"Tre Bicchieri" Gambero Rosso 2027

In the late 1970s, Paolo Panerai brought together four separate "poderi" – small farms whose soil was so hard and stony that no one could work it with oxen, only by hand – to form a single vineyard. The Tuscan farmers called such unyielding land "I Sodi". The farms surrounded an old hamlet, dominated by the church of San Niccolò – hence the full name. In 1977, Panerai produced the first vintage. In 1988, "I Sodi di San Niccolò", with its 1985 vintage, became the first Italian wine ever to be included in Wine Spectator's Top 100 – a success that was repeated in 1989 with the 1986 vintage. To this day, it remains one of the few Super Tuscans produced exclusively from indigenous grape varieties – proof that Sangioveto needs no crutches from Bordeaux. Its origins lie in genuine research: the first experimental vineyard in the Chianti Classico region, established in collaboration with the Universities of Milan and Florence, as well as the San Michele all'Adige Institute, to identify the best clones. 2022 marks the 45th harvest of this historic wine.

Seven bridges span the Arno on the road from Florence to Arezzo; one of them, the Buriano Bridge, is believed to be the backdrop to Leonardo's Mona Lisa. The Tenuta Sette Ponti is named after them. In the 1990s, Antonio Moretti Cuseri took over the business from his father, stopped selling the grapes and brought in winegrowers and Oenologist. The first Oreno was produced in 1999. Whilst travelling, the wine lover was impressed by the Bordeaux varieties, so he had them planted here – where they had not previously been grown – with the help of the renowned vine grafting specialist Gilbert Bouvet, who grafted onto mature vines. The wine takes its name from the Oreno stream, which runs through the estate. The Merlot is planted near the water, in the area with the highest clay content, whilst the Cabernet Sauvignon is grown on stonier ground with pebbles.

Sand changes everything. In Neive, where many Barbaresco soils are dominated by marl and clay, the Fausoni vineyard is interspersed with sandy components – and this difference is no mere detail. Sand conducts heat differently, drains more quickly, contains fewer nutrients and forces the vine to concentrate its flavours. At the same time, it lends the tannins a finesse that does not develop in heavier soils. Forty-year-old vines growing in this light subsoil have learnt to grow deep and slender. The result is the softest, most floral of the five Sottimano Barbareschi. Fermentation with natural yeasts, prolonged contact with the cap, natural malolactic fermentation. 18 to 22 months in barriques specially made for the estate, half of which is spent on the lees. Like all five crus: no filtration, no fining, and a further year of bottle ageing. The same care – and a completely different result.

In 1988, two worlds of wine came together in Serdiana. Mariano Murru, the estate's cellar master, collaborated with Giacomo Tachis, the Oenologistwho had helped shape Sassicaia, Tignanello, Solaia and Guado al Tasso, and was thus one of the most influential figures in the Italian wine renaissance. What emerged from this encounter was not an attempt to mould Sardinia in the Tuscan image, but quite the opposite: a wine made exclusively from indigenous Sardinian grape varieties, yet one capable of holding its own on the international stage. Antonio Argiolas, born in 1906 and who lived to be over a hundred, never tiring of taking on new challenges, shared this vision with his sons Franco and Giuseppe in the 1980s. Following the first harvest in 1988, Turriga took its time: it was not until 1991 that it was presented to connoisseurs. The journalist Benedetto Ferrara later wrote in La Repubblica that this wine had legitimised Sardinian red wine in the eyes of the world.

Vorberg – the name gives away its location: on the steep southern slopes of the Tschöggelberg, at altitudes between 450 and 650 metres, a Pinot Blanc thrives that reveals the full potential of this famous South Tyrolean grape variety. The stony, sandy-loam soils, formed from weathered porphyry, with their high quartz content and slightly acidic pH levels, characterise a terroir of extremes: high water permeability, limited nutrient availability and naturally restricted yields. This microstress elicits unique, terroir-specific polyphenols from the vines. Hand-harvested, gently pressed as whole bunches, followed by natural sedimentation. Slow fermentation takes place at a controlled temperature in large oak casks (70 and 30 hl), followed by partial malolactic fermentation and 12 months' ageing on the fine lees in traditional wooden casks.

