Montesecondo "Ghazii"

Grapes: Sangiovese

Region: Tuscany, Italy

Vintage: 2021

Viticulture: Biodynamic

Soils: Clay + Galestro

Yeasts: Native

Vinification: Whole cluster direct press. Juice is cooled, racked. Bottled with 10g sugar to encourage natural fermentation

Fining or Filtering: Disgorged

Notes from the Importer: The name Ghazii means sparkling in Arabic. But it was also the name given to the warriors that fought the French in North Africa.

In a previous life, Silvio Messana was a New Yorker. There had always been this beautiful farm in Tuscany outside of Florence where Silvio’s mother lived. They visited yearly. His father had planted vineyards there in the early 1970’s. Since his death, his mother looked after them and sold the grapes to a local négociant. In the mid 1990’s, Silvio’s mother was ill and his family decided to move back to be near her. By this time, Silvio had already developed a passion for wine in the United States. With the certain impossibility of finding an affordable rent in New York with three growing sons, Silvio and his wife Catalina decided to stay on after his mother’s death, turning the Chianti Classico farm into their home with a portion of the farm converted as a half-year bed-and-breakfast. Silvio immediately began working on the vineyards himself.

The first vintage that Silvio estate bottled was 2000. There was a lot to learn and unlearn. He made friendships with only a few of the suspicious neighboring Tuscan vignaioli, but Paolo di Marchi of Isole e Olena (himself a foreigner from Piemonte) and his former agronomist Paolo Masi were encouraging and helpful with practical matters.