If you enjoy traveling slightly off the beaten path, then Poggio Al Sole is the perfect wine tasting stop when visiting Tuscany for a Chianti wine tour.

Located in the heart of Tuscany between Florence and Sienna you will not be disappointed. To get to the winery you pass through what looks like a quaint little town, but is actually an awesome, ancient monastery. Checking Google maps now, it appears to be a City of Florence named Badia a Passignano.

This is Chianti Classico territory, so you can easily make a day trip out of the visit. There is plenty to explore between this ancient monastery and the surrounding vineyards, especially Poggio Al Sole (translates to “Hill in the Sun”).

On our way in we did not have time to stop, since we were lucky to arrive during the annual harvest and didn’t want to miss a minute.

This wasn’t complete luck, since I made sure to email ahead to make an appointment. Your best bet is to do the same so they can prep for your arrival. However, they are pretty flexible so if you are in the area, it’s worth a stop anyways 🙂

If you do call ahead you will probably get Valentino, he is the winemaker’s son and a huge part of the overall winery operations. He was quick to respond and even suggested that if I want to learn more about winemaking, the harvest is the best date to come!

He was also kind enough to try and accommodate my request to help with the harvest, but we had no luck. The Italian bureaucracy is complex and time-consuming, especially during the busiest weeks of the year for Poggio Al Sole.

On your way in you will hit some gravel roads just after the monastery. However, this doesn’t last long and is nothing to worry about since our little Kia handled it no problem, but something to be aware of.

Entering the property we were led up to the winery in traditional Italian style with olive trees and vines as far as the eye can see. At the top of the driveway, you can find the rustic stone cellar, winery, and apartments (so instead of making a day trip, why not stay a night or two :).

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Harvest was in full flight by 9 am, so we could see them loading the grapes into the presses and the de-stemmer.

Here we met Valentino, who decided to leave Finance and live the farming dream (he told us this with a huge smile on his face). Following his lead, we were able to see the grapes coming in from the vineyard and straight into the de-stemmer/crusher. From here the juice flowed directly into the stainless steel tanks to start fermentation.

In recent years they have moved to a natural fermentation method, which means they are using only the naturally occurring yeasts instead of custom farmed yeast. The farmed yeast are traditionally much safer since you don’t need to worry about the yeast dying from the alcohol before finishing fermentation.

However, natural fermentation is something that is becoming more and more popular with wine drinkers and Poggio Al Sole is meeting this demand and getting quite good at it!

To do this they take samples from different tanks to test how the yeast are performing. Based on this data they can determine which batch will perform the best and then somehow they use that to initiate their fermentation across all of their wine. Valentino explains it better in this video:

***Video profile of Poggio Al Sole (STILL TO COME)

We continued to the cellar where they store their reds in French and Slovene oak barrels. Typically using the barrels for 4-6 years before retiring them for other uses.

Finishing our tour, Valentino directed us to one of their vineyards 5 minutes away, where the workers were busy harvesting. Of course, it would have been nice to get my hands dirty, but apparently the Italians are very strict, coming out to check the vineyards closely for illegal workers during harvest. We were happy enough to go visit the workers and see how they were handling the hot summer heat.

With a relaxed, but efficient pace, the workers were happily going from vine to vine clipping the grapes into the buckets. From the buckets, the grapes were gathered into bigger baskets, which were hitched to the back of a tractor ready to be carried back up the road to the winery.

Choosing when to harvest is a big decision, as the grapes need to be at their peak for the wine you are looking to achieve. Knowing this, I could not resist the urge to try a grape to really understand what a wine-quality grape tastes like. These grapes were sensational, full-flavored, juicy, and sweet, making my mouth water instantly. If only we could get these in the store!

From here we said our goodbyes to the workers (in what little Italian we know) and went back to the estate to cool off with a wine tasting.

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Valentino was kind enough to make this happen for us, regardless of the hectic harvest day they were having. Not to mention some new bees that moved in nearby which they had to help relocate.

The tasting room is right beside the cellar which is a nice touch. It almost feels like you’re tasting right from the barrels with the wines in their most authentic form.

The wines were delicious, especially after we were out in the Tuscan heat. The wine reviews can be found here 🙂

Chianti Wine Tour Tasting Notes

Grapevines:

• Grapevines can grow forever and give out the same volume and quality regardless of how old they get. However, it really comes down to how you prune them.
• As the vine grows, it grows on top of previous years, so any mistakes you make are with you forever and can limit the vine in the future. Thus if you prune correctly, then the vine can last forever.
• Back in the ’50s and ’60s the farmer here had different priorities. They were part of a sharecropping system, so they had to give half of their crop to the nobility, thus they wanted vines that produced large volumes.
• However nowadays, they know that lower volume gives better wine, so they are replacing these vines to give them better quality winemaking vines instead.
• Also, considering the climate changes they are seeing, they are planting vines that are more temperature resistant.
• All farmers here are seeing these climate changes and it’s coming through their wines. It’s easy to see because the alcohol levels keep getting higher and higher.
• In the ’80s it was tough to achieve 12% alcohol and yet today I was tasting a 14.5% wine…. this is quite a difference and something that they are not exactly aiming to achieve.
• No one here would argue that the climate is changing. They don’t bother questioning whether it is man-made or not.
• Valentino: “Here we try to focus on what we know. We cannot control the climate, so we do not try to control it or spend our time pointing fingers. We do know wine though, and that’s our passion and our focus”.

