2017 Fattoria Selvapiana Chianti Rùfina Riserva Bucerchiale

2017 Fattoria Selvapiana Chianti Rùfina Riserva Bucerchiale

2017 Fattoria Selvapiana Chianti Rùfina Riserva Bucerchiale Sangiovese from Chianti,Tuscany,Italy

Winemaker Notes; Bucerchiale is Selvapiana’s flagship wine, a Riserva-level Chianti Rùfina crafted from the grapes of the estate’s best vineyard, Bucerchiale. Francesco Giuntini, working with young winemaker Franco Bernabei on his second vintage at Selvapiana, created this special wine to be a long-aging benchmark of the best of Rùfina’s and Selvapiana’s Sangiovese. The wine is not a blend, as is normal with Chianti, but rather is pure Sangiovese to show that variety without any adornment by other blending components. First produced in 1979, Bucerchiale is made in only the best vintages, seven or eight times per decade.

Sangiovese (or Nielluccio in Corsica), a dark-berried vine, is the most widely planted grape variety in Italy. Virtually synonymous with the red wines of Tuscany, and all the romanticism that goes with the territory, Sangiovese is the core constituent in some of the great names in Italian wine. Italy’s love affair with Sangiovese – and indeed the world’s – is generations old, though recent grapevine research suggests the variety is not as ancient as once thought.

Chianti Rufina is the most famous of the seven subzones that fall under Italy’s iconic Chianti DOCG. The area, in the hills to the east of Florence, has a more continental climate and higher altitude that makes a Sangiovese-based wine in possession of good tannins and acidity: closer in style to the prestigious Chianti Classico DOCG than its contemporaries.The area, along with Montespertoli southwest of Florence, is one of the smallest of the subzones in Chianti. It covers land around the small town of Rufina on the banks of the Sieve river, in the foothills of the Apennines mountains.

Selvapiana, located in the heart of the Chianti Rufina area of Tuscany, was founded by the Giuntini family in 1827, and is managed today by Silvia and Federico Giuntini Masseti. It is a typical Tuscan estate consisting of the owner’s villa, cellars and other historic buildings — now no longer used — including an oil mill, granary and joiner’s workshop.