Sfera Rosso Sangiovese

Sfera Rosso — Sangiovese di Romagna DOC 100% Sangiovese • Romagna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy 

This one's made in collaboration with Fattoria del Monticino Rosso and Giorgio Melandri, off a tiny three-hectare plot up at 350 meters where the soil runs clay and chalk. Hand-picked in September, fermented spontaneously with a pied de cuve, twenty days on the skins, punched down twice a day at the start and then eased off — then six months resting in big old cement tanks before it ever sees a bottle. No new oak anywhere near it. What you get is Sangiovese in its most honest form: bright, a little rustic, built to drink now instead of sitting in a cellar for a decade. This is what Sangiovese tastes like when nobody's trying to dress it up.