Bottling day at Montefioralle

The Lamborghini tractor

De-stemming the Sangiovese

Bottling day at the vineyard is when all friends and family are called to lend a hand. The small producers like the Sieni family at Montefioralle do not have the space or money for their own bottling plant so rely on the mobile bottling unit which is hired once a year to do the job. It can cope with 2,000 bottles an hour and within the day every wine from the Chianti Classico to the Supertuscan is corked and labelled and ready to ship

The Wines of Montefioralle

Montefioralle must be one of the most beautiful parts of Tuscany to sit down with a glass of wine. It's all there in the name: Monte- meaning mount or small mountain and fioralle - of the flowers.
The south-east facing slopes at around 300m above sea level are ideal for the Sangiovase grape which by law must make up at least 80% of a bottle of Chianti Classico. It will come as no surprise then to learn that the church once owned these slopes and used them for exactly the same purpose. Whatever else can be said of the Catholic church in those times you can be sure it would have had its pick of the best locations for starting a vineyard. But all this was a long time ago...well, about 600 years ago.
The wines produced by the Sieni family are Chianti Classico (of course), a Riserva Chianti Classico, SuperTuscan and Vin Santo. If you do come for a wine tasting here remember to pace yourself; there are at least 4 vintages of the Chianti Classico to compare and wines get stronger as you progress from the Riserva to Vin Santo.

It is time to replace the barrels at the vineyard. At Montefioralle only French Oak is used for producing Chianti Classico, and never fresh 'first cycle' barrels which would impart too strong a flavour on the wine. After the barrels have be used to store a more robust grape variety, say Cabernet Sauvignon for the first cycle, they are then ready to be used for the Sangiovese.

The barrels then undergo several cycles; a year for the regular Chianti Classico, two years for the Chianti Classico Riserva. At the end of the their lives the barrels may find a life of retirement by being sawn in half and used as flower planters....if not, they become some of the most costly firewood know to man.

Montefioralle on the Slow Day.

A very small group today (just 2!) meant that Laura and Camae -I hope I've spelled it right- got a personal tour of Tuscany's less traveled roads. We could barely find a soul in Montefioralle; well apart from Fernando who let us try his wines and showed the prizes for the painting competition-

• 6 IGT 2007 "Monteficalle" bottles

• 6 Riserva 2007 bottles

• 12 Chianti Classico 2008 bottles

Now thats a competition worth entering.

Cherry picking on the slow day

A great day with Raelene and Ted from Brisbane. It stuck me that some things are easy to take for granted when Raelene was overjoyed to pick cherries from the trees that skirt the grape vines.

So, at least for the next few weeks, or until the birds do their worst, cherry picking will be part of our slow day in Tuscany.