoka and whilst she is not a dogmatic Biodynamicist, she does use ‘preparations’ and biodynamic composts, she does follow the Lunar calendar and she is without doubt driven to live lightly on her land and in harmony with the terroir, the flora and the fauna of this incredibly attractive landscape. These then are a small collection of beautifully presented, genuinely expressive and nicely different wines from an interesting and thoughtful winemaker working in one of Italy’s lesser known but very beautiful areas.