Tuscany Wine Region Study Guide
Tuscany Wine Region Study Guide
Sangiovese is the thread that runs through almost everything worth knowing about Tuscan reds, and the region's genius is how many different wines it coaxes from that one grape across a warm, Mediterranean-influenced landscape of inland hills and a cooler-tempered coast. A candidate who can trace Sangiovese from a bright Chianti Classico through a powerful, age-worthy Brunello di Montalcino, then explain why the Super Tuscans broke from tradition, has most of what the exam wants. The supporting cast matters too, from the international varieties on the coast to the whites of San Gimignano, but keep Sangiovese at the center and the map falls into place.
The Sangiovese signature
Before the appellations, fix the grape in your mind. Sangiovese gives sour cherry and red plum fruit wrapped in savory notes of tomato leaf, dried herbs, leather, and tobacco, all carried on firm acid and medium-to-high tannin with a savory finish. That high-acid, savory profile is what makes it such a natural table wine and such a recognizable blind hypothesis. Everything that follows, from Chianti Classico's brightness to Brunello's density, is Sangiovese under different conditions and different rules, not a different flavor family.
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