Italy · Chianti Hills

Podere Il Carnasciale - Il Carnasciale s.r.l. società agricola

A five-hectare hilltop estate in Tuscany's Valdarno di Sopra, devoted entirely to Caberlot, a natural crossing of Cabernet Franc and Merlot found nowhere else in meaningful commercial quantity. Il Caberlot spends 22 months in Burgundian barrels and 16 months in bottle before release, arriving in the glass with red cherry, orange peel, cedar and an intense mineral freshness unlike anything from the Maremma coast or Chianti.

The producer

Podere Il Carnasciale makes one grape and three wines from a hilltop in the Valdarno di Sopra, a DOC zone in the province of Arezzo in eastern Tuscany. The entire estate covers 5.5 hectares, of which 4.5 hectares are planted to Caberlot across five separate plots. Caberlot is a natural crossing of Cabernet Franc and Merlot, and it does not exist in meaningful commercial quantity elsewhere. Moritz Rogosky owns and runs the property.

Il Caberlot spends 22 months in medium-toast Burgundian barrels, roughly half of them new, with a single racking, then goes to bottle without fining or filtration and rests for a further 16 months before release. From harvest to shelf is approximately three and a half years. Wolf and Bettina Rogosky bought Carnasciale as a ruined farm in 1972 and planted the first Caberlot vines in 1985. The original home vineyard was barely a third of a hectare. It grew to five plots and the single grape now underpins every bottle the estate produces.

Known for

Caberlot, a natural vine crossing unique to this estate, found nowhere else in commercial quantity.

Notable facts

The story

The First Vintage Came From Someone Else's Ground

When the Rogoskys made the first vintage of Il Caberlot in 1988, their own Caberlot vines were still too young to produce. The planting had gone in only in 1985, barely a third of a hectare in the home vineyard, and three years is not enough time to draw serious wine from a new vine. So the inaugural Il Caberlot was made not from estate fruit but from vines in the experimental vineyard of a grower named Remigio Bordini. Bordini had Caberlot growing in a trial plot, the estate needed fruit for its first vintage, and the arrangement was made. The wine that introduced Il Carnasciale to the world, the bottle that set the reputation, came from someone else's ground.

From the atlas

Podere Il Carnasciale

At A Glance

The Producer

Podere Il Carnasciale makes one grape and three wines from a hilltop in the Valdarno di Sopra, a DOC zone tucked into the province of Arezzo in eastern Tuscany. The entire estate covers 5.5 hectares. Of that, 4.5 hectares are planted to Caberlot across five separate plots. Caberlot is a natural crossing of Cabernet Franc and Merlot, and it does not exist in meaningful commercial quantity elsewhere.

That is not a marketing claim. It is the operational fact that governs everything about this address: every vine, every barrel, and every bottle comes from a single variety that the estate developed from an accidental crossing found here. Moritz Rogosky owns and runs the property today.

Il Caberlot spends 22 months in medium-toast Burgundian barrels, roughly half of them new, with a single racking. It is then bottled without fining or filtration and held for a further 16 months before release. From harvest to shelf is approximately three and a half years.

Place

The Valdarno di Sopra, or Upper Arno Valley, runs between the Chianti mountains to the west and the Pratomagno range to the east. It received its own DOC recognition in 2011. The province is Arezzo, which places this estate east of Chianti Classico and well away from the coastal warmth of Maremma.

Podere Il Carnasciale sits on a hilltop inside the southern Chianti mountains, at an elevation that keeps the growing season cooler than the Maremma and produces grapes with a freshness and mineral drive that reviewers consistently note in Il Caberlot. The altitude matters: it is directly legible in the glass as acidity and energy rather than weight.

Soil And Site

The estate sits on a hilltop position in the southern Chianti mountains. The packet does not supply soil type analysis for the five Caberlot plots. What the site produces, and what every reviewer confirms, is a wine with marked minerality, a quality that points to a well-drained elevated position with significant day-to-night temperature variation during the growing season.

The five plots cover 4.5 hectares in total. The original home vineyard, planted in 1985, was barely a third of a hectare. All vineyard work is done by hand.

Story

Wolf and Bettina Rogosky bought Carnasciale as a ruined property in 1972. It was a farm, not a wine project. The decision to plant Caberlot did not come until 1985, more than a decade after the purchase. The original home planting was tiny: roughly one-third of a hectare. From that beginning, the estate eventually expanded to five Caberlot plots across 4.5 hectares.

Wolf Rogosky died in 1996, leaving the project mid-course. The family continued. Moritz Rogosky now owns and runs the estate, and the range has grown from the original single wine to include a large-cask second wine and a rare single-vineyard riserva.

