A breathtaking view, friendly people and elite wines are all things you can expect when visiting Castellare di Castellina on any Chianti, Tuscany Wine Tours.
Quick Info:
- Cost: $15 per person for Wine Tour + Tasting of 3 wines
- Time: 1-2 hours depending on you (could easily squeeze in for an hour)
- Phone: +39 0577 742903
- Email: [email protected]
Some pictures to give you a teaser of the tour:
Driving through Tuscany is exactly like you see in the movies. It’s rolling hills full of vines, stone houses, and tall Cyprus trees.
The roads are skinny and winding, so you have to keep your eyes peeled, but mostly it’s a lot of fun to drive.
The drive into Castellare di Castellina was more of the same with never ending views around every turn.
Pulling into the winery we saw lots of cars, but the only thing we were greeted with was another view.
I gave Jonas a call and he came flying around the corner a few minutes later. He quickly apologized and explained that they are harvesting today so everyone is knee-deep in grapes!
Jonas explained that they harvest everything by hand so there are lots of cars, but everyone is out in the vineyard nearby.
Castellare Di Castellina – History
Under a huge tree overlooking the vineyard, Jonas gave us a brief history of the estate.
Castellare di Castellina was born during the Super Tuscan era and is one of four sister winery estates within Italy.
Paolo Panerai, a Finance guru working in Milan, has always loved wine, but acknowledged the declining quality of Tuscan wine back in the ’70s.
He set out to rectify this by purchasing the estate with his mind set on creating amazing wines once again in Tuscany.
It started with a focus in the vineyard, carefully planning the best spots for the vines in what he calls “sodi” or “hard soils”, which are thought to be best for the Sangiovese grape variety that is native to Tuscany.
Despite the Super Tuscans taking the country and world by storm, Castellare di Castellina kept tradition by continuing the Chianti Classico recipe.
The goal was to prove the grapes and the original recipe didn’t come from nowhere and that the recipe can make truly remarkable wine.
To do this Castellare di Castellina teamed up with Professor Attilio Scienza from the University of Milan to find the best clones of Sangiovese for their carefully selected vineyard locations.
Studious planning to ensure high quality grapes in the best locations left them to focus on mastering winemaking to complete what they see as the trifecta for quality wine.
To do this they worked with Emile Peynaud, an expert oenologist, to painstakingly perfect their winemaking methodology.
All of this seemed to pay off because today their Chianti Classico wines are celebrated globally as potentially one of the best red wines.
All of this work is considered a tribute to the original owners of the land, the Mezzadri people, who shaped the land they work today.
The original structures from the Mezzadri people still exist on the land today and have been minimally renovated to house some of the Panerai family.
The classic Tuscan stone houses are a tribute to the former people and fit the landscape so perfectly that Ana and I started checking real estate listings.
After this storybook history of Castellare di Castellina, we moved on to my favourite part, the cellar and winemaking area.
Cellar & Winemaking
Heading into the cellar you’ll pass the Vin Santo attic cellar. This is a staple in the region and you’ll be sure to try it on any Chianti, Tuscany Wine Tours.
Vin Santo is an Italian dessert wine that has a very unique process:
- You pick the grapes late so they have tons of sugar
- Next, you’ll put them on bamboo shelves for almost 6 months to shrivel into what looks almost like raisins
- Next they are put into these tiny barrels and stored in the attic where temperatures go up to 38 degrees celsius during the summer
- Then they leave them for 12 years or so to go through multiple fermentations before bottling whatever remaining wine is left
Entering the original cellar you’ll see the original grape press that has been built into the structure.
It is not used anymore, but it was kept for the history instead of removing it.
Along the walls, you can see small doors and holes, where wine or wine must goes in and out of the wall. Behind the walls are concrete vats for fermentation and storage.
Next you’ll enter the “room of memories” as Jonas likes to call it. It’s easily my favourite room holding vintages all the way back to 1979, when they had their first vintage
The bottles are dusty, untouched and in their original condition almost like ghosts sitting on the shelves waiting to tell their story.
Recently they did tell their stories to a lucky bunch when the family held a vertical tasting, pulling varying years from the shelves.