The name is a nod to the old silver mines of the province of Livorno. The land on the southern edge of Castagneto Carducci once belonged to the Serristori, a noble Florentine family; today, it is home to 85 hectares of vines spread across four zones, the first of which were planted by the estate in 2000. The cellar is modelled on 16th-century Tuscan fortresses; from its terrace, the view stretches as far as the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago. The vineyards open out towards the sea like a shell, close to the water yet situated on some of the highest plots in the appellation. For this wine, they extend up to around 200 metres, on marl and claystone with interlayers of sandstone and siliceous rock; the rows face from north through west to south, with 7,500 vines and around 6,000 kilograms of grapes per hectare. The sea breeze blows all year round, and as the grapes ripen, the nights cool noticeably.

In the summer of 1983, Elio Altare picked up a chainsaw and cut up his father's old Slavonian barrels. An act of rebellion, a break with tradition and the start of a revolution in Barolo. His father subsequently disinherited him, but Elio remained true to his path: Burgundian vinification, French barriques, shorter maceration and ageing periods. The Langhe traditionalists were appalled. But what of the wines? They sold out immediately. Today, Elio Altare is regarded as one of the "Barolo Boys", a pioneer of the modern Barolo style – and Arborina is his most famous flagship wine.

In 1994, an unusually large number of Bolgheri figures gathered at once beneath the holm oak at Grattamacco: among them were Michele Satta, Piero and Lodovico Antinori, as well as the host, Piermario Meletti Cavallari. A photograph captures the group. Meletti Cavallari, a wine connoisseur and close friend of Veronelli, had taken over the estate in 1977. He had the orchards grubbed up and planted vines in white, barren soil that was difficult to work: Vermentino, a rarity in this area at the time, along with Sangiovese and Bordeaux varieties. The first vintage was released in 1982; in 1994, shortly after the rules for the appellation were introduced, Grattamacco became the first estate to bottle a Bolgheri Rosso. It has been owned by Claudio Tipa since 2002 and is now part of the ColleMassari group.

Tenuta Nuova. The name carries weight: when Giacomo Neri acquired the land around Le Cetine, near the Abbazia di Sant'Antimo in southern Montalcino, in the early 1990s, no one had ever planted Sangiovese there. This was no oversight – it was a judgement that Giacomo Neri wanted to overturn. Not out of defiance, but out of conviction: that this terrain, this microclimate, these soils held the potential for a Brunello with a character all of its own. What followed was not a gut feeling, but a methodical approach. Systematic studies of the microclimates, the optimal exposures and the soils – clone selection, rootstock research, planting distances; everything was scrutinised, every decision made. The first result came in 1993. A few years later, the rest of the world was talking about it.

This is a wine whose label speaks a language all of its own. Filo di Seta is adorned with an oil painting by Sandro Chia from the early 1980s – now in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. It depicts an androgynous figure leaping backwards into the Grotta Azzurra on Capri: weightless, suspended in that moment between sky and water. Beneath it is Chia's verse: "In strange, dark water – when a white dot glows, when a doll leaps – I fly by her side." The wine, the winemaker tells us, is meant to be precisely that: a sensation that defies the obvious.

On 18 and 19 April 2017, the temperature dropped to minus 4.5 degrees; the frost damaged two-thirds of the estate's vineyards, whilst in August the temperature soared to 39 degrees. The yield was 4,800 kilograms of grapes per hectare – 38% – and from these came a wine bearing the name of the estate’s founder: Annamaria Clementi Zanella, mother of Maurizio Zanella. In 1989, the cuvée was dedicated to her; it is produced only in the best vintages and exclusively from the finest plots, at that time still known as the Cuvée Annamaria Clementi Riserva. Since the 2008 vintage, it has been simply called Annamaria Clementi and is bottled without dosage.

Since the 16th century, the Allegrini family has been playing a part in the history of Valpolicella. Giovanni Allegrini, the visionary, is regarded as the architect of its renaissance. A man they called "il ragno delle botti" – the cellar master spider – because he would wander restlessly amongst his barrels, always in search of perfection. His son Franco carried on the legacy, revolutionising the appassimento process with the construction of Terre di Fumane – a state-of-the-art drying facility that precisely controls temperature, humidity and air circulation. Since 2022, the winery has been in the hands of the third generation: Francesco, Giovanni, Matteo and Silvia.

