Wine Advisor
Montevertine, Le Pergole Torte 1988
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Monica Larner
The 1988 Le Pergole Torte was born in a Tuscan take on the Age of Aquarius. Martino Manetti calls it "Woodstock in the vineyard" because he got a gang of 18-year-old classmates to help out during the harvest. "Thankfully, nature's will was superior to the terrible harvest workers," he jokes. This wine has aged on a Barolo-like trajectory, gaining in complexity, finesse and elegance throughout the years. This expression of Sangiovese offers refined points of dark fruit, licorice, tar, grilled herb and black pepper. The wine is on the deep and dark side of the color spectrum, yet it shows carefully balanced acidic freshness and tannic firmness.
Reviewed by: Ian D'Agata
What a pleasure it is to taste older vintages of Le Pergole Torte (loosely translated, “the rickety or dodgy canopies”), one of my five or six favorite Italian wines. The 1988, blessed with what I think is one of the prettiest of Alberto Manfredi’s many wonderful labels, is still a remarkably solid, youthful wine made while Montevertine founder Sergio Manetti was still alive. Taken from my best, coolest cellar, this bottle of 1988 Le Pergole Torte is remarkably youthful, offering deep red cherry and licorice aromas with surprisingly little in the way of tertiary development (no notes of porcini or underbrush, for example), then fresh and vibrant flavors of red cherry, sweet spices and black tea. As is almost always the case with the 1988, there is a very lively, almost disjointed acidity for the amount of fruit present, and this bottle is not different. Though not quite in the league of the legendary Le Pergole Torte 1990 Riserva, this 1988 is still a Sangiovese lover’s delight.
About the Producer
Montevertein is located in the heart of the Chianti hills, in the town of Lada, Chianti, at 425 meters above sea level. The winery grows only the indigenous grape varieties of the Chianti region: Sangiovese, Canajolo and Corolino. At Montevertine, simplicity, respect, extreme attention to detail and expertise are the guiding principles that inspire our daily work. The winery's winemaking methods are very traditional and have remained so since the first harvest. Hand-picked grapes are fermented in glassed concrete vats without temperature control, and pumping is done twice daily to keep the cap of the skins moist and thus more gently extract the tannins from the skins. After racking, malolactic fermentation begins in glassed concrete vats. Once fermentation is complete, the wine is left in barrels for approximately two years. The wines are aged in 5.5 to 18 hectoliter Slavonian and Ariel oak barrels and 225 liter Ariel oak barrels. The wines of the winery are never filtered, they are bottled by gravity.
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