M.L. Fioretti P.V.D. I.G.T. Toscana Rosso 2019

Matthew Fioretti is the manager of Cerbaiona and a very gifted winemaker indeed. All his wines excel in purity and balance and have some of the most refined tannins I have tasted yet. Outside his work at Cerbaiona, Matthew also has his own project including vineyards in the region around Pienza. There he produces an absolutely sublime Merlot in sadly minimal quantities and also this Petit-Verdot – Ancelotti, both grapes of the so-called “Colorino” type.

Petit-Verdot is a very late-ripening grape with a very thick skin that when dark coloured gives wines with very high tannins that fortunately ripen better in warmer Tuscany than in Bordeaux. Matthew discovered that Ancelotti, also a strong-coloured grape but with much softer tannins, gave the perfect match with the Petit-Verdot. They eventually discovered that the ideal blend was 58% Petit Verdot and 42% Ancellotta and that this best preserved the unique character of the Petit Verdot while levelling out the tannins, the two “colorino-type” varieties proved compatible.

So the result is a very dark wine with a spicy-fruity character, a firm mouthfeel with lots of extract tannins, but these are all in all fine and not at all astringent. A rare, characterful, perfectly vinified wine, definitely worth discovering.

Oh yes, no scores anywhere for these wines. Matthew thinks it is quite absurd to summarise wine in a number and we can follow him in that. A review may be written, but not points, which is why most reviewers don’t even want to bother.