Corzano e Paterno "I Tre Borri" Sangiovese Toscana IGT 2021

In the glass, the wine has a limpid, gem-like ruby-red color that warms to muted almandine at the edge. When the wine is first poured, brambly aromas of amarena cherries, red plums and cuoio fiorentino (the fine Florentine leather sometimes called to mind in the aromatics of great Tuscan wine) emerge from the glass, then alternate with suggestions of dried cranberries, coriander and balsam fir, as the nose evolves in the glass. On the palate, the wine is savory and elegant, with a sweet core of ripe red and black fruit flavors that echo the nose, including pomegranates, raspberries, pink peppercorns and dark cocoa-dusted cherries, all framed in sinuous, mouth-coating silky tannins, and seasoned with an underlying thread of wild cherry acids that cleanses the palate.

"I Tre Borri" is named for three small streams that flow at the bottom of the oldest Sangiovese vineyard on the estate, which is the source of this magnificent wine. Like Paolo De Marchi’s iconic Cepparello, the wine is 100% Sangiovese, manually harvested and spontaneously fermented in small open wooden tanks, with malolactic in barrels, and matured for about 26 months in a mix of barriques and large 25-hl casks.

When Swiss architect Wendel Gelpke bought Corzano in the early 1970s, he promised the Marchese Ippolito Niccolini that his run-down 70-hectare estate would remain intact forever. He made the same covenant with the Marchesa Rangoni-Machiavelli when he bought her Fattoria di Paterno. Together, they form a 140-hectare estate that produces some of the finest olive oil, sheep’s milk cheeses and wine in all of Tuscany. A member of Wendel Gelpke’s family manages every activity, including the holiday rental of the beautifully restored farmhouses and apartments. Aljoscha Goldschmidt, the managing agronomist and winemaker, is Wendel Gelpke’s nephew. If you ever meet “Joschi,” you are as likely to be charmed by his musical, Dutch-accented English as by his irresistible wines.