In a region that has spent decades chasing international approval with Cabernet and Merlot, there is an estate that became one of the greats by refusing to change.

Fèlsina’s story is one of monastic consistency: the same family, the same grape, the same soils, the same philosophy, pursued across six decades while trends arrived and departed around them.

 

(Source: Chianti Classico Association)

 

The 500-hectare property in Castelnuovo Berardenga – the warmest, southernmost commune of Chianti Classico – produces almost nothing but 100% Sangiovese wines across its entire Chianti range, a stubbornly pure commitment. Respected critics such as Antonio Galloni have called it "one of the great estates in the world,” and some specifically consider it among the finest Chianti Classico producers today. Yet even an ordinary Italian person would still be able to afford a bottle of Fèlsina’s entry range Chianti Classico.

Let’s delve into the often untold story of how the legacy of one of Italy’s most compelling wines was built by an eclectic team of personalities: a hunting enthusiast from Ravenna, a philosophy teacher from Venice, a Jimi Hendrix–obsessed oenologist from the Veneto, and an anarchist gastronomy critic.

Two thousand years on one Tuscan hillside

While the estate of Fèlsina became known to the wine world after an entrepreneur Domenico Poggiali acquired it in the ‘60s and founded the modern winery, the name of the estate can be traced back to pre-Roman origins from a culture of roughly two millennia ago. “Fèlsina” is Etruscan in origin (Etruria is an ancient collective of states in what is now the Tuscany region), a word meaning “a place of welcome”.

After the region was absorbed into the Roman Empire, Romans continued to recognise the favourable geography and used the site as a rest station along a major road. Primitive religious buildings and farm structures dating back to the 1000s are still visible on the estate today. For centuries, the site also served as a working agricultural property of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, producing mostly olives with minimal viticulture. The villa later passed to the noble Busatti family, who gave it the 18th-century façade it carries today. By the early 1900s, wine began to be bottled on-site, but the estate remained primarily an olive estate worked by sharecroppers under the mezzadria system that defined Tuscan agriculture for generations.

 

 

The sharecropping system collapsed after World War II as rural workers migrated to cities. By the mid-1960s, Italian viticulture was in crisis – land was cheap, confidence was low, and Chianti's reputation had been degraded by decades of overproduction and the infamous straw-flask fiasco – where many producers sold Chianti wines bottled in straw baskets using low-quality grapes to meet the tourism boom.

An entrepreneur from Ravenna, Domenico Poggiali, saw the opportunity in cheap land prices and became drawn to the area – initially not by wine but by hunting. He purchased the estate for its 300-hectare game reserve, which came with just nine hectares of vine. But he soon discovered beneath the property a stone wine cellar carved into tufa hills with a wide brick vault. He surveyed his property and noticed southwest-facing exposures, alberese limestone with galestro marl soils and plenty of sunlight. This sparked a different ambition entirely.

 

 

He gradually expanded the vineyards from nine to over 40 hectares within a few years. Poggiali himself was from Romagna – the only Italian region where Sangiovese had always been vinified as a single variety. This led him to particularly favour his Sangiovese grapes. He would meticulously care for his old Sangiovese vines and refuse to plant white grapes even when regulations for Chianti Classico before 1996 expected at least a proportion of white grapes. The first vintage under Poggiali was released in 1967 – Fèlsina became one of the very first wine estates in Chianti to create a pure 100% Sangiovese wine.

Resisting the Super Tuscan tide

What appeared to be Domenico Poggiali’s idiosyncratic love for Sangiovese made Fèlsina into a pioneering "Sangiovese purist" estate that proved the variety could stand alone as a world-class wine.

 

 

It stalwartly refused to blend any other variety into its Chianti wines for many years, even when it was commercially disadvantageous for two reasons. The first boils down to the raw-material cost per bottle. During the 1960s, many Chianti Classico wines were made with Sangiovese padded out with up to 30% white Trebbiano grapes or other cheaper varieties. Trebbiano grapes, as an example, are hardy, highly productive and do not require as much vineyard work as Sangiovese. Therefore, while it does not add much “profundity” to the blend, it could significantly lower the final cost of producing Chianti wines. Some would argue that the old Chianti regulation requiring white grapes (before 1996) made matters worse, actively forcing producers toward unchallenging wines.

