Castello Vicchiomaggio Ripa delle Mandorle 2024
£13.95
The wine
A modern Tuscan style, graceful and complex, with aromas of ripe berry fruit complemented by spice and violet. The palate is smooth and juicy with real depth, closing on ripe fruit and warm savoury notes.
Ripa delle Mandorle means bank of the almond trees. Sangiovese with Cabernet Sauvignon, made without much oak and released young, it is the estate's everyday red. The Cabernet fills out the mid-palate that Sangiovese can leave hollow, a combination that was controversial in Tuscany a generation ago and is now unremarkable.
The producer
Castello Vicchiomaggio
View all Castello Vicchiomaggio winesThe castle traces its origins to the fifth century and was known as Vicchiomaggio by the eleventh, when it belonged to the Ricasoli family. Leonardo da Vinci is recorded as having stayed here. The Matta family bought it in 1964 and restored it, and today farm 32 hectares of vineyard within a 150-hectare estate at Greve in Chianti.
Greve sits at the northern end of Chianti Classico, and the estate's vineyards climb the slopes above the valley on galestro, the crumbly schistous marl that Sangiovese is generally held to prefer. Every parcel has been classified by soil type and exposure, and the whole property is farmed sustainably under VIVA certification, the Italian environment ministry's scheme.
John Matta, who is Anglo-Italian, oversees the winemaking, and the range runs from the everyday Ripa wines through the Chianti Classico tiers to Gran Selezione, the top category introduced in 2014 for estate-grown wines given longer ageing. There is also a Maremma bottling from the Tuscan coast.
