From the atlas
Castello di Monterinaldi
At A Glance
Appellation: Chianti Classico Grapes: Sangiovese (dominant), with Malvasia, Canaiolo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah Vineyards: 50 hectares across 17 individually managed parcels Elevation: 400 metres Soils: Galestro and pietraforte Farming: Organic Cellar: Concrete vats and French oak barrels
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The Producer
Castello di Monterinaldi is a Chianti Classico estate on the Monterinaldi hill between Panzano and Radda in Chianti, where a castle that has stood since 1010 anchors 50 hectares of Sangiovese-dominant vines. The vineyards are not simply a uniform block: in 1961, the estate was reorganised into 17 separate plots, each defined by its own clone selection, altitude, soil type, and ground character. The vineyards are divided into 17 parcels.
Paolo Nocentini acquired the estate in 2023. The hill sits at the geographic centre of Chianti Classico, the zone of Sangiovese-based red wine running from Greve in Chianti south toward Castelnuovo Berardenga, where the Florentine wine law codified in 1716 first marked out these hillsides as worth distinguishing. Monterinaldi sits near the northern end of that zone, above the Pesa river valley.
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Place
The Monterinaldi hill forms a southwest-facing amphitheatre at 400 metres above sea level. That orientation is not accidental: afternoon sun drives Sangiovese to full phenolic development while morning coolness and the breezes that cross the hill preserve acidity into harvest. The result in the glass is Sangiovese that can carry both ripe, warm fruit and a firm acid line at the same time.
Below the vines, the Pesa river runs at the base of the hill. Around and between the parcels, forests and olive groves break up the vineyard canopy, moderating temperatures and supporting the insect and microbial diversity the estate relies on under organic management. For labelling purposes, wines produced here carry the Chianti Classico DOCG designation, which requires a minimum of 80 percent Sangiovese and governs yields, ageing, and release timing.
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Soil And Site
The soils combine two Tuscan substrates: galestro, a fractured, calcium-rich schistous rock that drains well and forces vine roots deep, and pietraforte, a harder sandstone with iron content that holds moderate moisture during dry summers. Both types run through Chianti Classico's central hillsides, but the combination at Monterinaldi is concentrated across all 17 parcels rather than appearing only in isolated vineyard sections.
Galestro's drainage keeps vine vigour in check, producing smaller berries with higher skin-to-juice ratios. That translates directly into deeper colour, firmer tannins, and more concentrated aromatic compounds in the wine. Pietraforte contributes a mineral edge that shows in the mid-palate as a slight earthy or stony quality beneath the fruit.
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Story
The castle at the centre of the estate was founded by Count Gottifredo, a Lombard-descended lord who gave the hill its name. By 1686, it had passed to the Geppi family, Florentine nobles who used it as a country residence rather than a working agricultural property. For centuries, the hill's winemaking potential sat largely untapped at the scale the terrain could support.
That changed in 1961. The estate was redesigned around 17 individual vineyard parcels, each mapped by clone selection, ground type, altitude, and soil character across the full 50 hectares. The decision to treat the hill not as one block but as seventeen distinct agricultural units was unusual for its time in Chianti Classico, where cooperative farming and bulk production still dominated the postwar period. It established a way of working the land that survived subsequent ownership changes and is still how the estate farms today.
Paolo Nocentini's acquisition in 2023 brought a stated emphasis on innovation and organic stewardship. The estate holds current organic certification, farming without synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fertilisers, relying on natural techniques to maintain biodiversity and soil health across the parcels.
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Vineyards And Cellar
The 17 parcels are distinguished by Sangiovese clone as well as physical characteristics. Different clones of Sangiovese vary in berry size, skin thickness, acidity expression, and aromatic profile, so separating them in the vineyard allows the cellar to decide how to blend or keep them distinct depending on vintage character. Each parcel's altitude and soil type add further variation: higher plots on galestro give wines with more acidity and aromatic lift; lower or heavier-soil sections contribute body and darker fruit.
Alongside the dominant Sangiovese, the estate maintains plantings of Malvasia and Canaiolo, the two varieties historically permitted in Chianti blends, as well as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah. Their role in the current range is not confirmed beyond their presence in the vineyard.
