2018 Podere Casaccia 'Ut Bibendum' Toscana Rosso

Region: Tuscany < Italy

Grapes: Canaiolo, Black Malvasia, Pugnitello

Vineyard/Cellar Stats: Demeter certified biodynamic wine; 40-50 year old vines on clay, loam + sand soils; 48-hour maceration, aged in large French casks for 4 months and then steel until bottling; no temperature control; bottled unfined/unfiltered with zero additions; 13% ABV

Winemaker: Roberto Moretti

Another gorgeous wine from Podere Casaccia, a tiny family-run farm in the Scandicci hills outside of Florence, run by a doctor and his wife, whom I had the great pleasure to visit two summers ago. Roberto (pictured below) who says wine “kidnapped him from his practice, tends vineyards of native Tuscan varietals alongside a grove of olive trees and flocks of geese, ducks and chickens. The wines are pure in their fruit character, and super clean, free of the defects that can plague a zero-added-So2 wine. Perhaps because Roberto is a physician, bringing that hygienic precision to his cellar, the wine has a refined elegance and purity about it – not a hint of barnyard, funk or rusticity – that you rarely see in zero-zero wines.

This beautiful blend of native grapes is rustic and herbal, with smooth tannins, bright, tart cherry and earth -- perhaps one of the most soulful, haunting Tuscan reds ever to cross our lips.  A small allocation just hit the shop, just in time for winter storm stews.