“Habemus Etichetta Rossa” Rosso Lazio IGT 2022

San Giovenale | Latium
San Giovenale Agr. srl | Via Giuseppe Zanardelli 34 | IT 00186 Roma

10072322 · 0,75 l · 185,33 €/l · Price (DE) incl. VAT, excl. Shipping< 24 units available

One hectare. 13,000 vines. 1,000 bottles. You don't really need to say more – and yet that would be too little. The Cabernet Franc of Etichetta Rossa grows on a single vineyard in Blera, south-east facing, 380 metres above sea level, heavy clay soils with stone inclusions. The planting density – 13,000 vines per hectare – exceeds even the already extreme density of the other San Giovenale plots. Each plant fights for water, light and space. The yield is 12 quintals per hectare – half as much as the Habemus Bianca. What remains is concentrated to the limit of what is possible.

The grapes are harvested manually, by variety in 15-kilo crates, in a race against time: destemming and pressing within an hour of harvest, before oxidation and temperature can influence the aromas. Spontaneous fermentation in steel tanks, 15 days of maceration. Then the long road: 30 months in new French barriques – ten months more than the flagship blend. At least a further six months in the bottle. Without filtration, without fining.

Deep garnet red in the glass, compact and impenetrable. The nose demands time – and rewards it with extraordinary complexity: ripe dark cherries, plum, bitter chocolate, roasted coffee, clove, undergrowth, a hint of tobacco and vanilla, underneath the fine, barely perceptible spice of the Cabernet Franc – pencil, green peppers, almost imperceptible, more suggestion than statement. On the palate, it is powerful and full-bodied, rich and voluminous, but with a precision in the tannins that does not forget its origins: it is still Lazio, not Bordeaux. The length of the finish, as one critic once put it, is almost impossible to quantify. Casolanetti's hand can also be felt here – the same philosophy as with Kurni, but in a different register: less vigour, more architecture. SUPERIORE.DE