Dan Berger’s Varietal Views: Sangiovese
By Dan Berger
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — There may well be no more complicated and confounding wine grape in California than sangiovese, which almost never has anything to do with the same grape variety grown in Northern Italy, where it has been ubiquitous for the last 200 years or more. There it makes several wines, the most famous being Chianti.
Generations of Americans grew up with the familiar bulbous, straw-covered soon-to-be candleholder glass flask containing a light, tart red wine. It was mainly sangiovese. It was fine to quaff as long as it wasn’t fussed over and made to be something it really didn’t want to be in the first place. And there was no mystery about it decades ago. You went to Luigi’s, ordered spaghetti and meatballs with red sauce, and every table had a flask of this universal red wine. It seemed compulsory with this food. You were expected to have it. Often you didn’t order it; it just appeared on your table.
And why not? It was perfect with pasta. It was uncomplicated, cheap and pervasive. No one ever asked what the vintage was. No one ever complained that it was too tart because it wasn’t — it was just tart enough to go with the acid-blessed tomato sauce and olive oil.
Chianti then mostly was sangiovese but by law had to have other grapes blended in. In the 1980s or thereabouts we started seeing upscale versions that mostly were called Chianti Classico, which didn’t refer to anything particularly classic. “Classico” refers to the region it came from, the heartland where the sangiovese grape produces some of the most reliably authentic and balanced wines.
In this third installment of our brief investigations into some of the world’s best wine grapes, we can’t really do justice to many of them because of limited space. These monographs can only be snapshots. But sangiovese poses more inordinate problems than other grapes — more than most Americans realize. Look back dozens of years at the wines in dozens of Italian cafés. The “Chianti” that was so widely seen in the 1930s and 1950s may have been made mainly from sangiovese, but occasionally it wasn’t as representative of the grape as it would have been had you been dining instead in one of those delightful Tuscan hill towns such as Lucca or Volterra.
The straw-covered flask referenced above is called a fiasco; you can guess why it’s called that. Very rarely did a fiasco’s vino exceed the implication embedded in its bottle’s surname. In cafés decades ago, either in Italy or here, there was no such thing as a carta dei vini; all café wine was simply rosso. And likely it was sangiovese-based, Chianti or not.
By about 1980, serious Chianti was being sold in the United States with various designations to imply its quality level. One exalted term was “riserva.” Italian law required riserva Chiantis to adhere to more rigid standards. But the wine laws (which some wineries ignored so they could make even better wine) were changing.
As a result, even Chianti-lovers often couldn’t tell what they were getting. Starting in
the 19th century one law required the use of some white-wine grapes. The result: wines that wouldn’t age very well. In the 1990s the laws continued to change. After one law revision, white-wine grapes could be abandoned but had to be replaced with red grapes other than sangiovese. So Chianti soon became yet another thing. You might ask if a riserva was a better wine. That all depended on who made it.
I visited Chianti for the first time in 1990. Late one afternoon at the famed house of Badia a Coltibuono, co-owner Roberto Stucchi Prinetti opened his 1985 Chianti for me. One look at the label told me it was illegal. The 1985 Badia a Coltibuono Chianti Classico was listed on the front label as being 100% sangiovese — without any of the legally required blending grapes. I asked him about it.
“No one ever noticed that,” he said, “or if they did, they didn’t say anything.” I asked him if that didn’t pose a problem with the authorities.
“Well, as we say, the law, she is made in Rome, and the Chianti, it is made here.”
The wine was perfectly Chianti-esque with depth and personality and a solid core of Tuscan soil aromatics and, of course, the requisite acidity.
Before we go further, I admit that I adore Chianti, always have. But it’s best not to sip it all by itself. It is mandatory to have with certain foods. When I know I’m going to be having that kind of food, I make certain I can get my hands on a decent Chianti to pair with it — and when I desire a great Chianti, I make certain I can get the proper foods that go with it.
Without getting into the weeds here, sangiovese is a wine that, when made properly, isn’t particularly dark or alcoholic. Occasionally it’s as light in color as an unmanipulated pinot noir. When I see a very dark sangiovese or Chianti, I get suspicious.
And its aroma can be alluring in ways that few other varieties are. The wine’s greatest attribute, for people who dig this stuff, is delightfully, reliably faintly rustic. Because of its higher acidity, it is best when it has far less tannin than cabernet. When it is made here to emulate Chianti, it should be balanced on its acid, not on its tannins.
And although it can have some faint herbal characteristics, not unlike unflavored pipe tobacco or licorice, it is the acidity that makes it so wonderful with minestrone soup (add some grated Parmigiano and drizzle on some good olive oil), all manner of pastas and dishes such as vitello tonnato (thin-sliced veal in tuna sauce).
During a seminar that I gave on Italian wines about 30 years ago, I didn’t identify sangiovese as a grape I love irrespective of where it grows. I said I loved it when it came from Italy but few other places. Someone in the audience asked why I didn’t love California versions. I said that in California very few wineries really desire to make a Chianti-type wine. (Two wineries that do and are superb at it are Vino Noceto from the Shenandoah Valley in the Sierra Foothills, $28, and the Napa Valley’s Villa Ragazzi, $45. I love both wines.)
