Sono Montenidoli "Fiore" Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy 2023

FROM BEAUNE IMPORTS:

THE WINE: Aged in bottle before release, indigenous yeast fermented, low sulfur vinification & aging. Organically grown grapes, skin contact, stainless steel vat fermented & aged.

THE PRODUCER: When Elisabetta Fagiuoli and Sergio Muratori arrived in 1965, San Gimignano was not known world-wide as one of the most ravishingly beautiful areas to visit and Montenidoli was a 200+ hectare overgrown abandoned property with a moderate potential of producing good Chianti. They set about restoring the olive groves and vineyards that mother nature was in the process of reclaiming, and the rest is history. To this day, only a small percentage of the acreage is planted as the choice was made long ago to retain the natural ecosystem of the mountain.

Their first vintage in 1971 produced only red wines, but together they soon realized that there was great potential in other indigenous varietals, especially Vernaccia, the historic grape of San Gimignano, a town that played an oversized role on the Silk Road for centuries, long before the founding of the modern Italian state. Sergio worked tirelessly to restore the olive groves, vineyards and fields of Montenidoli, translated as “mountain of little nests,” to their former glory and allowed Elisabetta the task of growing the grapes, making the wine and showing the world what they were doing and why they were doing it. He preferred to remain in the background. Sergio passed away in 2012 and Elisabetta shows no signs of letting up.

Elisabetta Fagiuoli is proud of the fact that her land has never seen the use of pesticides. She has farmed organically as long as she has had the property and can attest that previous to her it had been farmed organically. Given that her property is isolated on a mountainside, she has the added benefit of not having any close neighbors, relieving her of any concern about systemic, non-organic treatments being used in adjacent vineyards. The soil at Montenidoli was impacted greatly by the Ligurian Sea which extended into much of what is now Tuscany millions of years ago. You can still often find large prehistoric oyster fossils in the soil, many of which are on display in the winery. On the higher elevation parcels of their property, you find a deep, red, mineral-rich soil where they source their top reds, the Triassico and the Sono Montenidoli.