Selvapiana Vin Santo del Chianti Rufina 2018 (50cl)
£42.75
The wine
Deep amber in colour, with dried fruits on the nose. Intense, rich and luscious on the palate, the sweetness held in check by good acidity and real concentration, closing long and fresh.
Rufina is the smallest zone in Chianti at around a thousand hectares, and the cool breeze running down the Sieve Valley gives its best wines a finesse few in Chianti Classico can match. Selvapiana has been in the Giuntini family since 1827 and is now run by Federico Giuntini Masseti, from an estate of 245 hectares north of Pontassieve, of which 60 are under vine and 22 are olive groves. The Trebbiano for this Vin Santo comes from a two-hectare north-east facing vineyard at 200 metres, planted at 3,200 vines per hectare. 2018 gave an early bud break, a rainy May and a warm summer with scattered rain, then a sunny September with a marked day-to-night swing that brought the fruit to full phenolic and aromatic ripeness. This is the 50cl bottle.
The producer
Selvapiana
View all Selvapiana winesSelvapiana is the benchmark estate of Chianti Rufina, the small, cool, high-altitude zone east of Florence that produces some of the most elegant and age-worthy expressions of Sangiovese in Tuscany. The estate has been a standard-bearer for the region for generations.
Farmed with great care on hillside sites, the vineyards benefit from cool nights and a long growing season that give the wines their freshness, perfume and fine structure. The winemaking is classical, honouring site and vintage.
The range runs from the pure, vibrant Chianti Rufina to the celebrated single-vineyard Bucerchiale Riserva and Vigneto Erchi, wines of real depth and longevity.
Elegant, structured and remarkably age-worthy, Selvapiana proves that Chianti Rufina belongs among the finest Sangiovese in Italy.
