Italy · Chianti Hills

Tenuta La Massa

A 25-hectare estate in Panzano's Conca d'Oro making IGT Toscana wines from Sangiovese, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot, alongside a single-parcel Sangiovese cru from plot six.

The producer

Giampaolo Motta bought a neglected estate in the heart of Chianti Classico at 31, backed by a family-guaranteed bank loan and shaped by years of chemical engineering in France and weekends spent in Bordeaux. He spent the 1990s pulling the property back from disrepair: a vineyard reclamation project, a parcel-by-parcel zonation study across the Conca d'Oro slopes, and the construction of a gravity-fed cellar built so fruit moves by gravity rather than pump. Then he started grafting. Merlot in 1996, Cabernet Sauvignon in 1998, Petit Verdot by 2003. By the time the blends in his cellar had taken shape, they no longer fitted the Chianti Classico consortium's variety rules. In 2002, Motta left the consortium rather than change the wine. Every bottle La Massa has released since carries IGT Toscana on the label.

Two wines define the range, and they pull in opposite directions. Giorgio Primo is the estate's Grand Vin, a Bordeaux-variety blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc that enters international distribution through the Place de Bordeaux. Carla 6 is 100% Sangiovese from plot six in the Conca d'Oro, named for Motta's daughter, and carries graphite, dark cherry, firm acidity, and the dry mineral grip that comes from Galestro and scaly clay at altitude. One wine is a Francophile argument made in Tuscany. The other is the Sangiovese that was always here, farmed and vinified from its own plot.

Known for

Giorgio Primo, a Bordeaux-variety Grand Vin distributed through the Place de Bordeaux; Carla 6, a single-parcel 100% Sangiovese from plot six in the Conca d'Oro.

Notable facts

The story

The Label That Left the Consortium

In 2002, Giampaolo Motta walked away from the Chianti Classico consortium. The decision had been building for six years. He had started grafting Sangiovese vines over to Merlot in 1996, added Cabernet Sauvignon in 1998, and by 2003 Petit Verdot was in the ground across his Conca d'Oro slopes. The blend developing in his cellar in Panzano no longer fitted the consortium's variety rules, which set out the role Sangiovese had to play in any wine claiming the Chianti Classico name. Motta did not pull the Bordeaux varieties out. He left the consortium instead. The bottles that went to market that year carried IGT Toscana rather than Chianti Classico on the label. It cost him the zone's most recognised name. It gave him the freedom to bottle exactly what he had been planting.

From the atlas

Tenuta La Massa

At A Glance

The Producer

Giampaolo Motta was 31 when he bought a neglected estate in the Conca d'Oro and started over. He had studied chemical engineering in France, spent his weekends in Bordeaux, and arrived at a Sangiovese property in Panzano in Chianti with a family-guaranteed bank loan and a clear idea of what he wanted the wine to be. The problem was that Chianti Classico had rules about what that wine could contain.

By 1996 Motta was grafting Sangiovese vines to Merlot. Cabernet Sauvignon followed in 1998. Petit Verdot was in the ground by 2003. The blends he was building in his gravity-fed cellar in Panzano's Conca d'Oro no longer conformed to the Chianti Classico consortium's variety requirements. In 2002 he left the consortium rather than adjust the wine. Every bottle La Massa has released since carries IGT Toscana on the label.

The two wines in the range pull in opposite directions. Giorgio Primo is the Grand Vin, a Bordeaux-variety blend that enters international distribution through the Place de Bordeaux. Carla 6 is 100% Sangiovese from a single vineyard plot, named for Motta's daughter and the number of the parcel it comes from. One wine is a Francophile argument made in Tuscany. The other is Motta asking what this specific slope does to Sangiovese when nothing else is added.

Place

The Conca d'Oro is the name Panzano's growers give to the amphitheatre of hills that surrounds the village, an inward-facing bowl of south- and southwest-facing slopes that concentrates warmth and light in a way the broader Chianti Classico ridge does not. La Massa sits within this bowl at around 360 metres, high enough for cooler nights that slow ripening through the growing season and hold acidity in the grapes at harvest.

Panzano sits at the centre of the Chianti Classico zone, between Greve to the north and Castellina to the south, and the appellation is one of the most discussed sub-areas within a denomination that does not yet formally recognise its villages as distinct appellations. The label on every La Massa bottle, however, says IGT Toscana. Motta's exit from the consortium in 2002 means his wines sit outside the Chianti Classico DOCG entirely, sold as Indicazione Geografica Tipica, a broader Tuscan designation with fewer grape-variety restrictions. The geographical address is Chianti Classico heartland; the legal category is not.

Soil And Site

The 25 hectares of vineyard in the Conca d'Oro are rooted in two distinct soil types. Scaly clay derived from ancient seabed underlies much of the estate, a dense, water-retaining material that slows vine development and limits yields in dry years. Running through and alongside it is Galestro, a friable mix of loose marl and limestone common at the higher elevations of Chianti Classico. Galestro drains rapidly, forces the vine roots downward, and tends to produce wines with a mineral edge and firmer acidity. The combination of these two materials across a single estate's slopes gives different parcels different characters. La Massa's in-depth zonation study in the 1990s mapped these differences before any replanting began, providing the soil-level basis for the eventual separation of the Sangiovese cru from the Bordeaux-variety blend.

Story

Motta launched a vineyard reclamation project in the early 1990s, pulling a neglected property back into production. The zonation study came next, parcel by parcel across the Conca d'Oro slopes. Then came the cellar: gravity-fed, engineered so that fruit moves by gravity rather than pump from sorting to fermentation, a design Motta, a Ferrari enthusiast, shaped around speed of movement rather than brute force.

