I Fabbri Chianti Classico Lamole 2018 in Fiasco

Chianti Classico has been one of my favorite wines for quite a while.
There is something about the Sangiovese grape, that makes up most and sometimes all of a Chianti Classico wine, that keeps me coming back to them again and again. When I came across an offering for I Fabbri Chianti Classico Lamole 2018 bottled in fiasco I was intrigued.
 
A fiasco is the name of the iconic straw covered bottle that has been in use for centuries in Italy. The straw covering helped make the bottle better suited for being transported. During the 1970’s fiaschi were often seen in Italian restaurants and college dorms as a candle holder. The sad fact is that the wine in those bottles was not always very good. More on that later.

Photo credit I Fabbri

Before I placed an order for the I Fabbri I did some research as I had not had any experience with the producer. The more I read about them the more interested I got. The estate has been in the Grassi family since the 1600’s. Wine was produced there along with a blacksmith operation. The blacksmith term would later provide the name for the I Fabbri winery. Over time the vineyard was abandoned. Daughter Susanna Grassi had spent time away from the estate and worked in the fashion business. By the end of the 1990’s Susanna decided to return to the estate and began the rebuilding of the of the family wine business. In 2000 I Fabbri was born.

Photo cedit I Fabbri

There was quite a lot of work needed to bring the property to where it is today. By  2002 the ancient stone terraces were restored. In 2003 integrated pest management began, part of the move to be sure the vineyards are grown using sustainable practices and is now fully organic. They also began using recycled cardboard for packaging.
 

Photo credit I Fabbri

Photo credit I Fabbri

In the past two weeks I have read several articles about the push for reducing the weight of wine bottles to make them have less of an impact on the environment. In 2007, Susanna was ahead of the times and switched to bottles that weighed less lowering I Fabbri’s carbon footprint. In keeping with her concern for the environment a photovoltaic system was built in 2008 to provide cleanly generated electricity. It would be nice to see more properties follow Susanna’s lead.
 

Photo credit I Fabbri

The estate in Greve has vineyards that range in elevation from 1,900 to 2,000 feet above sea level. The Lamole vineyard is one of their highest. The fiasco bottling is 100% Sangiovese and is aged in cement tanks. The wine is light to medium bodied and tastes of a variety of red fruits along with some savory notes. Dry and pure, bright with acidity it has just a hint of tannin to round out its structure. It tastes like the essence of Sangiovese to me.  This is nothing like the wines from the 1970’s.

Photo credit I Fabbri

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I reached out to I Fabbri with a few questions about the wine before I wrote this. Susanna graciously responded with the answers. They first started doing the fiasco bottling in 2017. The 2019 was just bottled. The wine has to be hand bottled, the straw is hand finished and the final touch is a manual knot. Approximately 3,000 of the fiasco bottling are produced along with 9,000 done in a regular bottle. Susanna said that they are trying to change the perception that wine in a fiasco is of low quality.

Photo credit I Fabbri

Photo credit I Fabbri

So why does Chianti in straw covered bottles generate such bad memories? In the book Vino Italiano The Regional Wines Of Italy, authors Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch offer a few reasons. The original zone that historically was known as Chianti was expanded from seventeen thousand acres to  forty-two thousand acres. A recipe for making early drinking Chianti was made mandatory in 1967. That recipe called for adding up to 30% white grapes to Chianti wines. That pretty much changed the wine to a shadow of what it had been.  The Italian government also began a program of financing planting in the now larger Chianti zone. Most of the planting was aimed at high production, not quality wine. So into those straw covered bottles went a watered down version of what was once known as  Chianti.
 
There is a happy ending to the Chianti saga. Some producers did not want to accept the mandate of using white grapes in their wines. There were some that wanted to add grapes that were not allowed like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Others wanted to make their wines from 100% Sangiovese which went against the rules. This was part of the beginning of what became known as Super Tuscans. Many of these wines became recognized for their high quality even if they carried the lowly vino da tavola or table wine label. The Chianti Classico consorzio also worked to raise the quality level of the wines with great success.  The wines of Chianti no longer contain white grapes and other rule changes have raised the bar for Chianti and Chianti Classico wine production. The rules continue to be tweaked, recently new sub zones of Chianti Classico  were established. The Gran Selezione category, the highest level in the Chianti Classico hierarchy, must be at least  90% Sangiovese and can no longer contain non traditional grape varieties. 
 
Italian wines in general and Chianti Classico wines in particular have never been better than they are today. Producers like Sussana Grassi are showing us how old traditions can revived and combined with thoughtful winemaking practices.    

Photo credit I Fabbri

I would like to thank I Fabbri for allowing me to use their photos. For a link to their complete line up of wines click here. For more information on the unique fiasco bottle click here. The link leads to a great blog by Adriano Stefanutti.