1995 Flaccianello della Pieve
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Tasting notes
This is an interesting but challenging vintage that started off with cool and below-average temperatures that delayed the entire growing cycle. The temperatures picked up during the sunny summer months, but the harvest remained delayed throughout, with fruit coming off the vines at the end of October. This makes for a risky proposition for vintners who are faced with waiting, but great rewards were paid to those who did in terms of complexity, depth and acidic backbone. When Sangiovese grapes are given this long to mature on the vines, the results are always spectacular. The 1995 Flaccianello della Pieve opens to a lean and fragile bouquet with bright accents of dried mint, balsam herb, dried rose and tilled earth. That balsamic signature, with cola, dried ginger and rosemary oil, is very well defined in this beautiful expression. The mouthfeel is slender and thin, but everything is in the right place in terms of acidity, fiber and structure. This is the oldest vintage to be labeled with the IGT Colli della Toscana Centrale appellation.
Critic scores
Average Score
Antonio Galloni, Vinous
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
The 1995 Flaccianello della Pieve wraps around the palate with layers of dark fruit deeply informed by the cold growing season and late harvest that year. The cold summer gave the wine its structure, while the fruit is clearly that of the Indian summer that followed. I especially like the way the wine continues to open up as it sits in the glass. This is a fabulous showing, not the mention a beautifully balanced wine.
Lots of oomph. A very dry end but lots of integrity. (JR)
The 1995 Flaccianello della Pieve wraps around the palate with layers of dark fruit deeply informed by the cold growing season and late harvest that year. The cold summer gave the wine its structure, while the fruit is clearly that of the Indian summer that followed. I especially like the way the wine continues to open up as it sits in the glass. This is a fabulous showing, not to mention a beautifully balanced wine. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2025. ||This complete vertical of Fontodi’s flagship 100% Sangiovese Flaccianello was yet another of the remarkable tastings of my recent trip to Tuscany. Flaccianello is an interesting wine because the quality level that is the norm today only really starts around 2001. Prior to that the wines were very good, and sometimes even better than that, but not profound. In 2001 proprietor Giovanni Manetti made the decision to focus on his estate’s best fruit rather than making Flaccianello as a single-vineyard wine. Since then, Flaccianello has routinely been among the most exciting wines in Tuscany. Much of the fruit that now goes into Flaccianello comes from vineyards in the Pecille sub-zone of Panzano with a full southern exposure. Today Flaccianello is 100% Sangiovese, but the first vintages up to and including 1984 have 15% white grapes, as was common at the time. The early vintages up until 1990 spent about one year in French oak barrels, 50% new. In the mid-1990s Manetti increased the period of barrel aging to 18 months with the 1997, and then to 24 months with the 2006. Today the percentage of new barrels is close to 100%.||Fontodi Flaccianello Key Points:||1. 100% Sangiovese aged in French oak barrels||2. Since 2001 made from the estate’s best fruit across a number of vineyards in Panzano’s historic Conca d’Oro, prior to that a strict single-vineyard wine.||3. Flaccianello’s status as an icon wine is cemented beginning in 2001||4. One of the more powerful of the 100% Sangioveses from Chianti Classico||5. Aging potential: 20+ years Wine Advocate.June, 2012
About the producer
Based just outside Panzano-in-Chianti, Chianti Classico estate Fontodi was acquired by the Manettis in 1968, a family which has established its modern reputation. Today the leading property is best known for its Flaccianello delle Pieve, the pure Sangiovese Super Tuscan first made in 1981.