Grape Variety : Sangiovese. Farming Type : Organic. The grapes are destemmed but with many whole berries remaining intact; the fermentation with native yeasts and maceration in concrete is long and slow, as is the gentle pressing to get to the core of each berry (where Dora feels the sweetest part of the fruit lies).

80% Prugnolo Gentile/20% Canaiolo Nero & Mammolo. Prugnolo Gentile is the variant of Sangiovese found in Montepulciano and historically co-planted with supporting varieties like Canaiolo and Mammolo. Proprietor Dora Forsoni has been farmiing her family's vines organically forever, many of them quite old (plantings go back to 1963) and all maintained meticulously by her and by hand. Soils are worked several times per year. The bunches are harvested manually and destemmed with the berries left mainly whole and layered in concrete tanks. Fermentation is spontaneous with native yeasts. Maceration lasts around 10 days before a very gentle, slow pressing. Notably and emphatically, Dora makes a single red wine each vintage: it becomes her Rosso di Montepulciano, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Vino Nobile Riserva, distinguished simply by length of aging. The Rosso sees 1 year (vs. 2 for the Vino Nobile normale and 3 for the riserva) in a mix of French and Slavonian oak botti ranging from 18 to 30 hectoliters. Note the discreet "I & II" appended to the "Poderi Sanguineto" estate name--like so many Italian farms at the turn of the 20th century, Sanguineto was part of a feudalistic agricultural system, divided into blocks worked by sharecroppers for the lord of the manor--Dora's part of the original property is old #1 and #2 blocks.