A Guide to Tuscany: Sangiovese, Brunello, and Super Tuscans

We were in a small enoteca in Montalcino one October afternoon, the kind of place with a hand-written board of a dozen wines by the glass and a proprietor who seemed mildly insulted whenever anyone ordered the cheapest one. He pulled the cork on a 2010 Brunello from a producer we had never heard of and told us, in halting English, that this was "the real one". He was right. The wine was austere, savoury, faintly tarry, and so completely itself that it ruined every supermarket Tuscan we had bought for the previous decade.

Tuscany is one of the world's most over-marketed wine regions and also one of its most genuinely great. The hard part for the American buyer is sorting the serious wines from the souvenir bottles, because Tuscany makes both in industrial quantities and the labels do not always make the distinction easy. A short orientation goes a long way.

The Sangiovese Family

Sangiovese is the dominant grape across Tuscany, but it behaves like a different variety in each of its homes. In Chianti Classico, planted on the higher, cooler hills between Florence and Siena, it gives wines of bright red fruit, sour cherry, dried herbs, and a sometimes slightly austere finish. In Montalcino, where it is grown as the Sangiovese Grosso clone (locally called Brunello), it produces a more structured, longer-ageing wine with deeper colour and more tannin. In Montepulciano, the clone is known as Prugnolo Gentile and the wines tend to be plummier and more open in their youth.

The same grape, the same broad family of soils, but three quite different propositions. If you have only ever drunk supermarket Chianti and dismissed Sangiovese, you have not really drunk Sangiovese yet.

The Regional Map

Chianti Classico is the original heartland, between Florence and Siena, and the wines worth caring about within Tuscany's wider Chianti zone almost all come from here. The classification pyramid runs Annata at the entry tier, then Riserva (longer ageing), then Gran Selezione (introduced in 2014 for top-tier wines from estate fruit). The consortium has also recently added a UGA system that divides Chianti Classico into eleven named sub-villages, which is the kind of detail Burgundy lovers will recognise immediately.

Brunello di Montalcino sits to the south, hotter and drier, and is made entirely from Sangiovese. The DOCG requires at least four years of ageing before release (five for Riserva), of which two must be in oak. The result is one of Italy's most age-worthy red wines and one of its most expensive.

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, often unfairly overshadowed by its more famous neighbours, is a Sangiovese-based blend (minimum seventy per cent) from the hills around the town of Montepulciano. The wines tend to drink better younger than Brunello and offer some of the best value in serious Tuscan red.

Bolgheri, on the coast, is the home of the Super Tuscans. Bordeaux varieties dominate, the climate is warmer, and the wines are stylistically closer to Médoc than to anything from Sangiovese country. Maremma, further south along the coast, is a newer DOC producing both Sangiovese and Bordeaux-style reds at often very reasonable prices.

The Super Tuscan Story

The story of the Super Tuscans is one of the more enjoyable accidents in modern wine. In the 1970s and 80s, a handful of producers grew tired of the constraints of the Chianti DOC, which at the time required white grapes in the blend, and began making varietal Cabernet and Merlot-based wines from coastal vineyards. Because these wines did not fit the rules, they were officially classified as humble Vino da Tavola. The most famous of them, Sassicaia, started outscoring most Bordeaux in blind tastings and the system had to scramble to catch up. Today Bolgheri has its own DOC, but the "Super Tuscan" label stuck for any prestige red that does not slot into a traditional category.

What this means for the buyer: a Super Tuscan can be more or less anything. It might be a pure Cabernet Sauvignon from a coastal vineyard, a Sangiovese-Cabernet blend from inland Tuscany, or something else entirely. The price says more about the producer's ambition than the bottle's quality, so a Super Tuscan label by itself is not a buying signal.

Producers We Keep Coming Back To

For Chianti Classico, we keep returning to Fèlsina, whose Berardenga Annata is one of the best thirty-dollar bottles in Italy and whose Rancia single-vineyard Riserva tastes like a wine twice the price. Isole e Olena's Cepparello, a pure Sangiovese officially classified as a Super Tuscan because it is varietal, is another bottle we always recommend when someone wants to understand why the grape gets serious people excited.

For Brunello, our taste runs to the more traditional camp. Lisini makes Brunello the way it was made before international critics got involved, and we love them for it. Le Ragnaie produces some of the most elegant Brunello of the modern era, particularly from their Casanovina Montosoli site. For special occasions, Salvioni's single-vineyard Brunello is among the great wines of Italy and priced accordingly.

On the Super Tuscan side, Tenuta San Guido's Sassicaia remains the benchmark and is still worth its money if you can find it at retail. Antinori's Tignanello is the gateway bottle for the category, often hovering around the hundred-dollar mark, and we think it earns the price. Ornellaia rewards a long cellar.

If You Want to Try Some

We keep a small but considered Tuscan section in our shipping inventory, including some older Brunello vintages we have cellared ourselves. If you are not sure where to start, we are happy to put together a mixed case that walks you across Chianti Classico, Brunello, and Bolgheri so that you can taste the differences side by side rather than reading about them. Drop us an email or give us a call. We would be glad to talk through it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Chianti and Chianti Classico?

Chianti is a much larger DOCG that covers most of central Tuscany and includes several sub-zones. Chianti Classico is the original, smaller, historic heartland between Florence and Siena, with its own DOCG and a separate black rooster seal. The Classico wines are generally more serious and the quality control tighter.

Is all Brunello expensive?

Entry-level Brunello starts around forty to fifty dollars in the US, which is more than most Italian reds but reasonable given the ageing requirements. The flagship single-vineyard wines from top producers can run several hundred dollars. If you want to taste the same fruit at a lower price, look at Rosso di Montalcino, which is the same grape from the same producers with less ageing required, often around twenty-five dollars.

What makes something a "Super Tuscan"?

The term originally meant a prestige Tuscan wine that did not fit the DOC rules, which usually meant a Bordeaux-style blend rather than a Sangiovese-based one. Today the label is informal and covers anything from coastal Cabernet to inland Sangiovese-Cabernet blends. It signals ambition rather than a specific style or grape.

How long should you cellar a Brunello?

Serious Brunello from a good vintage will improve in bottle for fifteen to twenty years, and the best examples hold for longer. Even an entry-level bottle benefits from five to ten years in a decent cellar. If you are drinking one young, decant it for at least an hour.