Collection: Montevertine

If you follow Tuscan wine at all, Montevertine needs little introduction: it’s one of the few Chianti estates with a genuine cult following, and Le Pergole Torte is among the most sought-after Sangiovese in the world. If not, here’s the short version. In 1967 Sergio Manetti, a Milanese steel industrialist and art lover, bought a run-down farmhouse in the hills of Radda in Chianti as a country retreat. He planted a few hectares of vines, sent his first wines to Vinitaly almost out of curiosity and, working with the legendary oenologist Giulio Gambelli, set about making pure, traditional Sangiovese.

In 1977 he released Le Pergole Torte, the first wine from Radda made entirely from Sangiovese. A few years later, rather than add white Trebbiano to his reds as the rules then required, he walked away from the Chianti Classico consortium, and his wines have been labelled simply as Toscana IGT ever since. Each vintage of Le Pergole Torte carries a different female portrait by his friend, the artist Alberto Manfredi, and the labels have become almost as collectable as the wine. Today Sergio’s son Martino runs the estate in exactly the same spirit: old vines, large Slavonian oak and Sangiovese at its most honest and age-worthy.