WINE OF THE WEEK: Vignamaggio Terre di Prenzano Chianti Classico 2022, Chianti, Italy
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
£17.55–£19.75, The Wine List, Vinvm, Corney & Barrow, Hic!
Chianti is a wine I can drink anytime. The best of times, the worst of times, high days, holidays and down days, count me in.
It doesn’t have to be Chianti Classico. I’m also very keen on Chianti from the smaller, cooler, more rugged Rufina DOCG, but this wine, Vignamaggio's Terre di Prenzano, is a Chianti Classico – and one from the heart of the Classico zone between the towns of Greve and Panzano.
If I had to sum up Vignamaggio Terre di Prenzano 2022 in one word it would be harmony. Fortunately I can take a few more words to describe it in greater detail and, I hope, more helpfully.
The 2022 is softly spicy and fragrant with open, sweet, cherry-ish fruit, a wisp of vanilla spiciness, supple background tannins and a gentle, refreshing, blood-orange tang. It’s from a very hot, dry vintage and you can taste the sunshine in the fruit but, crucially, there’s freshness there too. And harmony.
Prenzano is the highest area within the historic heart of the Vignamaggio vineyards and it’s an all-Sangiovese Chianti from certified-organic vineyards with an average age of 20 years.
It was matured in a mix of large barrels from Italy, Austria and France and French barriques divided more or less equally between new, second-use and older. But there is no set winemaking formula. Cellar master Lucia Minoggio says the last normal vintage they had was 2016, so each year they adapt to the particular weather conditions and each vineyard plot.
The 65ha of vines are part of the 400-ha Vignamaggio estate where wine has been made for more than 600 years. There’s documentary evidence of production dating back to 1404 and the current winemaking premises date back to the 1400s.
The rest of the estate is centuries-old forest, olive groves, cereal fields, vegetable gardens, orchards, land for breeding Cinta Senese pigs and for sheep, an experimental vineyard and a nursery propagating massal-selected vines. It’s all part of a project called Gran Giardino, a vision of biodiversity and complete agricultural self-sufficiency.
Claim to fame: the villa was built by the aristocratic Gherardini family, one of whom, Lisa Gherardini, was the subject of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona (or Monna) Lisa of 1503, which is why Vignamaggio’s top wine, its Gran Selezione Chianti Classico, is named Monna Lisa. I did an impressive six-vintage vertical tasting of it two years ago.
Back to this week’s wine. One of the reasons I like Chianti is that it’s so at ease with food. Vignamaggio Terre di Prenzano Chianti Classico 2022 is comfortable with red meat, as well as lighter meats, duck and quail, with vegetables and pulses, cooked tomato and pasta dishes, hard cheeses and slightly challenging dishes such as grilled radicchio with balsamic vinegar and Gorgonzola Dolce and pastrami with mustard and pickles. Recently I enjoyed it with octopus and black rice and I plan to try it with tuna steaks. 14%. Empty bottle weight: 403g.
Vignamaggio Terre di Prenzano Chianti Classico 2022, Chianti, Tuscany, Italy
£17.55–£19.75, The Wine List, Vinvm, Corney & Barrow, Hic!
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