Montecarlo DOC

A small denomination on a hill east of Lucca, and one of the earliest places in Tuscany to plant French varieties deliberately. Montecarlo covers parts of Montecarlo, Altopascio, Capannori and Porcari, and its white is unlike any other in the region.

The Terroir The registered file describes a homogeneous territory with good rainfall, rich in mineral elements and organic substance, characterised by great hilly morphological uniformity. It gives the boundaries precisely: bounded to the south-west by the Lucchese plain and the bed of the former Lake Bientina, and to the north-east by the Pizzorne massif and the plain of the Pescia. Bientina was the largest lake in Tuscany until it was drained in the nineteenth century; the denomination sits on the rise above where it used to be.

Vivinaia The file makes the connection between place and wine through a name: the history of the borgo of Montecarlo is interwoven with that of its wine, a destiny found in the old name of the village — Vivinaia — that is, the passage of the wine road. The village was renamed for Charles IV of Bohemia in the fourteenth century; before that it was named for the road the wine travelled.

The French Blend The file then records the decisive intervention: already from the 1800s enlightened growers introduced from the Bordeaux area and the Rhône varieties which, added to the traditional ones, gave the wine its present harmonious blend. That is why Montecarlo Bianco is Trebbiano stiffened with Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon, Roussanne, Vermentino and Pinot Grigio — a Tuscan white built like a Graves, a century before anyone called such a thing a Super Tuscan.

Grape Varieties Besides the whites above, the red runs on Sangiovese with Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo, Colorino, Merlot, Syrah and the Cabernets.

The Critical Take Montecarlo Bianco is the most interesting white in Tuscany that nobody orders, and the reason is that it does not taste Tuscan: it has weight, a waxy texture and a herbal, almost Bordelais bite that Vernaccia and Vermentino do not. It also ages, which Tuscan whites are not supposed to. The reds are good and unremarkable. The zone is tiny and hemmed in by Lucca’s suburbs.

Lucca’s Own Vineyard Lucca was an independent republic until Napoleon, and it kept commercial habits the rest of Tuscany did not — silk, banking, and merchants who travelled. Growers here were looking at Bordeaux and the Rhône while Chianti was still arguing about Canaiolo, and the blend records it.

At the Table Lucchese cooking: tordelli, garmugia, farro soup, rabbit, and the salumi of the Garfagnana. Serve the white at 10–12°C, warmer for an aged bottle.

Benchmark Producers Fattoria del Buonamico, Carmignani, Fattoria di Montechiari.