The second related reason is simply that the wine market of the ‘60s held a negative perception of Chianti wines after seeing years of low quality. A growing number of renegade Tuscan wineries abandoned the Chianti Classico DOCG entirely by making Bordeaux-style reds or using other prestige varietals and labelling their best wines as a generic Vino da Tavola (later IGT Toscana) to escape the rules. When the Super Tuscan movement exploded in the 1970s and 1980s – Sassicaia (Cabernet blend), Tignanello (Sangiovese-Cabernet), Ornellaia, Solaia – wine critics have come to love dark, rich, internationally styled Tuscan wines with enthusiastic scores and eye-watering prices.

 

 

Between the old guard of Chianti and renegade wineries that use French varietals, Fèlsina charted its own path. Fèlsina championed 100% Sangiovese and dropped white grapes long before the Chianti regulation changed (white grapes became optional in 1996 and were banned entirely in 2006). The estate produced its flagship Fontalloro as an IGT not to use international grapes but because the vineyard straddled two zones. It did make one concession to the era – Maestro Raro, a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from the heart of their terroir, first produced in 1987 – but this was framed as a terroir experiment, not a capitulation.

While there is a small and growing fraternity of "Sangiovese purist" estates, Fèlsina's distinction is that it applied the principle most thoroughly across an entire estate portfolio – from the entry range Colli Senesi to hundred-dollar Gran Selezione – rather than reserving purity for a single prestige cuvée.

The frontier of Chianti Classico

The winemaking philosophy at Fèlsina is influenced in no small part by the influential Italian wine and food critic Luigi Veronelli, widely credited for advocating for small-scale artisanal producers and elevating Italian wine tradition to global prominence.

 

 

Veronelli became a friend of Fèlsina’s just as the estate began producing wine, and ardently encouraged the family to pursue the concept of genius loci – the unique soul that its place holds. The idea is that a wine's highest purpose is to be the expression of a specific place.

Fèlsina is the most critically acclaimed and historically significant estate of the Castelnuovo Berardenga commune – the southernmost of the nine that compose the wider Chianti Classico region. “Castelnuovo Berardenga” is named for Count Berardo, a 10th-century Frankish noble, with a "new castle" built by the Republic of Siena in 1366.

 

(Source: Ambito Turistico Chianti)

 

The frontier position creates a distinctly different terroir from the northern Chianti communes. The climate is warmer and drier, continental in character, with very low winter temperatures and parching summers. Vineyards sit between 250 and 500 meters above sea level, with Fèlsina's own plantings concentrated at 320–420 meters on predominantly southwest-facing slopes.

 

Alberese (Source: Joanie Bonfiglio)

 

Soils divide between two main types: the calcareous-marly alberese (compact limestone) and crumbly galestro (marlstone) typical of higher elevations, and the sandy, silty, marine-sediment-rich soils toward the Crete Senesi – remnants of a Pliocene sea 2.5 to 4.5 million years old.

 

Galestro is a soil based on schist (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

 

The result is wines that tend toward fuller body, more power, and deeper structure than wines from cooler, higher-altitude communes. Critics frequently describe Sangiovese of this area as "the most Brunello-like" expression of Chianti Classico – which is not surprising, given that Montalcino lies directly to the southwest. Fèlsina's Rancia vineyard, at 400–420 meters on alberese and galestro soils with southwest exposure, is said to produce wines of remarkable mineral intensity and depth that can only be found in Sangiovese grown on alberese- and galestro-rich soils. 

Inside Fèlsina’s cellars

Walk into Fèlsina's winery and you will not find much that looks revolutionary. The cellar beneath the old villa, carved into tufa hillside and connected to the original horse stables by an underground passage dug in the early 1970s, is a place of large Slavonian oak ovals, French barriques, and temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks – no fashionable concrete eggs.

 

 

The harvest is done by hand, with clusters quality-selected in the vineyard. After the selected clusters are destemmed and pressed, the must is fermented and macerated in stainless steel at temperatures held between 28°C and 30°C. Programmed punchdowns and daily pumpovers manage extraction during maceration, which is where the real calibration happens across the range. For the entry-level Berardenga Chianti Classico, maceration runs 12–15 days; for the Riserva, 14–16 days; for Rancia and Fontalloro, 16–20 days. This graduated approach means more skin contact for the wines expected to age longest, extracting deeper colour, firmer tannins, and greater phenolic complexity from the same Sangiovese grape. The use of the punchdown and pumpover protocol (rather than, say, the gentler pigeage favoured by some Burgundian-influenced producers) reflects a more traditional Italian approach to red wine vinification.

