Terroir in the Glass: Fonterutoli’s 3 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione

Castello di Fonterutoli’s 3 Gran Selezione, all photos courtesy Taub Family Selections

It’s hard to imagine belonging to a family that can trace its roots back a millennium. The Mazzeis can. I suppose they give new meaning to the label millennials.

The Mazzei family has always been linked with wine. They started out in the 11th century as coopers in Tuscany (their surname comes from mazza, meaning mallet or hammer). In 1398, Ser Lapo Mazzei penned the first extant document mentioning Chianti wine. A few centuries later, his descedent Philip Mazzei was pals with Thomas Jefferson and shipped vines to Monticello. He even came up with a rough draft for the phrase “all men are created equal” that Jefferson used in the Declaration of Independence. [For more about Philip and his eponymous cabernet, see my article “Meet Philip Mazzei.”] 

That’s all well and good. But what we most love about the Mazzeis is their Chianti Classico.

The village of Fonterutoli, photo by Daniela Marchi

Since a fortuitous marriage in 1435, the family enterprise has been based in Fonterutoli, a tiny hamlet in the heart of the Chianti Classico zone. It’s a picture-book borgo, with medieval stone houses and heavy wooden doors, climbing wisteria and cobblestone streets. Their winery there, called Castello di Fonterutoli, is headquarters for what’s now a mini wine empire, as the family also own wineries in Prosecco country (Villa Marcello), on Tuscany’s Maremma coast (Belguardo), and on the southeastern tip of Sicily (Zisolo).

Giovanni Mazzei, the 25th generation

Sitting before me on a Zoom screen is Giovanni Mazzei, the 25th generation in Fonterutoli. Now export director of Marchesi Mazzei, Giovanni is here to present four wines to journalists: three Chianti Classico Gran Selezione and one Super Tuscan.

What is a Gran Selezione?

The advantage of being among the oldest families in Tuscany is that you own a lot of land. That’s why the Mazzeis are one of the only producers making not one Gran Selezione, but three. Having seven vineyards in three subregions of Chianti gives you that option. Dividing them into 120 plots and vinifying each separately gives you an idea of the precision behind their winemaking.

So, just what is a Gran Selezione? It’s a new premium tier of Chianti Classico created in 2014. Here’s what’s key: All the grapes must be estate grown — meaning no negociant go-betweens, no purchased grapes, just estate-grown grapes, period. Most Gran Selezione wines come from historic vineyards that have stood the test of time.

The category also has greater aging and alcohol requirement: 30 months and 13%. That’s compared to 24 months and 12.5% for Chianti Classico Riserva, and 12 months and 12% for basic Chianti Classico.

That might not sound like a big deal, but for producers, “it’s a game changer,” Giovanni Mazzei attests. He reports that only 5–6% of production in the Chianti Classico DOCG region is classified as Gran Selezione, even six years after the category’s introduction. “It shows it’s really strictly kept for the best.”

But, he adds sagely, “At the end of the day, the rules are not making the wines. It’s how we winemakers envision them.”

What Castello di Fonterutoli is envisioning these days is pure sangiovese that expresses its unique territory. In other words, terroir reflected in the glass — a pretty universal goal among quality producers nowadays. The differences between these three Gran Selezione show that the Mazzeis are on the right track.

3 Gran Selezione

Giovanni Mazzei brings out a map to show us the “beautiful diversity” of their vineyards. As a territory, Chianti Classico is quite large, stretching between the two old rival city states, Florence and Siena. As anyone who’s ever driven in Chianti knows, there’s nary a straight road due to the region’s many interlocking hills. Hills by their very nature mean varying altitudes, soils, and microclimates, and those mean a lot when growing sangiovese, a highly site-specific grape.

“In places like Radda, with more galestro [a friable rock common in Chianti] and higher altitude, your wines wind up being more nervous and more vertical,” Mazzei says. “While instead in Castlenuovo Berardenga, you’ve got wines that are wider and bigger. In Castellina in Chianti, you’ve got more dynamics; the tannins are very silky, with a lot of power.”

Mazzei walks us through the three Gran Selezione, going from highest to lowest altitude.

Badiòla Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2017

This is a brand new wine in the Mazzei portfolio, though Badiòla, the highest vineyard they own, has been around for some time. But over the past 25 years, they’ve noticed that the sangiovese harvested from this plot has an exceptional character, so they started bottling it separately with the 2017 vintage. 

Located in the commune of Radda in Chianti, Badiòla resides at 570 meters (1870 feet). For Chianti, that’s high. Surrounded by thick woods, the vineyard’s microclimate is fresh, windy, and cool. It also gets lots of sun and sees extreme differences between day and nighttime temperatures. “That helps give great aromatics to the wine,” notes Mazzei. So does the altitude. The soil here is quite rocky and full of galestra — like elsewhere in this township, where a common sight is massive boulders piled beside freshly dug vineyards. This rock results in a certain austerity. “I’m a big fan of this type of wine,” says Mazzei, “where you get complexity with this austere character, which is typical of Radda.”