I like the grape, but it’s not one that easily is converted into something we can identify if it’s improperly farmed or picked too late. One reason is that most California wineries are run by people who have little or no history with Italian sangiovese. As it grows in most areas of the world, it ripens unevenly, which means that toward the end of the growing season several green berries will be seen on almost all the clusters. Farmers in Tuscany know that you must pick the fruit at that stage even though some high-acid green berries still exist because those berries provide some of the proper acidity that the wine absolutely must have.
Both Villa Ragazzi and Vino Noceto harvest their sangiovese wines in a near-perfect manner, and the wines are impeccably balanced.
By contrast, many Californians who grow sangiovese see the green berries as an indication that the fruit isn’t fully ripe and that the resulting wine will end up with herbaceous components, so they wait until every last berry colors up. Once all the green berries are colored up, they harvest. By that time some of the crucial acidity has already been lost, and the wine is already potentially out of balance.
In wines from Chianti, we sangiovese-lovers willingly accept a bit of tomato-leafy aroma. California’s typical version is usually riper (occasionally overripe) and thus leans a bit too much on the plummy or jammy side. And its alcohols in California often are well close to 15%, which can make a red wine that’s too heavy to work with food.
One problem seems to be that most California winemakers want to make a softer, easier-to-like wine on release. So too many sangioveses are not only soft but also a bit heavy in oak flavors. Sangiovese is inordinately sensitive to oak. If you age it in even as much as 5% new barrels, the wine shows it. Better is to age it in neutral barrels.
The same situation is true if sangiovese is blended with cabernet. Even a small percentage of cabernet blended into a Chianti, perhaps with the aim of making what’s called a “super Tuscan” red wine, can turn the wine quickly away from Tuscany. Super Tuscan reds can be tasty, but they occasionally don’t represent Chianti. Sangioveses with as little as 10% cabernet are often more like cabernet than Chianti. I often find them interesting, but many can be awkward.
Here’s why: Cabernets (which are tannic) call for steak to confront the astringency. Chiantis (which should be tart) call for tomato sauces. I suppose a super Tuscan might best be served with a steak that’s smothered in tomato sauce.
Needless to say, a good-quality, crisp sangiovese also will go well with several other types of foods and especially with cheeses. I like to think of Chianti not as a heavy or concentrated wine, and when it has lower alcohol, the cheeses it goes best with can be hard and reasonably well-aged. Parmigiano-Reggiano anyone?
Sangiovese Discoveries
2020 Castello di Volpaia Chianti Classico ($27): A classic example of a regionally identifiable red wine that is ostensibly sangiovese, with traces of tea, sour cherry, licorice and a subtle spice note. Even though the acidity is sufficient for this to be paired with baked eggplant or any pasta dish with tomato sauce or pesto, it’s not so tart that you couldn’t simply enjoy it with some Romano cheese and crackers. This producer is located in one of the highest properties in all of Tuscany (2,000 feet above the valley floor, in Radda), which means that it has excellent drainage. The wines almost always are impeccable. This wine has only 13.5% alcohol and displays its fruit best after it has been decanted for an hour. Often seen at about $22. It will improve for six to eight more years. (Even better is Volpaia’s more characterful, deeper 2019 Riserva, $47; often seen at about $42.)
2022 Terah Sangiovese, Mokelumne River ($32): This Lodi red wine has just 12% alcohol and is very light in color (like a dark rosé), indicating a low level of tannin. It is backward when the cork is first pulled, but after decanting it for two hours it opens up beautifully and displays true elegance of flowery fruit, tea leaf and faint earth tones. The flavors are beautiful. The wine isn’t likely to improve beyond about two more years. Winemaker Terah Bajjalieh handled the fruit nicely, and the good acid helps make this an excellent companion to lighter foods. Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa has this for $26.99.
A final note: Beginning in 2014, Italian wine laws changed yet again, and one of the new Chianti designations is called gran selezione. According to the regulations, this is a Chianti that cannot have any cabernet or any other red wine grape added to it. It must be 100% sangiovese. Chianti purists (me included) love these new wines because they tend to display Chianti-ness and subregional elements in an unalloyed manner that most riserva wines do not. (But gran selezione wines can be pricey.)
A couple of other even newer designations have been approved for Chianti, but that’s probably a topic best addressed on another day.
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Dan Berger has been writing about wine since 1975.
Love this monograph. I can vouch for Villa Ragazii. Discovered at the Ranch Market in Yountville via a shelf talker. Tried it and went back and bought the rest of their inventory! Been enjoying Michaela’s wines ever since. She is a fountain of knowledge on the Sangiovese grape. My other favorite Sango comes from Clesi winery in Templeton (Paso). Chris Ferrara is proprietor and winemaker from Silician heritage. Clesi is all about Italian varietals.
Excellent overview of this versatile grape, Italy's most important variety, though rare in California. Learn all about it!