 

Estate manager and the founder's son-in-law, Giuseppe Mazzocolin (Source: Granai Della Memoria)

 

The more revealing decision is what happens next. Sangiovese is described as being “technically temperamental” by estate manager Giuseppe Mazzocolin – Poggiali’s son-in-law who began working at Fèlsina in the 1970s. Therefore, the winery generally uses a very “light hand” on the oak.

Fèlsina operates a deliberate two-tier oak strategy that splits along a clear philosophical line. The everyday wines – Chianti Classico and Chianti Classico Riserva – go into medium-size Slavonian oak barrels, with only a small proportion moving into twice- and thrice-used French oak barrels. The prestige wines – Rancia, Fontalloro, Colonia, and Maestro Raro – age in French oak barriques (225 litres), ranging from used cooperage for Fontalloro to 100% new wood for Colonia.

 

 

Why Slavonian oak for the everyday wines? These young Sangiovese wines are valued for their drinkability and refreshing crispness. Slavonian oak (from the forests of Croatia, historically the backbone of traditional Italian winemaking) imparts gentle structural scaffolding without overwhelming the wine. Slavonian oak has a wider grain than French oak, which means it imparts far less vanillin, toast and spice to the wine while still allowing the slow micro-oxygenation that softens tannins and builds complexity over time. For a grape as aromatically transparent as Sangiovese, this matters enormously. French oak barriques – tighter-grained, more aromatic, and especially impactful when new – would overwhelm the fresh cherry and herbal character that makes young Chianti Classico pleasurable.

For the prestige tier, where the goal shifts to decades-long ageability, French barriques become appropriate. But even here, Fèlsina's approach to oak is quite restrained by Tuscan standards. Rancia spends 18–20 months in new French oak; Fontalloro gets 18–22 months in a mix of new and used; Colonia receives the most generous treatment at 30 months in new wood. One could contrast this with the Super Tuscan flagships that defined the 1990s, where 24–30 months of 100% new French barriques was common.

The estate also places significant value on re-using barrels rather than constantly cycling in new wood.

According to Mazzocolin, used barrels (up to three or four times) are believed to absorb and re-transmit Fèlsina’s terroir character from previous vintages, making them more valuable than fresh ones. This is a surprising idea that reverses the conventional wisdom (still common in Bordeaux and Napa) that newer barrels are inherently better for barrel-aging wine.

 

 

All of this adds up to what critics consistently describe as wines that taste more of its terroir. The stainless steel preserves primary fruit character. The graduated maceration builds structure proportional to each wine's ambition. The Slavonian oak for everyday wines ensures freshness; the French barriques for prestige wines add framework without dominating. None of these choices is unique to Fèlsina individually – Slavonian oak, stainless steel fermentation, and massal selection are all well-established in traditional Chianti production. What distinguishes Fèlsina is the coherence and consistency with which these choices have been applied across six decades, the deliberate refusal to chase fashions (no micro-oxygenation gadgets, no rotary fermenters, no flashy amphora experiments), and the philosophical conviction that the winemaker's job is transparency, not transformation.

Earning critical acclaim

Fèlsina’s vindication came gradually. Through the decades, the estate’s reputation and wine quality developed under the watchful and dedicated Mazzocolin. Formerly a lecturer of Latin and Greek philosophy, Mazzocolin married into the winemaking family and became one of the most respected and articulate advocates for traditional Tuscan wine identity. In 1983, Mazzocolin proposed a collaboration with a young consultant oenologist from Veneto by the name of Franco Bernabei – this partnership would last four decades.

Despite being in his mid-twenties and not looking the part – he sported long unruly hair and was known to love playing the electric guitar and Jimi Hendrix-inspired riffs – Bernabei’s knowledge of Sangiovese was unparalleled. Bernabei belonged to the second wave of technically trained Tuscan oenologists, following Giacomo Tachis (who had worked with Bordeaux's Emile Peynaud and on Sassicaia for Antinori). This cohort brought a better scientific understanding and a single-minded focus on quality through increasing vine spacing, selecting better clones and rootstocks, replacing cement and fibreglass-lined tanks with stainless steel, developing improved techniques to extract colour and flavour from Sangiovese, and eliminating white grapes from the Chianti Classico blend – very much aligned with Fèlsina’s approach.

 

Oenologist Franco Bernabei, who advised the estate for over 40 years.

 

The impact of the estate’s work with Bernabei was twofold.

