Artù - Marche Rosso IGT 2021 Fattoria San Lorenzo

Artù is the first step up in Natalino Crognaletti's range of important red wines: it's where wood makes its first appearance, where drinkability remains central but a structure begins to build, and where the grapes come from older vineyards than those used for ...di Gino Rosso. It has been in production since 2000, and over its twenty-year lifespan, it has become one of the best value-for-money wines in Fattoria San Lorenzo's entire range.

The blend is the same as its younger sibling: sixty percent Montepulciano and forty percent Sangiovese, but the grapes here come from old vineyards located between 300 and 400 meters above sea level, on very mineral clay-limestone soils. Late harvest in early October, at full ripeness. Spontaneous fermentation in steel tanks with indigenous yeasts, maceration on the skins for about twenty-five days, followed by twenty months of aging in second and third-passage French oak tonneaux (never new wood, at Crognaletti's estate) and another four months of rest in the bottle before release.

The wine that arrives in the glass doesn't resemble the wood- and jam-laden Marche reds: it's an old-school Marche IGT, with tannins smoothed by the long time in used oak, a full but never heavy structure, and a drinkability that remains Natalino's obsession. Notes of ripe cherry, licorice, cocoa, and a spicy trace.