Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2007 Carmignano Riserva Piaggia is a bit more aromatically tired than expected. It lifts from the glass with a dusty and earthy blend of cedar shavings, dried herbs, and plums. This is ripe in style, silken yet energetic, with cooling acidity and depths of red and black fruits. It finishes with earthy minerality, sweet tannins and hints of soy.
Among Italy's elite red grape varieties, Sangiovese has the perfect intersection of bright red fruit and savory earthiness and is responsible for the best red wines of Tuscany. While it is best known as the chief component of Chianti, it is also the main grape in Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and reaches the height of its power and intensity in the complex, long-lived Brunello di Montalcino. Somm Secret—Sangiovese doubles under the alias, Nielluccio, on the French island of Corsica where it produces distinctly floral and refreshing reds and rosés.
With recorded history of red wine production since the Middle Ages, Carmignano is a small, ancient, central Italian subregion ten miles northwest of Florence. Carmignano grows Sangiovese with great success in low-lying hills of 160 to 650 feet above sea level.
It is the only Tuscan DOC that required the inclusion of (up to 20%) Cabernet Sauvignon in its Sangiovese-based wines years before it became popular in the Super Tuscan blends.