First, Bernabei helped replant many of the vineyards and completely renovated the winemaking facilities. Fèlsina initiated a programme of massal selection in 1983 that allowed the estate to preserve a patrimony of different Sangiovese sub-varieties cultivated on the property through lengthy efforts and much research – this required identifying, propagating, and protecting the genetic diversity already living in its oldest vineyards. This move was prescient. By the 2020s, massal selection would become a mark of prestige across Tuscany and Burgundy alike, but in 1983 it was unglamorous, painstaking work that would take years to show results.

Second, Bernabei introduced controlled extraction techniques suited to Sangiovese's particular challenges. Sangiovese, like Nebbiolo and Pinot Noir, is fundamentally different from Cabernet or Merlot in that it is far more difficult to extract tannin and colour from it. The grape's thin skins and high acidity demand precise temperature control, calibrated maceration lengths, and careful management of punchdowns and pumpovers to avoid either under-extraction (producing pale, thin wines) or over-extraction (producing harsh, astringent ones). The graduated maceration protocol, which continues to be used at Fèlsina today (as mentioned above), bears Bernabei's fingerprint. So does the estate's deliberate, measured approach to French oak barriques, which Bernabei introduced for the prestige wines while insisting on Slavonian oak for the everyday range.

It was under Bernabei that Fèlsina would release two of its flagship wines that would define its identity for the first time in 1983. Fontalloro and Rancia, both debuting with the 1983 vintage, were conceived as complementary expressions of the same grape from different terroirs: Fontalloro drawing from vineyards straddling the Classico/Colli Senesi border for breadth and warmth, Rancia from a single high-altitude site on galestro and alberese for mineral precision. The decision to create two distinct prestige cuvées from 100% Sangiovese, rather than a single flagship blended with Cabernet (as Tignanello had done for instance), was the move that set Fèlsina apart. It committed the estate to a philosophy of site expression over varietal blending at the exact moment the market was rewarding the opposite.

 

 

So as the wine world's pendulum swung back toward authenticity, site expression, and indigenous varieties in the 2000s and 2010s, Fèlsina's decades of consistency became valued. Wine merchants and critics today widely regard Fèlsina’s flagship Fontalloro and Rancia as among the best-value wines in all of Tuscany, offering a better price-to-quality ratio than Super Tuscan labels like Masseto and Sassicaia.

The vocabulary often clusters around mineral, earth, tobacco, iron, sanguine, dried herb, and Tuscan scrub – terroir-focused descriptors rather than winemaking ones. The oak is integrated rather than dominant, the fruit dark and soil-inflected rather than sweet or primary. This aligns with Mazzocolin's philosophy of showing "more of the soil than of the cellar.”

 

CEO and second generation owner Giovanni Poggiali (Source: Colin Dutton)

 

Since around 2011, Giovanni Poggiali – the eldest of Giuseppe Mazzocolin and Gloria Poggiali's children, and grandson to Domenico – has led Fèlsina as CEO. He first joined the business in 1990, where he continued the work of vineyard replanting using the estate's proprietary massal selections, as well as introducing stainless steel vinification technology. In 2015, he even opened a craft brewery at Fèlsina producing Italian Grape Ales.

Tasting Fèlsina’s Wines

We recently had the pleasure of tasting a selection of Fèlsina’s Chianti wines at a pairing dinner at Sophia Restaurant at The St Regis Singapore – these same amazing wines are available for purchase from fine wine retailer Wine Clique!

Fèlsina’s portfolio spans across a core range of 100% Sangiovese expressions that ascend from everyday drinking wines to wines suited for decades-long cellaring. Our tasting focused on the core range of pure Sangiovese expressions that demonstrated Fèlsina's hierarchy with unusual clarity.

 

Wine Review: Fèlsina Berardenga Chianti Colli Senesi 2022 (Chianti DOCG)

We started with the most drinkable gateway. This is sourced from estate vineyards just outside the Chianti Classico boundary from the Colli Senesi side where soils are sandier and warmer.

 

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Medium ruby.

Nose: Immediately open and very aromatic. Opens with blackcurrants and blackberries, followed by dark cherries and ripe plums with a distinct plum-skin note. There's a savoury, slightly grippy edge from the dried herbs sitting underneath. Mint and a faint touch of dark rose petals.

Palate: Medium-bodied, with blackcurrants and dark cherries arriving in a bright, juicy register rather than anything deeply extracted. Tannins are present and moderately grippy but fine and chewy, giving the wine a prominent structural frame. A gentle warmth carries the fruit through the mid-palate. It stays balanced throughout, with the fruit and bright acidity working in easy proportion.

Finish: Long with a gentle, balanced oakiness coming through with a clean sweetness, and more cherry fruit lingers at the end. Soft dried-herb notes return briefly, and the tannins fade to a light, chalky dryness that keeps the close fresh.