Their Wines:

• Chianti-Classico is like their business card, it’s the wine they want to be known for.
• It’s 40% of their crop, so if they have an issue in the vineyard, then it’s going to show through on their “business card” or what Valentino also calls “a presentation of your life work”
• They still take their best grapes to make their best wine, this always creates great wine as you are putting your best players together
• However, it all comes back to their “business card” the Chianti-Classico. Instead of what Valentino sees a lot of other wineries doing, where they have their high-end wines, which they promote the most. Instead, he wants to keep the focus on the Chianti-Classico, it’s not too pricey (only a few euros more than the usual bottle of wine) but the quality is excellent, making it easier for more people to enjoy really good wine and get to know their brand.
• These wines are all made to go well with food. The reds, of course, pair nicely with a rich sauce or meaty meal.
• The best part is their wines are all organic and vegan friendly! – something I love to see 🙂

Italian Wine Tastings:

• Italy is really changing, in the past when you would show up at a winery the winemakers would play more of a farmer role. They might even be a bit rude, not wanting people on their property. They would then direct you to the local wine shop to try their wines there.
• However in the past 10 years, that is changing and the wineries have had to change with it, as people want to explore, try wines before making purchases, and meet the people behind these wines.
• Valentino sees this as a nice change “because in the wine shop you only get a few seconds to impress people. They have a look at the bottle, spin it quickly and then they look at the next bottle on the shelf”. Whereas when people take the time to drive some of these more rural roads and see the vines and the winery it’s more intimate and personal.
• It’s a great opportunity to share what they do and explain the wine’s personality
• From my point of view, it might even add to the quality of the wine if you know who’s making it and you have fond memories of where it came from

Valentino talks about the impacts of COVID

Valentino:

• We have felt it, but it could have been worse, the main impact came from our importers. Since restaurants across the globe closed, our importers no longer needed as much wine.
• However, with the lockdowns, alcohol consumption appears to have gone up, so people are drinking more. Instead of working to get wines into restaurants, we somehow have to convince consumers to choose our wine over the other options available.
• At the moment we cannot do much to change this. It lies with the importers who go out and sell it.
• Overall it’s been better than we expected. Still worse than all previous years, but compared to restaurants, who have had it the worst, this has been manageable.

Wine Exports:

• Mainly Europe: Germany, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria
• The US is very strong, the eastern side: New York, New Jersey, Delaware
• Sydney, Australia
• Japan – they actually speak Italian which is cool
• Canada is growing a bit: they just sent 300 bottles of Casasilia 2015 to the LCBO – usually everyone says the LCBO is too difficult to get into
• Also in Canada, they are in New Brunswick which is a smaller monopoly and easier to approach for a smaller winery
• Poggio Al Sole produces 100,000 bottles every vintage, so Canada still makes up a very small portion of this, but it’s interesting to see it grow
• Hong Kong as well, but with the current climate they are not actively selling wine until things settle down

Aging their wines:

• The reds can definitely be aged
• The Casasilia can be aged for vintage plus 10 years.
• They give this recommendation very conservatively to ensure the bottle won’t have degraded to the point that it is not enjoyable anymore and of course the longer you store them the more bottles you’ll find have gone bad.
• They still have bottles from 1996 that are excellent wines today
• Their motto is “the best vintages are still ahead” 🙂

Chianti Classico

Chianti is one of the great appellations of Italy and if you want to label your wine Chianti Classico you have to meet a long ruleset

A few of the main rules:

• needs to be 80% Sangiovese
• needs to be within the defined borders between Florence and Siena
• everything needs to come from this area, grow the grapes, ferment and vinify them here

There are also different Italian classes and they go from more strict to less strict. DOCG is the most strict and if you want to label a DOCG wine from this region, it has to be Chianti Classico because geography is one of the restrictions within Italy.

To label a bottle with “IGT” you need to meet certain regulations on your facilities and grapes, but it’s less strict than the higher DOCG class. Their white wine Chiara is an IGT.

Valentino’s Personal Story:

One of the best parts of our visit was Valentino, so I couldn’t leave this post without giving him a little shout out.

He comes from a family of four brothers who live back in Switzerland where he also lived, studied finance, and was working in the reinsurance industry with PWC.

Sadly, no one was interested in taking over here at the winery, so their parents were considering selling eventually, but the brothers didn’t want that either.

Valentino took a risk and decided to leave it all for the winery. He quit his job and figured he would give it a shot by moving back to see how he liked it.

He’s been here 2 years now and says he loves it!

He went on to tell us about the work saying: a winery is always beautiful, but you are working 6 days a week. You need to like it, you need to have a passion for it. Work-life balance is a different concept here, you need to live your work. However since it is your own thing, you set your own pace and you’ll only work on what you’re capable of.

As for the future, it’s important to know that the Poggio Al Sole winemaker (Johannes Davaz) is his father. They still have some noses and pallets they trust for advice on all of their wines, but the main decisions are made by Johannes. At the moment Johannes has no plan of retirement (he turned 59 last year) which is great because it gives Valentino lots of time to learn from him and spend time with his father.

The future is bright at the Poggio Al Sole winery and as they say, their best vintages are still ahead!

That’s it for this post. If you’re keen to add Poggio al Sole to your Chianti Wine Tour then feel free to reach out with any questions 🙂