La Mozza Aragone Maremma Toscana 2018

Profile & Story

La Mozza is the Bastianich family's Maremma estate in southern Tuscany, and the label reads La Mozza, Bastianich Estates. It sits in the heart of the wildest Maremma, 36 hectares of which 16 are vineyard, all within the municipality of Magliano in Toscana, an almost uncontaminated stretch of pasture, arable land and forest where wild animals still roam. The dry climate and intense sunlight let the grapes ripen from early morning to sunset, while constant breezes and the lack of rain concentrate the fruit. Aragone is the estate's top red, made in a region famous for Super Tuscans and Bordeaux varieties but built the other way round, mixing native Sangiovese with Mediterranean grapes to give what the estate calls a Super-Med. The name recalls the Aragonese of Spain, who ruled the Maremma in the 1500s. About 10,000 bottles are made each year from the Montiano vineyard at 300 metres. The fruit is hand-harvested in the cool of the early morning, fermented partly in temperature-controlled steel and partly in open 500-litre tonneaux with manual punch-downs and daily pump-overs across roughly thirty days of maceration, then aged eighteen months in French oak barriques and tonneaux, a quarter of them new, and at least twelve months in bottle before release.

Pairing Recommendation

A perfect foil for grilled meat, it also pairs well with roasts in which spices and sauces abound and with seasoned, intense cheeses, and it is not to be missed alongside a classic Tuscan cigar.