The grafting program that followed was deliberate and sequential. Merlot in 1996. Cabernet Sauvignon in 1998. Petit Verdot arriving alongside Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot across the early 2000s. Motta was constructing a Bordeaux-variety presence in the middle of Sangiovese country, in the zone's most-discussed village, at a moment when Italian producers working with international varieties were called Supertuscans or criticised for replacing Sangiovese. His response was to leave the denomination that forced the choice. In 2002 the consortium exit made the decision legal. Giorgio Primo became a Tuscan IGT blend rather than an attempt at a non-conforming Chianti Classico.

What followed was not a pivot away from Sangiovese. Carla 6, the single-parcel Sangiovese cru named for Motta's daughter, reads as a parallel argument: that the same estate, the same slopes, the same cellar, and the same team can make a Bordeaux-influenced Grand Vin and a pure-Sangiovese cru simultaneously, without either wine being the compromise.

Francesco Mazzi joined as vineyard and cellar manager in 2004, working day to day with the estate while Bordelais consultants Stéphane Derenoncourt and Julien Lavenu shaped the technical direction. Giorgio Primo entered the Place de Bordeaux distribution network with the 2019 vintage, selling through the négociant system that handles classified Bordeaux châteaux.

Vineyards And Cellar

The 25 hectares sit on south- and southwest-facing slopes in the Conca d'Oro, with the main grape varieties divided across parcels mapped during the 1990s zonation study. Sangiovese remains on the estate, concentrated in the plots best suited to the variety, including plot six, the source for Carla 6. Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot cover the parcels selected during the grafting and replanting programs.

The cellar is gravity-fed. Fruit moves from the sorting area downward through the winery by gravity, removing the need for pumping between stages and reducing mechanical stress on the grapes. Fermentation and maceration run for 20 to 28 days in tank across the range. The extended maceration window extracts colour, tannin, and depth from the skins without requiring intervention to compensate for short contact time. Derenoncourt and Lavenu consult on winemaking decisions; Mazzi executes them on the ground.

Wines

La Massa makes two wines, both labelled IGT Toscana.

Giorgio Primo is the estate's Grand Vin. The blend draws on Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc alongside Sangiovese, with the Bordeaux varieties at the centre of the wine's character. The 2018 vintage is a dark, concentrated red with cassis and cedar from the Cabernet Sauvignon, plum and roundness from the Merlot, and the structural backbone of a wine designed for ageing. Tannins are present and firm in youth, the oak integration measured, and the finish long. It enters international markets through the Place de Bordeaux, the négociant distribution network associated with classified Bordeaux châteaux.

Carla 6 is 100% Sangiovese from a single parcel, plot number six. The wine carries graphite and dark cherry, with the tighter, drier tannin profile Sangiovese produces on Galestro and scaly clay at altitude. Its character is firmer and more angular than Giorgio Primo in youth, with acidity that keeps the wine alive through the palate and a mineral undercurrent from the limestone in the soil. Where Giorgio Primo rounds and opens with the Bordeaux varieties, Carla 6 maintains an edge and a specificity tied to the parcel it comes from.

In The Glass

Giorgio Primo opens with dark fruit: cassis, plum, cedar, and a note of graphite that comes forward as the wine breathes. The palate is full and structured, with the Cabernet Sauvignon providing tannic grip and the Merlot giving width and a softer mid-palate. The finish is long and dry, with tannins that ask for time. The 20 to 28 day maceration in tank gives the wine its density without overworking the fruit. It is a warm-vintage Tuscan red with a Bordeaux frame, built for a cellar.

Carla 6 is cooler and tighter in register. Dark cherry and graphite on the nose, firm acidity through the palate, tannins that are drier and more angular than the Grand Vin, and a mineral quality from the Galestro that persists into the finish. The Sangiovese character is clear: the high natural acidity, the dry tannin, the way the wine holds itself back in youth. Across the range, La Massa is making two wines with different answers to the same question of what these slopes can produce.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with Carla 6. It is 100% Sangiovese from plot six in the Conca d'Oro, named for Motta's daughter and the specific parcel the wine comes from. In the glass it is firm and direct: dark cherry, graphite, brisk acidity, and dry tannins from the Galestro and scaly clay underfoot. There is no Bordeaux-variety softness here, no international rounding. What you get is Sangiovese on a specific slope in Panzano, vinified cleanly and aged to show the parcel's mineral edge and the grape's natural grip. If you want to understand what La Massa is farming and where the estate's Bordeaux ambitions are coming from, Carla 6 is the baseline: the Sangiovese that was always here, from the plot that carries the family name.

Anecdote

In 2002, Giampaolo Motta walked away from the Chianti Classico consortium. The decision had been building for six years. He had started grafting Sangiovese vines over to Merlot in 1996, added Cabernet Sauvignon in 1998, and by 2003 Petit Verdot was in the ground across his Conca d'Oro slopes. The blend developing in his cellar in Panzano no longer fitted the consortium's variety rules, which specified the role Sangiovese had to play in any wine claiming the Chianti Classico name. Motta did not pull the Bordeaux varieties out. He left the consortium instead. The bottles that went to market that year carried IGT Toscana rather than Chianti Classico on the label. It cost him the zone's most recognised name. It gave him the freedom to bottle exactly what he had been planting.

Final Word

Tenuta La Massa is a 25-hectare estate in Panzano's Conca d'Oro that made a deliberate choice to stand outside the classification system that defines the zone around it. Giampaolo Motta's two wines sit at either end of the decision: a Bordeaux-variety Grand Vin sold through the Place de Bordeaux, and a single-parcel Sangiovese that carries the family name. Neither wine apologises for the other. Both are grown on the same slopes, made in the same gravity-fed cellar, and shaped by the same Bordelais consulting team. The address is Chianti Classico heartland. The label says Tuscany.

Sources

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