Set in the enchanted countryside of Chianti Classico, just a few minutes from the borgo of San Gusmè, Pagliarese is a historic wine producer in Castelnuovo Berardenga, the southernmost town in the Chianti Classico zone, where the wide expanses of landscape are characterised by gently-rolling hills chequered by vineyards, woods, centuries-old olive groves and other crops.
The ancient rural estate once belonged to the Pagliarese family, which gave magistrates and administrators to the Republic of Siena from the mid-1200s on.
Between the 1970s and the mid-1980s, Pagliarese was one of the most highly-respected wineries in Chianti Classico, famous for its philosophy of producing wines solidly within local traditions and from the native local grape varieties, thanks in no small way to the work of Giulio Gambelli. It was in those very years that the legendary Chianti Classico Pagliarese appeared.
In the early 1990s, the winery stopped making wine with its own label. In 1995, the Poggiali family purchased the property, the vineyards, and the winecellar, with the idea of a possible re-launch of the brand in the future.
Then began the project of recovering the oldest vineyards and re-planting, utilising massal selection from the oldest estate vineyards.
With the 2015 harvest, following painstaking work in the vineyards and a series of micro-vinifications, the first vintage of the modern-era Pagliarese was botted, a wine that exhibits the pleasurableness classic to the Chianti Classicos of that zone, and bearing a respectful re-styling of the classic label.
Today, Pagliarese extends over some 60 hectares, of which about 30 are planted to vines, 10 to olives, and the remaining 30 largely to woods.
The vineyards, oriented almost exclusively south-southwest at elevations of 300-390 metres, face the well-ventilated slopes of the Colle del Montecucco and are surrounded by dense wooded vegetation, including pedunculate and holm oak, and a rich understory of shrub, strawberry bush, and broom. These factors, combined with the variety of soils present at Pagliarese, which feature an alternation of layered sands, alluvial pebble, rock, and clay, contribute to the remarkably distinctive wines of Pagliarese.
Pagliarese’s current production includes a Bianco and a Rosato, Chianti Classico and Chianti Classico Riserva, wines intimately reflecting both their individual terroirs and the growing area to which they belong, through the embodiment of their constituent native grapes. Sangiovese, which plays the main role in the cuvée, is complemented with modest amounts of Canaiolo and the now-rare Mammolo.
The relationship of these wines to the growing area and to its winegrowing traditions is evident in the choice of vinification procedures aimed at privileging elegance over structure, through avoidance of overly-long macerations, and maturation in medium-size Slavonian oak ovals.
Pagliarese represents a “recovery of the old style,” and of one of Tuscany’s never-forgotten treasures, a wine that the Poggiali family intends to restore to its many admirers, thus passing down its history to new generations.
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