Ficomontanino Ciliegiolo

Profile & Story

Agricola Ficomontanino sits in the hills near the ancient town of Chiusi, in the far south-east of Tuscany where the region meets Umbria and Lazio, on a family property that was once an olive farm and horse retreat until traces of ancient terraced vineyards in the landscape prompted the Gianelli family to bring vines back to the land. Maria Sole Gianelli farms twelve hectares organically and biodynamically at around 350 metres on the south-facing slopes of the estate, looking east to Lake Trasimeno, south to the northern hills of Lazio and north-west to the rolling hills of Siena. Her Ciliegiolo works with an ancient variety indigenous to Tuscany and Umbria that stands in a parent-offspring relationship with the far more widely planted Sangiovese; the fruit is hand-harvested and destemmed, given around ten days on skins, fermented spontaneously on indigenous yeasts in cement and aged a full year in cement with a further six months in bottle, unfined and unfiltered, in a run of some 3,000 bottles.