Before the name Ester Canale graced a bottle of wine, it belonged to a woman who inherited one of Piedmont's most famous plots: a section of the Vigna Rionda in Serralunga d'Alba, from which her cousin Tommaso Canale once supplied the grapes for Bruno Giacosa's legendary Collina Rionda. Through this circuitous route, part of this vineyard came into the possession of the Rosso family, who have been cultivating vines in Serralunga for over a hundred years. With a good dozen renowned vineyards to his name, including Cerretta, Broglio and Meriame, Davide Rosso took over the estate in 2001, bringing with him a wealth of experience from Burgundy and a keen eye for precision.

A Brunello Riserva that is only born in years that the winery considers exceptional. Not every great harvest produces a Caterina and certainly not a Riserva. It is the promise that Giuseppe Bianchini made to himself when he unexpectedly inherited an entire vineyard in 1985: he would create a wine that would be a monument to its terroir. The name has something sacred about it, a silent reference to the spiritual tradition of this landscape between the Abbey of Sant'Antimo and the hills of Castelnuovo dell'Abate. Santa Caterina d'Oro – the golden Catherine – as if to provide the wine with a patron saint, a protector of its long journey through time.

At Fuligni, the Riserva is not a matter of course. It is produced only when a vintage deserves it – and when the estate's oldest vineyards have yielded something that is more than just Brunello. More than just good. 1972, 1976, 2002: vintages in which Fuligni simply did not release any Brunello at all because the quality wasn't up to standard. Such consistency is rare, for one must be able to afford it and be willing to do so. It is also the foundation upon which a Riserva acquires its very special significance. 2020 was no easy year. Warm, dry, early-ripening – a vintage that many producers dismissed as too opulent, too soft. Fuligni saw it differently. The north-east-facing vineyards in Cottimelli, at altitudes of between 380 and 450 metres, on Galestro soil – stony, cool, with natural acidity even in hot years – tempered the heat and preserved the freshness. What proved a challenge in flatter, warmer sites resulted here in concentrated, healthy grapes with depth and surprising elegance. The estate's oldest vines, over forty years old, with reduced yields and highly concentrated juice, provided the grapes for this selection.

The name is a tribute. Giodo – a combination of Giovanna and Donatello, his parents' names. Carlo Ferrini, one of Italy's most distinguished Oenologist, has dedicated his life to Sangiovese – as a consultant to estates stretching from Montalcino to Etna, and as the architect of some of Tuscany's most influential wines of the last three decades. It was never a question of 'if', but of 'when' he would eventually establish his own vineyard. In 2002, he found it: ten hectares in Sant'Angelo in Colle, south-west of Montalcino, seven of which were woodland and three set aside for vines. And the only grape variety grown here is Sangiovese – 15 carefully selected clones, planted with the patience of a man who knows that great wines are not made, but nurtured.

The famous Castello della Sala stands on a hill above Orvieto – a medieval stronghold, surrounded by woodland and olive groves, deep in the tranquillity of Umbria. The Marchesi Antinori have owned it for generations; but what made it a wine legend was the first Cervaro della Sala in 1985: a white wine conceived like a red – barrique fermentation, malolactic fermentation, and a long ageing process. Producing a white wine capable of ageing for decades was by no means a matter of course in Italy at that time. But it became one. The winemaking process follows a principle once formulated by Renzo Cotarella and which still applies today: as little intervention as possible. The Castello's winery operates using gravity – no mechanical pumps, no unnecessary stress on the grapes. The harvest begins in the early hours of the morning, when temperatures are still cool. The Chardonnay macerates on the skins for four hours at 10 degrees, then ferments in barriques and matures with partial malolactic fermentation. The Grechetto remains exclusively in stainless steel – it brings the tension that the Chardonnay alone cannot provide. In February, the two are blended together.

In the summer of 1983, Elio Altare picked up a chainsaw and cut up his father's old Slavonian barrels. An act of rebellion, a break with tradition and the start of a revolution in Barolo. His father subsequently disinherited him, but Elio remained true to his path: Burgundian vinification, French barriques, shorter maceration and ageing periods. The Langhe traditionalists were appalled. But what of the wines? They sold out immediately. Today, Elio Altare is regarded as one of the "Barolo Boys", a pioneer of the modern Barolo style – and Arborina is his most famous flagship wine.

