Italy · Chianti Hills

Società Agricola Querciabella SpA

Chianti Classico estate founded in 1974 at Ruffoli above Greve in Chianti; Sangiovese-first, certified organic and vegan biodynamic since 2000.

The producer

Querciabella began in 1974 when Giuseppe Castiglioni, an industrial entrepreneur who collected wine seriously, acquired a small property at Ruffoli, a hillside hamlet above Greve in Chianti. He named the estate after the oak trees on the hill. Through the 1980s he planted French varieties and created two Super Tuscans: Camartina, a red built on Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and Batàr, a white from Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc. By the time his son Sebastiano took over in the mid-1990s, the estate had already moved well outside the Sangiovese mainstream.

Sebastiano moved it again, in a different direction. He committed the estate to organic farming and by 2000 pushed further to full vegan biodynamic standards, an unusually complete position in Tuscany at the time. Sangiovese returned to the centre of the range. The Chianti Classico is now assembled from around sixty individual parcel vinifications each year, drawing on sites across Ruffoli, Radda and Lamole. A second estate, established at Alberese in Maremma in 1998, produces Mongrana, a coastal red whose varietal recipe changes with each harvest. Family stewardship now rests with Mita Castiglioni, Giuseppe's eldest daughter, and her children Andrea and Selene.

Known for

Chianti Classico assembled from sixty or more single-parcel vinifications each year; Super Tuscans Camartina and Batàr from the founding era; Mongrana Maremma Toscana Rosso from the coastal estate at Alberese.

Notable facts

The story

The record that didn't hold

In the mid-1990s, Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni sat down with the estate's farming records and decided they were not defensible. His father had built Querciabella on ambition and international varieties; Sebastiano wanted a different kind of argument. He committed the estate to organic farming first, removing agrochemicals from the vineyards and working through certification. Then he went further. By 2000, Querciabella had adopted full vegan biodynamic standards: no animal-derived inputs in the vineyard, no fining agents of animal origin in the cellar, biodynamic preparation schedules applied across all sites. In Tuscany at the time, organic certification was already unusual among serious Chianti Classico producers. Vegan biodynamic standards were essentially without precedent at estate scale. Sebastiano did not arrive at this as a marketing position. It came from a conviction about how the soil and the wine should relate. Two decades later, the estate has never reversed it.

From the atlas

Società Agricola Querciabella SpA

At A Glance

Producer: Querciabella (Società Agricola Querciabella SpA) Country: Italy Region: Tuscany Appellation: Chianti Classico DOCG; Maremma Toscana DOC Grape Focus: Sangiovese; also Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot (Camartina); Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc (Batàr) Farming: Certified organic; vegan biodynamic since 2000 Estate: More than 50 hectares in Chianti Classico; 42 hectares in Maremma

The Producer

Querciabella began as an entrepreneur's instinct. In 1974 Giuseppe Castiglioni, known as Pepito, acquired a small property at Ruffoli, a hillside hamlet sitting above Greve in Chianti. He was an industrial entrepreneur who collected wine seriously; the name he gave the estate, Querciabella, translates as "beautiful oak."

The founding purchase turned argumentative quickly. Through the 1980s and into the mid-1990s, Castiglioni planted French varieties on Chianti Classico hillsides and created two Super Tuscans: Camartina, a red built on those French grapes, and Batàr, a white. He acquired further vineyards and built a new cellar. By the time his son Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni took over in the mid-1990s, the estate had already moved well outside the Sangiovese mainstream.

Sebastiano moved it again, in a different direction. He committed the estate to organic farming, then in 2000 pushed to full vegan biodynamic standards, an unusually complete commitment in Tuscany at the time. Sangiovese moved back to the centre of the range. The estate now holds more than 90 hectares across two distinct territories, and family stewardship rests with Mita Castiglioni, Pepito's eldest daughter, and her children Andrea and Selene.

