Sovana DOC

The red counterpart to Bianco di Pitigliano, on exactly the same ground. Sovana covers Pitigliano and Sorano entire with part of Manciano, and the two denominations divide the tufa country of southern Tuscany between them by colour.

The Terroir The registered file gives the same description as its white neighbour, word for word: the territory is hilly and foothill, with good rainfall and scarce summer rains, on formations made up predominantly of effusive and volcanoclastic rocks, tufaceous, whose chemical and biological fertility is high. It is a historic wine zone, going back to the Etruscans, where the wines were kept in caves dug into the tuff, and the vineyards already anciently had high planting densities.

Old and New Where the two files part company is on grapes, and Sovana’s is worth quoting: among the varieties are both the traditional of the territory — Aleatico, Ciliegiolo, Sangiovese — and others more modern — Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot — which succeed in expressing a strong characterisation of the wines: full, round, ample, velvety, with a complex aromatic frame. Splitting a variety list into traditional and modern, and saying so, is a candour few files manage.

Ciliegiolo The grape to come here for. Ciliegiolo spent a century as a blending component and a suspected parent of Sangiovese, and only in this corner of the Maremma has it been taken seriously on its own: on tufa it gives a bright, sappy, cherry-scented red with fine tannin and genuine lift, quite unlike the soft filler it is elsewhere. A small number of growers around Sorano have made it the most convincing varietal Ciliegiolo in Italy.

The Vie Cave Between Sovana, Pitigliano and Sorano the Etruscans cut roads directly down into the tuff — corridors sometimes twenty metres deep and only a couple wide, running for kilometres between settlements and necropoli. Nobody is certain what they were for: drainage, defence, processional routes, or simply the easiest way through soft rock. They are the most extraordinary thing in the landscape, and the vineyards sit on the plateau above them.

The Critical Take Sovana is a young denomination on very old ground, and it has the problem every Maremman red has: Morellino di Scansano is next door with the name and the volume. Its answer should be Ciliegiolo and Aleatico rather than more Sangiovese, and the best producers have worked that out. The Cabernet and Merlot bottlings are competent and beside the point.

At the Table Maremman cooking: wild boar, acquacotta, tortelli, grilled meats, and sheep’s cheeses. Serve at 16–17°C.

Benchmark Producers Sassotondo at Sorano, the reference for Ciliegiolo, and the Cantina di Pitigliano.