Like in Wonderland: Chianti Unknown (Il Poggerino)

Why am I writing about this in a Hungarian wine blog?

Benchmarking, that’s for.

I did not want to open this bottle yet, but I’ve noticed a drop of what seemed to me as red wine at the cork, so I ran home from my dad’s cellar and I was desperate to find out whether one of my best kept treasures really went wrong. It didn’t.

Everyone’s dream is (well, mine is) to just wander around in a beautiful area enjoying a good time and suddenly find a small, hidden winery whose’ owners are extremely friendly and their wine is just amazing and at the end it turns out to be an excellent value for money.

I really recommend that you check out their website and read their stories yourself here. In a nutshell:

The winery is one of the properties of a large estate which used to belong to Prince Ginori Conti, a descendant of one of Florence’s oldest families. Floriana Ginori Conti inherited the winery from her father in the 1970s, and began in 1980 to produce a Chianti Classico with the “Poggerino” label.
In 1999 she handed over the property to her two children, Piero and Benedetta Lanza, who had been managing it since 1988.

When we arrived at the farm building, one smiling guy and a sympathetic girl attended us. The guy was dressed farm worker. They knew too much about the wines for workers, so I had to realize that they are the owners. It turned out that they do as much of the physical works as they can themselves. Their wines were very friendly too, expensive though but we dot used to this by then in Tuscany.

The review

Il Poggerino – Bugialla 2001, Chianti Classico

Medium-deep ripe cherry color, sharp tannins are the first impressions as I open the bottle. No worries, no need to rush.

3 hours later its tannins are already smooth, velvet and I could swear that its color became much deeper and the bitterness had gone. Not too intense smell, it’s rather tobacco than fruits, although I can smell some nice, ripe cherry (but no sweetness!), plum and a bit of blueberry. There’s more: coffee beans and pepper, but not too much. Not an easy to love wine, but steady, not evolving too much in the glass. Does not need to. Full-bodied, round. Almost perfectly balanced. The 13,5% alcohol does not disturb me.

I could have kept this wine for another 5 years easy.

Score:7 (But the equation does not include my enthusiasm described in the intro. It would be a 9 then)

Price: EUR 30

Ps: Good to know that they have guest rooms too and the house is perfectly located near Radda.