Tua Rita
Even when the Super Tuscan pioneers were establishing Bolgheri as a great wine-producing region to the south of Chianti, there were limits to how far down Tuscany the great winemaking aristocratic families would go. So it was up to a modest farming couple to establish an estate (if that’s not too grand a word) in the Alto Maremma, beside the Golfo di Follonica. The intention in 1984, when Rita Tua and Virgilio Bisti bought a property near Suvereto, was simply to live in harmony with nature and farm in a natural way. They had no idea that an initial planting of two hectares of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot would be the start of the second generation of Super Tuscans.
The low-elevation, gently sloping Tua Rita hillsides, standing just 100m above sea level, are rich in silt and clay, which has been carried down over the years from the metalliferous hills of the Val di Cornia further inland, giving the earth a nuanced character of iron richness and salinity - a personality which is carried through the vines and fruit into the wines through a policy of minimal intervention.
The grapes from the early plantings mainly found their way into Sassicaia, while Rita...
Even when the Super Tuscan pioneers were establishing Bolgheri as a great wine-producing region to the south of Chianti, there were limits to how far down Tuscany the great winemaking aristocratic families would go. So it was up to a modest farming couple to establish an estate (if that’s not...
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