My Thoughts:

This is generous, uncomplicated and instantly pleasurable. It works almost as a palate-calibration exercise for the dinner and the rest of the Fèlsina range: bright cherry and currant fruits, medium body, fine soft tannins, playful acidity. It is simply fresh, open and very drinkable, exactly what a daily Sangiovese from warmer Colli Senesi soils should be.

  

Wine Review: Fèlsina Fontalloro 2020 (Toscana IGT)

Next up, we have the very unique Fontalloro – the estate’s co-flagship alongside the Rancia (which we will taste later). It is classified as IGT Toscana – the same classification used by Super Tuscans – but for a reason that has nothing to do with international varieties.

Its vineyard sources deliberately straddle the border between Chianti Classico and Chianti Colli Senesi, drawing from both the stony, calcareous Classico-side vineyards and the sandy, marine-sediment-rich Colli Senesi soils. This means it can never legally carry the Chianti Classico DOCG designation. It is said to be made from vines over 50 years old, fermented 16–20 days, then aged 18–22 months in new and first-use French barriques.

 

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Ruby-garnet.

Nose: Darker, more brooding and deeper than the Colli Senesi. Plums and raspberries sit alongside pomegranate in a mix of polished dark and red fruit. There is a savoury, aromatic layer of dried herbs, mint and liquorice that builds steadily, joined by bergamot, cedar and tobacco leaves. A touch of lavender in the background. With time in the glass, a faint iron-like note emerges from beneath the cedar.

Palate: The initial impression is serious and structured. Dark cherries, blackberries and blueberries make up the core, with chewy tannins gripping. There is a real tension between the dark, rich fruit and a cooler backbone of mint and liquorice running through the middle. The initial broodiness softens slightly after sitting in the glass for a while, as the wine opens up to reveal more red apple and pomegranate.

Finish: Long, with tangy dark fruits persisting alongside earthy, shrubby notes and dark oak. A dried-rosemary savouriness and faint leather quality thread through the tail with a wet rock mineral tone surfacing at the very end.

My Thoughts:

This pivots sharply into something richer, more brooding and more enveloping. It comes across as a serious, structured Sangiovese with a savoury, slightly rustic Tuscan edge that separates it from a typical straight Chianti Classico.

While it still feels like it would benefit from more years in the cellar as it is designed to be, it is already beginning to show what makes Fontalloro distinctive: the Classico-side minerality emerging in the finish, the Colli Senesi warmth filling out the palate once the wine has had time to open. You can sense the two sides meeting in a wine of lavender, plum and orchard fruits.

 

Wine Review: Fèlsina Berardenga Chianti Classico Riserva 2020 (Chianti Classico DOCG)

The Berardenga Chianti Classico Riserva is a step up from the Chianti Colli Senesi, made from vines averaging 30 years of age across the estate's Chianti Classico vineyards, fermented in stainless steel for 12–15 days, then aged in Slavonian oak vats with a small proportion of used French barrels.

 

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Deep ruby.

Nose: Immediately open, charming and generous. Cherry and plum coming through with real clarity of fruit, lifted by a lively acidity. Light agarwood notes add a subtle aromatic layer, and there is just a touch of lavender florals. A clean mineral quality sits beneath everything. As the wine breathes we get a hint of dried orange peel.

Palate: Again, very open and generous. Bright cherries and raspberries arrive in a lush, crunchy red-fruit profile, supported by balanced, bright acidity. The tannins are soft and well-integrated. A line of minerality runs underneath the fruit giving the wine a grounded quality.

Finish: Moderately long. Light crushed strawberry notes lead into liquorice and rosemary, with a touch of tobacco and chocolate surfacing towards the end. Tannins close with a gentle, powdery grip, and warm spice continues to linger after the fruit fades.

My Thoughts:

This is the most open and immediately charming of the first three wines. It drinks easily but carries noticeably more density and fruit concentration than the Colli Senesi, and the aromatic oak extraction shows more clearly towards the finish. What I find interesting is that you begin to sense the alberese and galestro soils doing their work here. There is a mineral undertow beneath the fruit that the entry wine simply does not have. It sits in a satisfying middle ground, offering pleasure and drinkability now while hinting at some cellaring potential.

 

Wine Review: Fèlsina Colonia Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2019 (Chianti Classico DOCG)

While the Fontalloro and Rancia are the icons of the estate, this more modern creation represents the rarest of the estate.

