Mezzo Braccio
⏳ Drinking Window
Typically best enjoyed within 2 to 5 years of vintage release to appreciate its vibrant freshness, though well-stored bottles can develop intriguing petrol and honeyed complexities over 7 to 8 years.
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Fresh seafood pasta, roasted poultry with herbs, or goat cheese salads.
✨ Technical Specifications
Tenuta Monteloro, nestled in the cool, breeze-swept hills of Fiesole just north of Florence, is the setting for Antinori's exploration of aromatic white wines in Tuscany. 'Mezzo Braccio' is crafted primarily from Riesling, a grape rarely associated with Tuscany but one that thrives in the estate's unique high-altitude, cool-climate terroir. The wine's name pays homage to an ancient Florentine unit of measurement ('half arm') historically used by local merchants for measuring fine fabrics. Fermented and aged entirely in stainless steel tanks to preserve its pristine varietal character, Mezzo Braccio showcases a brilliant straw-yellow hue, vibrant acidity, and a complex aromatic profile of white peach, citrus blossom, and a distinct flinty minerality that deepens with age.
🍾 About the Producer
Marchesi Antinori is one of the world's most storied winemaking dynasties, tracing its commercial viticultural heritage to 1385 when Giovanni di Piero Antinori matriculated into Florence's Arte dei Vinattieri. Spanning twenty-six generations, the family revolutionized modern Italian viticulture under Marchese Piero Antinori and legendary enologist Giacomo Tachis, catalyzing the Super Tuscan revolution with the pioneering release of Tignanello in 1971. Antinori commands an unrivaled tapestry of microclimates across Central Italy, encompassing the galestro and albarese marls of Chianti Classico at Tenuta Tignanello and Badia a Passignano, the maritime gravels of Bolgheri at Guado al Tasso, and the fossiliferous clay-limestone soils of Umbria at Castello della Sala. In the cellar, CEO and chief enologist Renzo Cotarella orchestrates a balance of precision, clonal selection, and judicious French oak barrique maturation. Antinori's benchmark wines—including the Sangiovese-driven Tignanello, the Cabernet-dominated Solaia, and the benchmark Umbrian Chardonnay blend Cervaro della Sala—stand as definitive monuments of Italian winemaking refinement.