2023 Tenuta di Carleone, Il Guercio, Toscana

Sean O'Callaghan has a conviction that Sangiovese at altitude can produce something closer to Burgundy than to the big and extracted wines the market spent decades chasing.
Il Guercio is the fullest expression of that thinking. The fruit comes from a single terraced vineyard in Gaiole, near Lamole, farmed organically and biodynamically at roughly 650 meters, some of the highest ground in Chianti Classico. Old vines, late harvest, foot-stomped and fermented in open bins with roughly thirty percent whole cluster. Four months of maceration. Twelve months in cement. Unfiltered, unfined, and bottled outside the DOCG because Sean has never needed the Consorzio's permission to make a great wine. What comes out of the bottle is vibrant, lifted, and immediately compelling: aromatic red fruit, dried florals, white pepper, and an acidity that pulls everything into focus. Open it tonight and enjoy it fully, knowing it will only integrate and evolve over the next decade. Sean calls it bevibilità, that Italian conviction that a wine's greatest virtue is its irresistible drinkability.