San Ferdinando - 'Podere Gamba', Chianti, Tuscany, Italy (2021)

TASTING NOTES

Tomato sauce, sandy tannins and sweet red cherry fruit. Classic, delicious and a must have. 

Podere Gamba is the vineyard, lying on stony, clay soils.

Vinified separately in stainless before being transferred into Allier oak barrels for eight months before bottling.

San Ferdinando is located in the hamlet of Civitella in Val di Chiana, in the Chianti Colli Aretini area southeast of Florence. The area has an elevation and continental climate that are not dissimilar to Chianti Classico, which is immediately to the west.  

The estate has 62 hectares of land, with 10 under vine. It has been in the hands of the Grifoni family since 1850, but it was in 2008 that the winery was fully restored and the vineyards revitalized and converted to organic methods. Today, Simone Zucchetti, winemaker and agronomist, capably guides the wines from vine to bottle.  The focus is on the indigenous varieties of the area—Sangiovese, Ciliegiolo, Pugnitello, and Vermentino—and finding a balance between typicity, drinkability, and value.  Though farming goes well beyond the parameters of organics, San Ferdinando is not interested in getting certification.

In the cellar, fermentations occur naturally, the wines are not forced, and total SO2 levels never exceed 60mg/l (quite low, when one considers the limits in organic certification: 100mg/l for reds and 150mg/l for whites).