($44):   Although this release is only the third vintage of this wine, Giovanni Manetti, owner/winemaker at Fontodi told me they have been working on the project for 15 years.  The Filetta vineyard, owned by Manetti’s cousin, is only a few miles from Fontodi’s home base near Panzano, but the wine is very different from their usual Chianti Classico because of the extreme elevation of the vineyard.  Sitting at about 2,000 feet above sea level, the site is too high to support even olive trees.  But Sangiovese does ripen there and produces a wine, which Manetti described to me as a “ballerina” compared to Fontodi’s more muscular regular Chianti Classico.  That description fits the 2016 Filetta di Lamole beautifully.  Not as ripe or rich as Fontodi’s usual Chianti Classico, the Filetta di Lamole is leaner, more elegant and sleeker.  Tasting the two side-by-side showcases terroir in the Chianti Classico region.  Here are two wines, both made entirely from Sangiovese and both made using basically the same winemaking techniques, that are enormously different.  The beauty is that you can’t go wrong with either.
95 Michael Apstein Mar 19, 2019