Place

Chianti Classico is the historic heartland of Sangiovese between Florence and Siena, a DOCG appellation covering roughly 70,000 hectares of central Tuscany. Within that zone, Querciabella farms more than 50 hectares across three villages: Ruffoli, the original site above Greve in Chianti, plus later acquisitions in Radda in Chianti and Lamole. Each sits at moderate to high elevation for the zone, which slows ripening and gives the Sangiovese longer to build acidity and colour before harvest.

Ruffoli remains the primary site. Greve in Chianti lies in the northern part of the Chianti Classico zone, where galestro, a crumbly calcium-rich schist, and alberese, a harder clay-limestone, alternate across the slopes. Both soils drain well and push vine roots deep, contributing to the firm acidity and aromatic lift that characterise Sangiovese from this part of the appellation.

The Maremma estate, established at Alberese in the province of Grosseto in 1998, sits closer to the Tyrrhenian coast in a warmer, lower-altitude environment. The contrast with Chianti Classico is sharp: the coastal wines carry more flesh and a different aromatic register. Mongrana, the estate's Maremma wine, draws its fruit from that coastal heat while still carrying organic biodynamic farming principles across the property line.

Soil And Site

At Ruffoli and across the Greve-zone vineyards, galestro and alberese dominate. Galestro breaks apart easily and warms quickly in spring; alberese holds water longer and provides a clay buffer during dry summers. The combination gives Sangiovese at Querciabella a characteristic profile: red-fruited and aromatic on the nose, with acidity that keeps the mid-palate alive and tannins fine enough to give even the estate-level wines early approachability. In Radda, higher elevation and greater diurnal shift add further freshness. Lamole, one of the highest sub-zones in Chianti Classico, pushes ripening even later and tends to produce wines with more angular tannin and pronounced mineral character.

Story

Giuseppe Castiglioni's 1974 purchase was a collector's impulse extended into ownership. His ambition through the 1980s ran toward the international rather than the regional: French varieties in a Chianti Classico hillside, a benchmark Super Tuscan built on Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, a white wine that answered to no Italian appellation category. The estate earned a reputation as one of the zone's more restless addresses.

When Sebastiano took over in the mid-1990s, the trajectory changed. He moved the estate off agrochemicals and into organic farming, a process the estate dates to the late 1980s. By 2000, he had committed to vegan biodynamic standards: no animal-derived inputs anywhere in the farming or winemaking chain. That commitment went further than most Tuscan neighbours who had stopped at organic certification. The cellar philosophy followed the same logic: minimal additives, no unnecessary interventions, varietal character allowed to express without correction.

The Sangiovese-first pivot came alongside the farming conversion. Camartina and Batàr remained in the range, but the estate's focus consolidated around Chianti Classico and around what Sangiovese grown under biodynamic conditions in these specific parcels actually tastes like. The Maremma chapter opened in 1998 and added a separate geographic argument to the range, one the estate chose to leave deliberately open: Mongrana's blend changes with every vintage.

Vineyards And Cellar

Querciabella farms more than 50 hectares across Ruffoli, Radda and Lamole under vegan biodynamic management. No synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers are used. Cover crops between vine rows build soil biology; treatments rely on copper and sulfur within organic limits. Biodynamic timing governs both vineyard work and, to the extent cellar schedules allow, bottling.

The cellar approach for Chianti Classico is built on micro-vinification. Each year, around sixty individual parcel vinifications are carried out separately. Those individual lots are assessed over time, blended at various stages, and assembled into the final Chianti Classico to represent the appellation across multiple sites rather than expressing a single vineyard. Maturation for the current Chianti Classico runs to around 24 months in total, with 12 months in French oak barriques and the remainder in bottle before release. The 2022 vintage used 14 months in oak followed by more than a year in bottle. The oak is French and used to add texture and gentle spice rather than to impose flavour; the goal is to keep Sangiovese's red-fruit character and acidity audible through the élevage.

