Sangiovese: The Incongruous
Learn About Sangiovese
You have been replaced Sangiovese. With better vines of Sangiovese! And then you have been replaced once again by more variants. You are a finicky and demanding grape, Sangiovese and due to your various plantings in various microclimates you take on the characteristics of your surroundings and practically reinvent yourself in every situation. For this reason you are an anomaly.
Once watery and acidic you have transformed yourself into a fragrant fruit-forward red wine with soft tannins and a complex mid-palate. You come off low in extract but you capture sincere rustic flavors in an amalgamation of herbs, baked earth and dried fruit.
You are marked by your gravelly tannins and your pronounced acidity, but your red wines have that distinctive dried orange peel aroma common of wine grapes grown in the Mediterranean.
Chalky soils is where you excel, Sangiovese, and in calcium-rich soils at that. Your yields are low but you produce high quality berries. And because they aren’t pigment heavy, you are prone to oxidation. This lends to orange highlights in your red wines, similar to the color of rust.
Although your name means ‘Blood of Jupiter’, you are not a hearty red wine at all like one would expect. In fact in Tuscany where you have been made most famous, your Chianti can be watery and ascetic. But move into the territory of Super Tuscan wines, where you make up 100% of Chianti Classico, you are richer, more mouthfilling.
Other of your clones, like Prunello, are used to produce the great wines of Vino Nobile de Montepulciano and are named so due to your purple or prune colored skin, Prugna meaning prune. And Brunello used to make Brunello di Montalcino and Rosso di Montalcino, two noted Italian red wines, which derive their names from brun and brunello; brown and little brown one, respectively.
Your more distinguishing properties, Sangiovese, are your pronounced acidity with moderate tannins. You are fruity and can be medium-bodied with a firm and assertive finish in the bitter range. One might pick up strawberry or plum on the nose and lots of earthy characters.
For all your troublesome temperament, Sangiovese, you have proven over time to be a red wine worth promise but there’s still some work to be done to fine tune your variations to produce a consistent red wine. But how can you argue with centuries of production and being world-renowned as the single greatest grape in Tuscany.
Varietal Styles
- No Particular Style
- Herbal, Earthy
- Raisins, Orange Peel
- Ascetic
- Light- to Medium-Bodied
- Spice, Pepper
- Elegant to Bitter Finish
- Low Extract
Grape Styles
Sour Cherry | Dried Cherry | Black Cherry | Dried Orange Peel | Thyme | Licorice | Chocolate | Toast | Spice | Clove | Wood | Char | Leather | Sun-baked Earth | Mushrooms | Soy
Posted in Wine Varieties
