The Liquid Soul of Tuscany:
Why Sangiovese Is Different

Sangiovese is not a single grape. It is a family of grapes that humanity has cultivated, selected and crossed for two thousand years. Understanding that completely changes how you work with it.

Thirty years working with Sangiovese have taught me that it is the most honest variety there is. It forgives no mistakes — neither in the vineyard nor in the cellar. But when it is worked well, it produces wines of a complexity that no international variety can match in this territory.

Why? I need to talk about genetics, soil and altitude. They are the three pillars.

The question of the clone

Sangiovese has exceptional internal genetic variability. When we say "Sangiovese" we are using a name that groups together hundreds of distinct biotypes — populations with different genetics that produce profoundly different wines. Brunello di Montalcino and Chianti Classico are both Sangiovese, yet it is hard to imagine two more different wines.

For fifteen years I catalogued 133 native Sangiovese biotypes in Val d'Orcia. Each has its own characteristics: berry size, skin thickness, anthocyanin concentration — the pigments that give color — precursor aromatic profile. What this means in practice is that choosing the right clone for each plot — according to its soil, its exposure, its altitude — is as important as any later oenological decision.

In Oria's vineyards we use a massal selection — not a single certified nursery clone, but a blend of biotypes selected from the genetic material of the territory itself. The result is a wine of greater complexity than any monoclone can produce.

Galestro: the soil that gives tension

The Sangiovese of Val d'Orcia has a characteristic that distinguishes it from all Sangiovese produced in other areas: tension. It is that sensation on the palate of a lively acidity that never tires, of a minerality that is not an abstraction but something tangible. That tension comes from galestro.

Galestro is an aleuritic schist — a sedimentary rock composed of very fine particles of quartz, mica and clay — that fragments into irregular sheets. It has three properties that are the dream of any winegrower.

First: it drains perfectly. Galestro does not retain excess water. The vine must seek water at depth, which forces it to develop long roots that reach cooler, more mineral layers of the subsoil. Second: it heats and cools rapidly. During the day, galestro accumulates heat and radiates it toward the clusters. At night, it loses that heat quickly, which helps preserve the grape's natural acidity. Third: it has a slightly acidic pH that transmits to the wine an unmistakable mineral character.

Altitude: the secret of freshness

Oria's vineyards lie between 500 and 620 meters above sea level. That may seem little to anyone who knows the Alps or the Pyrenees, but in the context of Tuscan viticulture it is significant.

At 600 meters in Val d'Orcia, the average temperature in August — the critical month for skin ripening — is 3-4°C lower than on the valley floor. That difference is what separates a Sangiovese with ripe skins but no over-extraction — with stable anthocyanins and fine aromas — from a Sangiovese that has ripened too quickly and lost its aromatic freshness.

Freshness is the most difficult ingredient to achieve in modern Sangiovese. Global warming is pushing ripening earlier. Our altitude is partly an insurance against that risk.

Why time in the glass

The great Sangiovese of Val d'Orcia does not reveal itself immediately. The best Brunello and the best Rosso di Montalcino need time in the glass to open up. Sangiovese's tannins are fine in structure but abundant — not the harshness of young Cabernet, but something more silky that may initially seem closed.

What emerges with time is what justifies the wait: an aromatic complexity of ripe cherry, violet, damp earth, aromatic herb, and that mineral base of galestro that gives the wine its signature note. It is a wine that requires patience to give the best of itself. Exactly like the territory that produces it.

"The perfect Sangiovese is the one that, twenty minutes after being poured, is still changing in your glass. A wine that is finished before it has opened is a wine that did not give all it had." — Roberto Cipresso