Montevertine Il Duemilaventuno di Sergio Manetti 2021 Magnum

Montevertine sits in Radda in Chianti, in the heart of Chianti Classico. Sergio Manetti, a steel industrialist, bought the property in 1967 as a country house, planted a few hectares of vines and, working with the oenologist Giulio Gambelli, began making pure, traditional Sangiovese. In 1981 he left the Chianti Classico consortium rather than add white Trebbiano to his wines, which have been labelled simply as Toscana IGT ever since. After his death in 2000, his son Martino took over, and Montevertine is now one of the most sought-after estates in Italy.

Il Duemilaventuno di Sergio Manetti (“Sergio Manetti’s 2021”) was made to mark 100 years since the founder’s birth. The grapes, 100% Sangiovese, were picked in October 2021 from the oldest Le Pergole Torte vines, planted in 1968 and 1982. After a 25-day fermentation in concrete, the wine spent 24 months in a single 16-hectolitre Slavonian oak cask, with no French oak, and was bottled unfiltered in September 2024: just 1,000 magnums, each one numbered. The name echoes 1989 and 1991, the two vintages in which Sergio bottled his finest selection of Sangiovese under his own name. For the label, the family chose an unpublished 1990s linocut from the private sketchbook of Alberto Manfredi, Sergio’s close friend and the artist behind the Le Pergole Torte labels: Sergio in profile, face to face with a woman, echoing the female portraits that have graced every Le Pergole Torte label since the 1980s. Expect dark cherry, plum, leather, cedar, incense and dried flowers, with real concentration, freshness and structure. A true collector’s bottle, built to age for decades.