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Description
Tasting notes

Reviewed by: Monica Larner
This is the last finished vintage of Le Pergole Torte seen by Sergio Manetti. Martino's father would die three years later in 2000. The 1997 Le Pergole Torte is an impressive wine that shows a tight and slightly nervous personality. The wine opens very slowly and with timid footsteps to eventually reveal a full and generous disposition. Of course, the popular winemaking style back in 1997 saw wines with big extract and lots of oak. Many of these expressions appear tired and oxidized today. That's why an intact and linear wine like this is such a special treat.

Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 1997 Le Pergole Torte comes across as roasted, warm and unusually ripe, especially by the standards of this wine. I tasted two bottles, both of them advanced. Cedar, tobacco, dried herbs and most tertiary notes inform the 1997, a wine that needs to be drunk sooner rather than later. The natural acidity of Sangiovese is the only saving grace. The 1997 is a solid Pergole Torte, but not up to the level of the best years. This is the last wine Sergio Manetti saw bottled and also the year he became ill. The three years that follow would be a period of transition at Montevertine.
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.