Pomino DOC

A tiny denomination in the hills east of Florence, inside the commune of Rufina, and one of the four zones Cosimo III de’ Medici named in his decree of 1716 — the first legal delimitation of wine-producing areas anywhere in the world, alongside Chianti, Carmignano and Val d’Arno di Sopra.

The Terroir The registered file places the zone in the north-eastern part of the province of Florence, in pedemontana country. The climate is temperate and cold, feeling the Mediterranean only in summer. The vineyards sit between 300 and 800 metres on sandstone and marly soils and, in the file’s own words, represent a unique reality in Tuscany, sitting among woods and olive groves. The disciplinare caps altitude at 650 metres for the red and higher for the white. This is Apennine foothill land, cold at night, and among the coolest classified vineyard land in Tuscany.

The History The file records wine here already known in the Middle Ages, as numerous historical documents attest, and celebrated in the seventeenth century by the poet Francesco Redi in Bacco in Toscana. Then it names the turning point: a rebirth in the 1840s with Vittorio degli Albizi, who introduced from Burgundy the varieties Pinot Nero, Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay.

The French Experiment That is the whole identity of Pomino. Albizi, educated in France, planted Burgundian and Bordelais varieties here in the 1850s — more than a century before anyone coined the phrase Super Tuscan, and at a moment when the rest of Tuscany was planting Sangiovese and Trebbiano. The estate passed by marriage to the Frescobaldi, who still hold most of it. Pomino Bianco, a Chardonnay and Pinot Bianco blend, has been made continuously since the nineteenth century and is one of the oldest non-native wine styles in Italy.

Grape Varieties The white is Chardonnay and Pinot Bianco, sometimes with Pinot Grigio and Trebbiano; the red is Sangiovese with Pinot Nero, Merlot and Cabernet. A riserva and a quality sparkling wine are also made, the latter from Pinot Nero and Chardonnay — logical, at this altitude.

The Critical Take Pomino is effectively a single-estate denomination and should be read that way. The white is the reason it matters: at 700 metres on sandstone, Chardonnay keeps an acidity and a stony austerity that almost no Tuscan white manages, and the riserva ages fifteen years without difficulty. The reds are good rather than compelling — Sangiovese this high can be lean in a poor year. It is one of the few Tuscan names that has been doing the same thing, in the same place, since before unification.

At the Table Florentine and Apennine cooking: crostini di fegatini, roast guinea fowl, mushrooms, chestnut and farro soups, and pecorino. White at 11–12°C, red at 16–17°C.

Benchmark Producers Frescobaldi, whose Castello di Pomino accounts for nearly the entire denomination.