Castello di Monsanto Chianti Classico 2021

There is a strong argument that without Castello di Monsanto, Chianti Classico as we know it today would not exist. Aldo Bianchi acquired the 18th-century estate in 1961 and presented it to his son Fabrizio as a wedding gift, and what Fabrizio did with it over the following decades effectively rewrote the rules of the appellation. In 1962 he bottled a Chianti Classico Riserva from a single vineyard, Il Poggio, for the first time in the appellation's history, introducing a concept of cru thinking that Chianti would spend the next three decades catching up to. In 1968, well ahead of any regulatory mandate, he stripped white grapes from the blend entirely, a decision that anticipated the Sangiovese-first philosophy that now defines the appellation's finest wines. In 1982 he planted Cabernet Sauvignon in the Il Mulino vineyard, producing Nemo, a pure varietal Super Tuscan named with knowing irony from the Latin phrase for "no man is a prophet in his own land." The estate has been led since 1989 by Fabrizio's daughter Laura Bianchi, who has maintained the estate's unwavering commitment to terroir and longevity across 72 hectares of vineyards in Barberino Val d'Elsa, farmed organically on galestro soils. Beneath the estate runs a 300-meter underground tunnel cellar hand-dug between 1986 and 1992 using medieval arch techniques, housing one of Italy's largest private wine archives with 2,500 to 3,000 bottles preserved from every vintage dating back to 1962. These are wines built for the cellar, exactly as they have always been.