Fèlsina is the undisputed king of Castelnuovo Berardenga, and in a deeply warm, solar vintage like 2022, they are one of the very few estates in the southern reaches of the appellation that completely retained their nerve.
It leaps from the glass with a fiercely high-toned wave of crushed alberese rock, dried tobacco, scorched earth, and a deeply "crunchy" core of tart black cherry and dried blood orange peel. It smells intensely savory, cool, and firmly anchored to the dirt.
Fèlsina is the guardian of the southern border of Chianti Classico. Located in Castelnuovo Berardenga, where the rocky Chianti hills meet the lunar landscape of the Crete Senesi, the estate produces Sangiovese of power and warmth. Under the Poggiali family it has kept its top Sangiovese wines free of international blending partners, and it represents the wilder, more intense side of the appellation.
Rancia is the icon: a historic, high-altitude vineyard once home to a medieval Benedictine monastery, on limestone-rich alberese and galestro, released as Riserva and, from 2021, as Gran Selezione. Fontalloro is the benchmark for 100% Sangiovese, straddling the border between Chianti Classico and the Colli Senesi, savory and uncompromising rather than polished. Maestro Raro, first made in 1987, is Cabernet Sauvignon with a Chianti Classico soul, and the Vin Santo, from dried Trebbiano and Malvasia aged for years in small caratelli, is one of Tuscany’s great sweet wines.
The core of the range is just as convincing. The Berardenga Chianti Classico and the Riserva, aged in large Slavonian casks, speak more of the soil than the cellar, and the Chianti Colli Senesi, from vineyards just outside the Classico border, is one of the best values in Tuscany. Even in a hot, solar year like 2022, Fèlsina kept its nerve: crushed alberese rock, dried tobacco and tart black cherry rather than jam. For me it is one of the true reference estates of Chianti Classico.