Lazzarito is situated in Serralunga d'Alba – the eastern municipality that holds the most decisive influence in the Barolo wine region. The soils are Serravalian: compact sandstone, quartz-rich sand, low in fertility, but with a mineral structure that gives the Nebbiolo a depth and tannic density not found elsewhere. Lazzarito is situated in the northern part of Serralunga, facing south-west at an altitude of 330 to 380 metres – a vineyard that basks in the sun for long periods and makes the most of the cool autumn nights for aromatic ripening. 2022 was a particular test for Serralunga: drought, an early harvest, and vineyards that reacted to the heat. Vietti harvested the grapes in the second half of September – three to four days of cold maceration, followed by 20 days of contact with the must under submersible conditions, malolactic fermentation in used barriques, and 24 months in large wooden casks.

In 1967, Sergio Manetti, a Milanese industrialist and passionate art collector, bought an abandoned estate in the hills of Radda in Chianti. He knew little about wine. He knew a great deal about quality. And he decided early on that his wine would make no compromises – not even those demanded of him by the appellation. When the Chianti Classico DOCG stipulated that white grape varieties must be blended in, Manetti refused. From then on, his wine was known as Toscana IGT. Not out of a lack of pride in Chianti – but because he had too much of it. What grows at Montevertine are the three indigenous red grape varieties of Chianti: Sangiovese as the soul, Canaiolo for elegance, and Colorino for colour and structure. No additives, no international compromises. Martino Manetti, Sergio's son, runs the estate with the same conviction: "Simplicity, respect, care for every detail and savoir-faire" – this is how the estate itself describes its philosophy. Words that sound simple, yet are so difficult to put into practice.

The year 1991 was the first. With the 2021 vintage, Poggio di Sotto is celebrating its thirtieth Brunello – an anniversary that the estate is marking with a special label in gold print, discreetly and without pomp, entirely in the style of the house. Thirty vintages that have proven that elegance is not a weakness. 2021 was not an easy year. Late frosts in spring decimated the harvest, summer brought heat, August finally brought rain – a sequence that could have been disastrous in other hands. Cellar master Leonardo Berti sees this as the special character of this vintage: fewer grapes, more concentration and an intensity gained through stress, which was kept in balance by the freshness of the long growing season. The soils – a mosaic of white and red clay, galestro and grey marl – did the rest. Spontaneous fermentation in wooden vats, maceration for at least 30 days, 42 months in large Slavonian oak barrels, unfiltered. The recipe is the same. The wine is not.

The name is a nod to the old silver mines of the province of Livorno. The land on the southern edge of Castagneto Carducci once belonged to the Serristori, a noble Florentine family; today, it is home to 85 hectares of vines spread across four zones, the first of which were planted by the estate in 2000. The cellar is modelled on 16th-century Tuscan fortresses; from its terrace, the view stretches as far as the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago. The vineyards open out towards the sea like a shell, close to the water yet situated on some of the highest plots in the appellation. For this wine, they extend up to around 200 metres, on marl and claystone with interlayers of sandstone and siliceous rock; the rows face from north through west to south, with 7,500 vines and around 6,000 kilograms of grapes per hectare. The sea breeze blows all year round, and as the grapes ripen, the nights cool noticeably.

Ornellaia has always sought more. More depth in its red wine, more expression of the terroir, more precision in its selection. But at some point, the question arose: what if all this were translated into a white wine? A white wine from Bolgheri, that coastal region which taught the world that Tuscany is more than just Sangiovese? Ornellaia Bianco is the answer. "Italy's most ambitious white wine", according to the estate itself. Not a modest claim. Sauvignon Blanc, exclusively. Three small plots in Bellaria, north-facing – an unusual choice in a Mediterranean climate. The cool aspect protects the aromatics, prolongs ripening and preserves the freshness that distinguishes a great white wine from a merely pleasant one. Sandy loam soils on limestone, 130 metres above sea level. 13 hectares of white wine in an estate that focuses on 80 hectares of red.

Tenuta Nuova. The name carries weight: when Giacomo Neri acquired the land around Le Cetine, near the Abbazia di Sant'Antimo in southern Montalcino, in the early 1990s, no one had ever planted Sangiovese there before. This was no accident – it was a judgement that Giacomo Neri wanted to challenge. Not out of defiance, but out of conviction: that this terrain, this microclimate and these soils held the potential for a Brunello with its own distinct character. What followed was not a gut feeling, but a methodical approach. Systematic studies of the microclimates, the optimal exposures and the soils – clone selection, rootstock research, planting distances; everything was scrutinised, every decision made. The first result came in 1993. A few years later, the rest of the world was talking about it.