In the cellar, concrete vats and French oak barrels are the two principal vessels. Concrete preserves fruit character and acidity without adding wood flavour, while French oak contributes tannin, texture, and a gentle spice register.
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Wines
The core wine is Chianti Classico, a Sangiovese-dominant red that carries the DOCG's requirements for minimum grape composition, yield limits, and a minimum ageing period before release. At this level, Sangiovese from the 17 parcels moves through concrete and French oak, producing a wine that sits between the lighter, fruit-forward style of basic Chianti Classico and the more concentrated expressions of Riserva or Gran Selezione.
The 2020 Chianti Classico opens with vanilla, clove, Bing cherry, orange peel, and a note of potting soil. On the palate it is simultaneously sweet and warm in its fruit presentation, earthy in its mid-palate movement, with tannins that sharpen rather than soften the cherry, orange, and raspberry fruit through the finish. That tannin behaviour is characteristic of Sangiovese on galestro: firm but not grippy, giving the wine a dry finish with grip rather than softness.
No Riserva, Gran Selezione, or IGT wines are confirmed in the current range.
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In The Glass
Sangiovese from this hill at 400 metres arrives in the glass with a medium-deep ruby colour and an aromatic register that moves from spice to fruit to earth: the vanilla and clove notes from French oak contact, then the primary Sangiovese signature of sour cherry and dried orange peel, and underneath, the potting soil and mineral quality that galestro and pietraforte soils produce in the mid-palate.
The palate carries the warmth of southwest-facing sun exposure, giving the fruit a ripe, almost sweet impression at entry. The earthy movement through the mid-palate shifts the wine's centre of gravity and keeps it grounded rather than purely fruit-forward. Tannins are firm and present, sharpening the cherry and raspberry fruit rather than surrounding it, so the finish is dry and slightly austere in the way that Sangiovese on stony soils often is. Acidity is steady and provides the backbone that holds the sweet fruit and firm tannin together across the length of the wine.
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A Bottle To Understand It
The Chianti Classico is the bottle to start with here. It is Sangiovese from the 17 parcels on galestro and pietraforte, aged in a combination of concrete and French oak, carrying the DOCG designation that marks the wine as coming from the historic central zone of Tuscan Sangiovese production. In the glass it gives vanilla, clove, and cherry on the nose, a warm and earthy palate, and firm tannins on a dry finish. It is not a soft or easy wine: the tannins are genuine and need either time or food, and the earthy mid-palate is part of the wine's character rather than a flaw. Buy the most recent available vintage and open it with a meal.
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Anecdote
In 1961, someone at Castello Monterinaldi drew lines across a 50-hectare hill and decided that each section was its own vineyard. Not one estate, one block, one wine. Seventeen plots, each assigned its own Sangiovese clone selection, mapped by altitude, soil type, and ground character. At the time, Chianti Classico was largely a cooperative and bulk-sale economy: the postwar hill estates sold grapes or wine in volume, and parcel-level thinking was not the standard approach to a hillside. The decision to break the hill into distinct agricultural units, to treat clone variation and soil difference as something worth separating rather than blending away at source, was a concrete act about the land. The 17 parcels are still there, still individually farmed, still the working architecture of the estate more than sixty years later.
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Final Word
Castello di Monterinaldi is a medieval hill that has been farmed as seventeen distinct vineyards since 1961. The combination of galestro and pietraforte soils, southwest-facing slope, 400-metre elevation, and organic farming produces Chianti Classico with the warm fruit, firm tannin, and earthy mineral character that marks Sangiovese grown on stony hillside ground. Paolo Nocentini's 2023 acquisition brings fresh ownership to an estate whose vineyard approach is already mature and well-established.
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Sources
- https://www.chianticlassico.com/en/estates/castello-monterinaldi/
- https://castellomonterinaldi.com/en/the-estate/
- https://castellomonterinaldi.com/en/wine-nature/
- https://castellomonterinaldi.com/en/sustainability/
- https://www.wineenthusiast.com/buying-guide/castello-monterinaldi-2020-sangiovese-chianti-classico/