In the mid-1980s, Giovanni Poggiali identified a rocky limestone plateau at the very summit of Poggio a Rancia – above even the Rancia vineyard – with extraordinary potential. The brown-red soils here, rich in magnesium and iron, are unlike anything else at Fèlsina. However, the soil was so rocky that cultivation required dynamite, which was banned in Italy during the Brigate Rosse period.

 

The hill of Poggio a Rancia.

 

Giovanni restarted the project in 1991, completing planting in 1993 alongside his father and grandfather Domenico – giving the vineyard three-generational symbolic weight. The first harvest came in 1997; the first bottled vintage was 2006.

Just 3,000 numbered bottles are produced per vintage, aged 30 months in new French barriques followed by 8–12 months in glass.

 

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Ruby-garnet.

Nose: Great fruit concentration with bright cherries, wild berries and other red fruit, including a distinct note of crushed frozen raspberries. A silky floral quality weaves through the fruit. Rosemary appears alongside crushed slate and a graphite, pencil-lead minerality that sets this apart immediately. There is a faint ferrous, blood-orange quality.

Palate: The texture is fine-grained and almost chalky. Red fruits open the palate: cherries, cranberries and blood orange, moving into soft oakiness, cacao, tobacco and agarwood. The structure is very well built, with oak and tannins evident but thoroughly resolved. A distinctive wet-rock minerality comes through clearly in the mid-palate.

Finish: Soft spices and soft tannins carry the wine out, with toffee and fading red fruits joined by a savoury, leafy layer of sundried tomato, basil and rosemary.

My Thoughts:

This is very polished. The tannins are present but fine-grained, and the overall impression is one of elegance rather than power. It is built for development, and the flavours are still a little tight and shy at this stage. Yet even at this age it is clearly very different from the rest of the range. Where the entry wines lead with generous fruitiness, the Colonia leads with precision in its tannin control, finesse in its aromatic profile and a very distinctive mineral signature from that rocky limestone plateau – and even that faint ferrous quality which seems influenced by the iron-rich soils.

This is intense and structural, and I think it will reward another decade of patience. Even in its relative youth, the signatures here are already interesting and distinctive and quite drinkable!

  

Wine Review: Fèlsina Rancia Chianti Classico Riserva 2019 (Chianti Classico DOCG)

This is the estate’s icon wine and perhaps the most revered single-vineyard Sangiovese bottling in Italy.

Named for the Poggio a Rancia vineyard – a 6.25-hectare site at 400–420 meters on alberese and galestro soils, adjacent to a former Benedictine monastery – Rancia receives extended 16–20-day maceration followed by 18–20 months in new French oak barriques.

 

Tasting Notes

Appearance: Deep ruby.

Nose: Heady intensity of polished dark fruits – cassia, blackberries, plums, and a mix of dried fruit notes. Rich herbaceous tones particularly thyme, alongside rose and potpourri. There’s also a distinctive dusty mineral character of powdered stone, chalk dust and crushed clay threading through the aroma.

Palate: Plush and immediately polished. Cassia, blackberries, dark cherries and plums form a dense core of black fruit, with some beetroot-like earthy-sweetness underneath. The tannins are silky and well-resolved. Slight pepper and spice warmth builds on the back of the throat, and the acidity has been softened and rounded by what appears to be a malolactic fermentation effect. There is a sanguine, almost iron-tinged quality to the fruit.

Finish: Clean and herbal, with fading dark fruits, liquorice, mint and a shrubby, scrubland quality. Smooth tannins persist at the end, closing on a clean mineral edge of powdered clay and wet rocks. There’s a trace of dried thyme and cold ash carrying the finish out.

My Thoughts:

This is the most layered and textural wine of the entire selection and my favourite. It is balanced, tactile, with a mineral and earthy profile that feels firmly site-marked rather than overtly fruity. Compared to the co-flagship Fontalloro which seems to have more dimensions, the Rancia feels more committed and focused: ripe fruit is present, but it is anchored by a firmer, more mineral structure, with the dusty mineral character, the iron note, the herbal precision.

Tasting the Fontalloro and Rancia in a flight is such a convincing demonstration that Sangiovese can rival Nebbiolo for site transparency in its aromatic and mineral register. It is already drinkable, but this feels like a wine built for many more years, and I suspect it would really open up given another five years or so in the cellar.

 

 

P.S.: These Fèlsina wines will be available by the glass or by the bottle at Sophia Restaurant until the end of this month. They are also available for purchase from fine wine retailer Wine Clique. 

 

@CharsiuCharlie