Jonas told us they were all still in excellent drinking condition and the years that scored the best were 1985 and 2008.
From here you’ll get to tour the original cellar, which they can still use to cellar their wines because the temperature and climate are perfect.
The climate is somewhat manipulated because the dirt on the ground was left under the stacks of barrels.
This helps when they wash down the floors, the dirt soaks in the water and provides the perfect 70-80% humidity for cellaring.
If you take a closer look within the original cellar, you’ll see this is where they keep their Chianti Classico Reserva in french oak Barrique barrels (225L), as well as their Cabernet Sauvignon stock.
Castellare Di Castellina does not buy new barrels for their Chianti Classico, instead, they continue to reuse their barrels for storage and ideal oxidization.
This allows for more of the Sangiovese fruit flavors to come forward instead of succumbing to the heavy oak notes that new oak barrels provide.
From the old cellar, there is a small, almost secret, passage behind one of the shelves of barrels.
Along this passage is a more recent “room of memories” nicely lit with a newer feel to it because it is leading into a large open room which is the new cellar.
Keep in mind, all the pictures are very dark because the cellars are designed with minimal light.
The new cellar was built to house the full production of their wine. There are barrels stacked along the walls on wood stilts, making it look impossible to retrieve the bottom barrels if you ever needed to.
Ana actually asked this question and Jonas said it takes careful planning so that, that doesn’t happen. Otherwise, it could take all days to shift around the barrels.
You might notice the bigger barrels, the Tonno 500L, look aged and that’s because they are. The barrels are 15 to 20 years old now.
You will also notice containers holding recently bottled wine and an elevator.
The elevator is actually original and was used as part of the bell tower that is above the cellar.
This became handy for transporting the wine in and out of the new cellar, so it was kept for exactly this purpose.
This is the end of the cellar tour and usually by now everyone has a thirst. I know we were ready and excited to try some of Castellare Di Castellina’s acclaimed wines!
Wine Tasting
Jonas will lead you to the wine shop and tasting room where you’ll see an assortment of olive oils and their range of wines.
Be sure to check out the blown up picture behind the wine shop counter of the skydivers with a glass of Castellare Di Castellina wine.
Apparently a friend of the owner wanted to do some fun promotions.
Jonas told us that their wines all contain iconic birds so consumers can quickly differentiate their wine from other wines on the shelf.
The colourful birds were chosen by the owner who enjoys watching them.
Lucky for us a reputable Italian wine connoisseur was there the day before us, so we got to try the flagship wine: I Sodi di S. Niccolò
The wine did stand above the others we tasted and the wine reviews can be found here **COMING SOON
I Sodi di S. Niccolò is something special and is internationally recognized, hitting the top 100 in Wine Spectator on many occasions and in 1988 achieving 5th place in the world.
One of the best wines we have ever tried and the price was a steal so you’ll bet we took a bottle or two home with us!
After the tasting, there are lovely views from the bell tower, so be sure not to miss it for some easy Insta pictures!
As we left the winery we saw a tractor pulling the harvested grapes back to the winery, ready to be crushed for the latest Castellare Di Castellina vintage.
That’s it for this one. Be sure to comment below if you have any questions or want some help booking any Chiani, Tuscany wine tours 🙂
Comments
Wow, sounds like a great place to visit! I wouldn’t mind a tour around that room of memories! A vertical tasting sounds amazing, can you tell me a little bit more about what that entails? Is this common practice?
Thanks Nick! You definitely want to bookmark this winery if you’re visiting Chianti
Good question, a vertical wine tasting is when you try the same wine across vintages (years), so in this case, they may have picked bottles from every 3 years from the available vintages (1979 – latest vintage). Then you can compare the different years against each other and in this case 1985 was still very good as well as 2008. Sounds like fun right?
I think it is common practice, but it’s up to the winery. The main point is to see if the wine is still drinkable. If a few bottles have been opened from one year that are all showing faults, then it’s likely the remaining bottles are the same. So they can take those bottles off the market or sell at a steep discount if someone wants to take the risk. I’m not sure haha, but I’m curious!