There is a lot of good wine in Tuscany and I had a memorable visit to Carpineto winery this past April. The Montalcino and Montepulciano areas are home to the Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile Montepulciano, red wines that have gained prominence over the past decade. While a prior trip last year included visits to Brunello specialists Casanova di Neri and Poggio di Sotto, a visit to a large producer like Carpineto gave us a chance to try the winery’s broader region products including a nice Chianti and a memorable “super Tuscan” blend.

This was Day Two of our April wine tour of Italy. We left Magliano (see prior post) in southwestern Tuscany for Chianciano Terme on the central eastern side of the region. Chianciano Terme has a faded air – this was a popular resort town in the 1970s and 1980s – and I’d probably not recommend staying here except that it was convenient for our visit to Carpineto. In a less packed trip, I’d suggest staying in Pienza or Montepulciano or one of the hill top agriturismos or boutique hotels in the area (La Bandita is my recommendation).

As it’s just under a two hour drive from Magliano to Chianciano Terme, we opted to drop by Montalcino along the way for lunch. Montalcino is a medieval hilltop town whose slopes are now planted with the famed Sangiovese grapes that produce the Brunello wines. As in most cases where good wine begets good food – Montalcino possesses some fine restaurants and cafes. The town’s main tourist attraction, besides the wine, is its castle from where you can get a good view of the area as well as to try some wines in its atmospheric wine bar.

Lunch was at Osteria Osticcio – a nice eatery with a good wine list and which also possesses the best coffee I had in recent memory. Because we were saving our stomachs for what I was told would be a fantastic Bistecca Fiorentina  for dinner, we kept lunch to cold cuts and pasta.

The food at Osteria Osticcio is generally good but because we’d had memorable meal the night before in Magliano with an amazing tortello, we were probably a bit jaded. I recall being much more impressed with Osticcio in my previous visit. However, its tagliatelle with white ragout and risotto with hazelnuts and red chicory are still very good.

We dropped in on Carpineto after lunch, taking a stroll in its vineyard and its winery in the Chianciano/Montepulciano area. Carpineto is a sizable producer with output of three million bottles annually. Besides being in the Montepulciano area, its vineyards are located throughout Tuscany’s main wine areas – Chianti, Montalcino, and the Maremma. Carpineto has been expanding its product range, which made for a fascinating tasting given the variety of output.

The wine tasting was undertaken alongside dinner at a nearby restaurant called La Casina. The nice thing about going out with locals is that you get to try the “real” regional cuisine. The Bistecca Fiorentina here was better than the ones I’d tried previously in Florence and I was told that it’s partly because the steak is from the true Chianina cow and not from other breeds. I also think it’s because our host doused the steak with his own Carpineto olive oil before it was served. Starters were kept simple – just cold cuts and salad (in truth – we were still partly full from lunch).

We started our meal with a bottle of white and a rose from Carpineto. These are Carpineto’s well priced entry level wines with the white being a blend of chardonnay, sauvingnon blanc and grechetto grapes and the rose or rosato, a blend of local red grapes. I liked both, particularly the rosato, – they go well with starters and fish – but unfortunately only the white can be found in Singapore (at Oaks wine stores).  I was also very impressed with the drawings on its labels.

The main event reds that we tasted were as follows:

• Brunello di Montalcino 2009 – 100% Sangiovese grapes
• Farnito Camponibbio 2007 – blend of Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes
• Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 1988 – blend of mainly Sangiovese and Canaiolo grapes
• Chianti Classico Riserva 1999 – Sangiovese and Canaiolo grapes

We also tried the Farnito Vin Santo 1996 – a dessert wine made mainly of Trebbiano and Malvasia grapes (not pictured) – which went well with our tiramisu.

Of the lot, I especially liked the Farnito Camponibbio blend, which I’m hoping to be able to find soon in Singapore. At the moment, only the Farnito Cabernet Sauvignon is available alongside the others that we tried. Of course the older vintage Vino Nobile and Chianti Classico were special as well but albeit, harder to find. Carpineto wines are distributed by Monopole in Singapore, Dan Murphy in Australia and variously in the U.S.

Carpineto website: http://www.carpineto.com/en/index.aspx

Monopole website: http://monopole.com.sg/index.php

Ristorante La Casina website: http://www.lacasinaristorante.it/?lang=en

Osteria Osticcio website: http://www.osticcio.it