Finally, wines from Castello di Argiano (not to be confused with Argiano, next door) are here at Whitfield Wines!
The archetypal Restaurant Wine, the Brunello has featured on the best Italian restaurants in London for years, and has been notoriously difficult to get hold of for fans of drinking Montalcino wines at home.
The wines from the Sesti family were responsible for my falling for wines from this area, and they are still so hard to beat. The family are friends and what they do just south of Montalcino itself is nothing short of wine making magic.
This wine is critically acclaimed. This is a savoury, well structured, rich, full-bodied red wine with blackberry, herbaceous and spicy notes on the nose and the palate. Savoury notes of black truffle can also be identified on the palate. Pair with red meats, game, pasta dishes with rich meat sauces and mature cheeses.
What started as neighbourly help assisting in the nearby vineyards and wineries soon led Giuseppe Sesti to discover his own passion and talent for winemaking, planting his own vines at Castello di Argiano in 1991.
The progress he has made in such a short time is staggering, and the Sesti wines are now widely acknowledged to be quite simply some of the finest that Montalcino has to offer. Having studied astronomy, it is not surprising that many of his winemaking processes follow the lunar cycle. Giuseppe Sesti has succeeded in establishing an extremely impressive international reputation in the world of winemaking.
The best grapes produced on the estate are dedicated to wine, the cuttings of which were originally selected from very old neighbouring vineyards. To fertilise vineyards and olive groves only vegetables and animal manure are used also for the spraying biodegradable produce are used.
After the fermentation the wine is transferred to medium size oak barrels (10 to 30 Hectolitres) where it remains for three years before being refined in the bottle for another year, when it is ready to be sold under the denomination DOCG, a title which only few wines in Italy can boast. Harvested by hand.
