Pirocanto - Toscana Bianco IGT 2023 Chioccioli Altadonna

Pirocanto stems from a precise question: what happens to traditional Tuscan white grape varieties when they are no longer pressed immediately and are allowed to express themselves slowly, in the darkness of an amphora? Niccolò Chioccioli Altadonna brings the white grapes of Gaiole in Chianti into 7-hectoliter Impruneta terracotta amphorae, lets them ferment with their native yeasts, and keeps them in contact with skins and seeds for about three months. It is not a white wine in the conventional sense of the term: it is a macerated wine that acquires a clear minerality and a savory taste from the amphora that wood could never impart, and from the maceration, a light tannin and a surprising complexity. The name combines fire and song: the fire of the Impruneta kilns that shape the container, the song of the wine that slowly takes shape within it. Earth, fire, water, and air: the same four elements that Chioccioli Altadonna places at the heart of everything he produces.