Fonterutoli Wine estate

The hamlet of Fonterutoli, an old bastion of Florence only a few kilometers from Castellina in Chianti, has a beautiful view of Siena, The centuries-old ownership of Marchesi Mazzei has preserved the handful of houses, the church of San Miniato, and the villa erected at the end of the 1500's in place of the citadel, more or less unchanged. Time stopped here, maintaining the charm of the Middle Ages. In 1202 and 1208 Fonterutoli was the location of two peace treaties between Florence and Siena, when the territory of Chianti was ceded to Florence.

The estate covers an overall surface of 650 hectares, where 110 are for special vineyards organized into seven zones ranging between 220 and 570 meters above sea level, which are further divided into 114 single parcels. The grapes from these 114 parcels are harvested by hand, turned into wine and aged in wood barrels separately, transforming the value of diversity into an extraordinary breadth of bouquet and complexity.

Fonterutoli has a modern winery designed by a family member, Agnese Mazzei. This project on three levels, allows the grapes collected in the plaza to "drop" during the various phases of the wine making process and age in wood barrels in the most natural manner: the force of gravity. The special 74 wine making steel vats provided with a tapered cylindrical shape and capacity for 100 hl, allow processing the grapes from each parcel separately to preserve their biodiversity and produce a series of small scale wine batches that together with the judicious use of treading and long maceration, allow obtaining wines with exceptional qualities of color and particularly smooth and elegant tannins. At 15 meters of depth, in the vast cellar where more than 3000 oak barrels dwell, the temperature and the right degree of humidity is guaranteed by five completely natural water streams flowing through the naked rock walls.