The cellar approach has also shifted over the decades. Early vintages matured for 18 months in entirely new barriques. Current practice uses medium-toast Burgundian barrels at around 50 percent new for 22 months, with one racking, followed by 16 months in bottle before release. The move away from 100 percent new oak is visible in the glass: less cedar imposition, more of the grape and the hill.

Vineyards And Cellar

All five Caberlot plots are farmed by hand, with no mechanised vineyard work. The original home vineyard, planted in 1985, covers roughly one-third of a hectare and remains part of the estate's planted area.

In the cellar, Il Caberlot is fermented and then aged for 22 months in medium-toast Burgundian barrels, with around half of those barrels new each year. The wine is racked once during that period. It leaves the barrel without fining or filtration and rests in bottle for a further 16 months before going to market. No additives, no shortcuts to release.

The Riserva Vigna Vincaie follows a different path: spontaneous fermentation in stainless steel, then 30 months in French oak with 65 percent new barrels, and again no fining or filtration. The longer oak contact and higher proportion of new wood give the riserva more oak presence than Il Caberlot, though both wines share the estate's commitment to unmanipulated bottling.

Carnasciale Botte Grande is made from younger-vineyard fruit and matured in a large cask rather than small barrels, which produces a more accessible, less oakey style.

Wines

Three wines, one grape, one estate.

Il Caberlot: Single-vineyard fruit from the original and expanded Caberlot plots, aged 22 months in medium-toast Burgundian barrels at roughly 50 percent new, unfined, unfiltered, and held in bottle for 16 months before release. In the glass, it delivers red cherry, plum, orange peel, spice, licorice, cedar and new leather, driven more by energy and mineral freshness than by body or weight.

Carnasciale Botte Grande is the second wine, made from younger Caberlot vines and matured in a large cask (botte grande) rather than small Burgundian barrels. The large-format wood contact produces a less oaked, more immediate style, and makes it the most approachable bottle from the estate.

Il Caberlot Riserva Vigna Vincaie comes from a single one-hectare plot within the estate. Made only in exceptional years and in very small quantities, with the 2019 release produced as only a few hundred magnums. Spontaneously fermented in steel and aged 30 months in French oak at 65 percent new, it carries more oak weight and concentration than Il Caberlot, with greater age potential.

In The Glass

Caberlot sits between Cabernet Franc and Merlot in parentage but does not resolve neatly into either. Il Caberlot opens with red cherry and plum, then orange peel, spice, licorice, cedar and a note of new leather. The mid-palate is concentrated without being heavy. What defines the wine is its energy: the acidity is firm, the minerality is intense, and the overall impression is one of drive rather than richness.

The 22 months in Burgundian barrels add cedar and spice but do not dominate, because roughly half those barrels are used oak. The 16 months of bottle ageing before release integrate those elements before the wine reaches anyone's table. Decanter's description of the style as unlike Bordeaux or Maremma Super Tuscans holds: there is no the blowsy fruit weight of warm-coast Cabernet, and no the herbal austerity of young Cab Franc. The personality is its own.

Carnasciale Botte Grande, from younger vines and large-cask maturation, is softer and more open. The Vigna Vincaie riserva is more oak driven, with greater oak presence and a longer finishing line from the extended 30-month élevage and higher proportion of new wood.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with Il Caberlot. It is the wine that has built the estate's reputation since the first vintage in 1988, and it is the clearest expression of what Caberlot does on this hilltop in Arezzo.

The combination of red cherry, orange peel, licorice, cedar and mineral freshness in a single glass is genuinely unusual: it does not read as Bordeaux, and it does not read as Chianti. The acidity is firm enough to make the wine feel alive at the table; the tannins are present but not punishing; the finish is long and mineral. Three and a half years from harvest to release means the wine arrives with some integration already in place. Open it with food, or hold it for several more years.

Anecdote

When the Rogoskys made the first vintage of Il Caberlot in 1988, their own Caberlot vines were still too young to produce. The planting had gone in only in 1985, barely a third of a hectare in the home vineyard, and three years is not enough time to draw serious wine from a new vine. So the inaugural Il Caberlot was made not from estate fruit but from vines in the experimental vineyard of a grower named Remigio Bordini. Bordini had Caberlot growing in a trial plot, the estate needed fruit for its first vintage, and the arrangement was made. The wine that introduced Il Carnasciale to the world, the bottle that set the reputation, came from someone else's ground.

Final Word

Podere Il Carnasciale does one thing: it grows Caberlot, a grape that exists nowhere else in commercial quantity, on a hilltop in Arezzo's Valdarno di Sopra, and turns it into three wines at different levels of intensity. Il Caberlot is the version to seek out first, a wine with nearly four years between harvest and release, driven by mineral freshness and red-fruit depth rather than weight. It is one of the more genuinely singular bottles in Tuscany.

Sources

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