Wines

The Querciabella Chianti Classico DOCG is the estate's Sangiovese blend. Built from that assembly of roughly sixty parcel lots, it covers the range of sites in Ruffoli, Radda and Lamole. Red cherry, plum and blood orange lead the nose, with cedar and rose petal underneath. The tannins are fine-grained; the acidity stays lively from palate through finish.

Camartina is the founding-era red: a Super Tuscan assembled from Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, the French varieties Giuseppe planted in the 1980s. It sits outside the Chianti Classico appellation and carries more weight, darker fruit and longer ageing potential than the estate label. The 2000 vintage received a Best Italian Wine award in 2004, after the estate had already reoriented toward Sangiovese.

Batàr is the white counterpart from the same founding chapter: a barrel-fermented blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc, aged in French oak, with a richer, more textured character than any of the estate's red wines.

Mongrana Maremma Toscana Rosso DOC is the coastal wine from the Alberese estate in Grosseto. It does not follow a fixed blend; the varietal composition shifts with each vintage. Mongrana is a vintage-dependent red blend from Alberese, with a varietal composition that shifts with each vintage.

In The Glass

Querciabella Chianti Classico opens with aromas that are Sangiovese in a clear register: red cherry and plum at the centre, blood orange adding a citrus brightness, with rose petal and cedar giving the nose a quiet complexity. The mouth follows the nose without drama. The body is medium-weight, the tannins fine-grained and evenly distributed, the acidity bright enough to keep the finish lively rather than short. The oak is present as texture rather than flavour; twelve months in French barrique rounds the mid-palate without adding obvious vanilla or toast character. Juicy red fruit carries through to the finish, which is clean and moderately long. It drinks well young but the acidity and tannin give it five to eight years of comfortable development.

Camartina shows a different register entirely: deeper colour, black fruit, firmer tannin, a longer arc from palate to finish. It requires more time in bottle than the Chianti Classico and rewards cellaring in a way the estate label does not demand.

Mongrana from Maremma is broader and more generous: the coastal warmth shows as rounder fruit and less aggressive acidity, making it the most approachable bottle in the range at release.

A Bottle To Understand It

Querciabella Chianti Classico DOCG is the one to start with. It is 100 percent Sangiovese, assembled from sixty or so individual parcel vinifications across Ruffoli, Radda and Lamole, and matured for roughly 24 months before release. The nose is aromatic, with red cherry, blood orange, rose petal and a faint cedar note from the French oak. The palate is medium-bodied and supple, with bright acidity and tannins fine enough to drink now but substantial enough to develop. No single vineyard dominates; the wine is a portrait of what the estate does across all its Chianti Classico sites, farmed under biodynamic management and assembled with care rather than corrected in the cellar. Open a bottle here and the rest of the range, including Camartina and the Maremma wines, makes more sense in contrast.

Anecdote

In the mid-1990s, Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni sat down with the estate's farming records and decided they were not defensible. His father had built Querciabella on ambition and international varieties; Sebastiano wanted a different kind of argument. He committed the estate to organic farming first, removing agrochemicals from the vineyards and working through the process of certification. Then he went further. By 2000, Querciabella had adopted full vegan biodynamic standards: no animal-derived inputs in the vineyard, no fining agents of animal origin in the cellar, biodynamic preparation schedules applied across all sites. In Tuscany at the time, organic certification was already unusual among serious Chianti Classico producers. Vegan biodynamic standards were essentially without precedent at estate scale. Sebastiano did not publicise this as a marketing position; it came from a conviction about how the soil and the wine should relate. Two decades later, the estate has never reversed it.

Final Word

Querciabella is two chapters bound together by farming philosophy. The Chianti Classico range carries the Sangiovese argument from three villages above Greve; the Maremma wines answer a different geography from the coast at Alberese. The thread between them is the same biodynamic discipline applied across more than 90 hectares. The Chianti Classico shows red cherry, bright acidity and fine-grained tannins, and the estate's history is more restless and interesting than most of its neighbours.

Sources

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