Hi Everyone,
I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying summer and all that comes with us (although saying that, it’s actually raining right now, typical British summer eh).
*Disclaimer – this is a collaborative post, all words and opinions are my own.*
You might have seen that I’ve recently partnered up with a lovely company Independent Wine – who are a specialist importer of award winning, boutique fine Italian wine. They work directly with Stir wine producers, cutting out the middleman and many of the bottles they stock are actually exclusive to the U.K. I feel very lucky to be working with them.
A couple of weeks ago I featured the La Castellina – Squarcialupi 2017 | Chianti Classico DOCG in my Father’s Day gift guide. Both my partner Reuben and I enjoyed a few glasses of it and we also used it to make a delicious red wine sauce that we served with my birthday dinner.
I’ve been learning more and more about the wine since reviewing it and find the process of how it’s made so intriguing. I find it particularly interesting how and where the different notes and flavours come from.
Independent wine have their own blog on their website which is packed full of information about the wines they import. They really go into depth about their wines, where the grapes are grown in order to make the wine and how they are made.
When I look at a bottle of wine and it says it has a zingy cherry flavour such as the Chianti Classico, I had always assumed they had added it to the wine. I was surprised to found out that a lot of the flavours and notes come from how the grapes are grown, how cold or hot the climate is and the type of soil it is grown in.
The village of Castellina in Chianti sits very high on a mountain, a staggering 580ft high above sea level. The high altitudes there make the aromas of the wine very intense. I also learned that the soil in the best vineyards that make Chianti Classico are full of stones with a medium clay content.
The soils in this area (Galestro – silt and clay) and (Alberese – limestone and clay) are not very fertile and in these conditions the vine doesn’t produce many leaves and produces a smaller yield of grapes. These red grapes are so much more concentrated in flavour and with less shade than larger leafy canopy’s they ripen very nicely. All of these factors add to the flavour of the wine and are where the Chianti Classico it gets its deliciously zingy cherry flavour from.
I’m really enjoying trying and learning all about these award winning Italian wines. You’ll have to let me know what you think if you try the Chianti Classico.
Laura x