Chianti Classico DOCG

When Italo Zingarelli, the Italian film producer behind a string of popular spaghetti westerns, bought a crumbling 14th-century farmstead near Castellina in Chianti in 1973, he had no formal background in wine — only a conviction that Tuscany's most storied region deserved a bolder ambassador. He replanted the estate's neglected vineyards from scratch and built a state-of-the-art cellar to rival any in the region. The gamble paid off: by 1978, Rocca delle Macìe had become one of Italy's best-selling Chianti Classicos, and the Zingarelli family now farms 600 hectares across six estates — four within Chianti Classico, two in Maremma — with Italo's son Sergio (along with his wife Daniela and their two children) at the helm. A two-time chairman of the Chianti Classico Growers Consortium, Sergio remains one of the region's fiercest advocates for expressing Sangiovese through terroir, favoring organic fertilization, careful pruning, and hand harvesting across the estate's 210 hectares of vines. This Chianti Classico DOCG is the house's flagship expression of that philosophy: a blend of 95% Sangiovese and 5% Merlot drawn from vineyards in the historical heart of the appellation.

Grapes come exclusively from estates in the historical heart of the Chianti Classico zone near Castellina in Chianti, where limestone-rich, calcareous soils and hillside elevation give Sangiovese its structure and perfume. The Zingarelli family farms with organic fertilization and hand-harvests each vintage across its Chianti Classico estates.

Hand-harvested Sangiovese and Merlot macerate on the skins for 12 to 14 days, with short, frequent pump-overs to extract color and structure. After alcoholic and malolactic fermentation, the wine ages 6 to 10 months in a mix of Slavonian and French oak barrels before bottling.

Bright ruby red with intense, persistent wild berry and spice aromas; savory and full-bodied on the palate, with soft tannins and a lingering berry finish.