Matured for 16 months in 500-liter tonneaux, 50 percent of which is lightly toasted new oak, this is a fresh, crispy style of Chianti Classico. Tart cherry and red cassis dominate and give it nerve, and the mouth-watering acidity and silky tannins makes it a perfect accompaniment for food.

But growing sangiovese up at this altitude is challenging. Yields tend to be very limited. “Sometimes it’s quite heartbreaking,” Mazzei admits. That was the case in 2017, a vintage where quantity was down throughout Tuscany. There were only enough grapes for 3,000 bottles of Badiòla’s debut.  

Castello Fonterutoli Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2017

This is the estate’s flagship wine. It comes from 11 parcels around the village of Fonterutoli in the commune of Castellina in Chianti. But it’s new in a way, since they changed the recipe with this 2017 vintage. Previously, they’d adhered to a tradional style of Chianti, where sangiovese gets blended with a splash of local grapes, in this case colorino and malvasia nera. Now it’s 100 percent sangiovese.

So are all their Gran Selezione. This puts them on equal footing, so you can truly feel the difference between the vineyards. It’s also the tendency among producers in recent years: making their Chianti Classico a monovarietal wine. They recognize that sangiovese showcases the terroir most transparently — and there’s nothing more unique to sell than a vineyard’s terroir. (Up until 1996, however, a pure sangiovese like this would not have been allowed to be called Chianti Classico, but that’s a story for a different day.)

The 11 Fonterutoli parcels sit at an average of 480 meters (1575 feet). That’s still high, but less so than Badiòla, which means it’s somewhat warmer, which in turn gives riper fruit. Not surprisingly, this Gran Selezione tends more towards bing cherry and black fruit of the woods. It’s richer, but still has the restrained elegance that’s in the Mazzei DNA. This one ages slightly longer in tonneaux (25 months) with a touch more new oak (65%). That wood is well integrated, leaving just a hint of spice and balsa. “Once we reach Fonterutoli,” Mazzei says, “you see this combination of elegance, power, tannins, with a lot of aromatics.”

Vicoregio 36 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2017

This is an old wine with a new name. Until this vintage, it was called Mix 36. That’s in reference to the 36 biotypes of sangiovese that go into it; half are registered clones and half are massal selections propagated from Fonterutoli’s old vines. “We do 36 vinifications, so it’s a helluva job,” Mazzei says.

The Mazzeis have been at the forefront of clonal research on sangiovese, together with the Chianti Classico 2000 project, which spanned 16 years and studied 239 sangiovese clones.

“For the last 50 years, we’ve dedicated ourselves to research to better understand sangiovese. That was started when selecting from vines planted in 1911,” says Mazzei. “From there, we joined our research with Chianti Classico 2000. And we created a nursery project where we worked with 36 subvarietals of sangiovese.”

That nursery lies in the Vicoregio vineyard. As part of their shift towards emphasizing terroir, they’ve incorporated the vineyard name into the wine’s new moniker, Vicoregio 36, underscoring the fact that its grapes are tied to one location. 

That location happens to be in Castelnuovo Berardenga, the southernmost commune in the Chianti Classico zone. It’s just above Siena and shares some of the drier climate and warmer temperatures with Montalcino to the south, where sangiovese takes its most powerful form in Brunello di Montalcino. [For more on the differences between sangiovese in Montalcino and Chianti, see my article “Sangiovese Clones: Why Care?”]

All this adds up to a Gran Selezione that gives the biggest, fruitiest impression of the three. Though still young, it’s immediately inviting, offering ripe red fruit, spice, and an open-weave texture. I happen to love it.

And 1 Supertuscan

Siepi Toscana IGT 2018

I’m also partial to Siepi. This 50/50 blend of merlot and sangiovese comes from the lowest vineyard of today’s wines, called Siepi, which starts at 250 meters (820’) in Castellina in Chianti. The Mazzeis have owned this patch of land since 1435. But in doing research for an anniversary vintage, they discovered that there have been vineyards here since 1461.

“There’s something quite special about merlot in Tuscany,” Mazzei observes. It loves the mix of clay and albarese soil in Chianti, so starting in 1992, the family took advantage and created this velvety blend.

“That was a big fight in the family, because the younger generation wanted to go with 100 percent merlot, and the older generation wanted to go with a good level of sangiovese in the blend. Because no decision could be made, we went for 50/50 sangiovese and merlot,” Mazzei recalls with a laugh. “They’re so complementary. You have the elegance, the brightness, the electricity of the sangiovese with its silky tannins, together with the roundness, the power, the black fruit and black chocolate of the merlot.”

Despite this harmonious marriage, such a blend is uncommon in Tuscany. Mazzei counts on two fingers the other examples: Frescobaldi’s Luce, from its Luce della Vite estate in Montalcino. And 50&50, a collaboration between Avigonesi in Montepulciano and Capannelle in Chianti. 

Is the Super Tuscan category still going strong? “The best are,” Mazzei replies. “But I don’t think there’s space for new Super Tuscans.”

This wine is certainly among the best, with its combination of Tuscan restraint and New World appeal. But all four are worth a spluge. (The suggested retail price for these wines runs from $74 to $130.) Since the holidays are near, there’s no better time to treat yourself to something special.

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