Pinot Nero
⏳ Drinking Window
2022 - 2026
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Classic roasted duck breast, wild mushroom risotto, or seared salmon.
✨ Technical Specifications
Produced at the historic Castello della Sala estate in Umbria, a medieval fortress acquired by the Antinori family in 1940, this Pinot Nero represents a pioneering effort to cultivate a notoriously finicky cool-climate grape in central Italy. The vineyards are situated at high altitudes on soils rich in marine fossils and clay, benefiting from unique microclimates characterized by morning mists and significant diurnal temperature shifts. This allows the Pinot Nero grapes to ripen slowly while preserving their delicate aromatics and vibrant acidity. The wine undergoes careful temperature-controlled fermentation followed by aging in French oak barriques, resulting in a refined expression of Umbrian terroir that balances ripe red berry fruit with subtle spice, earthy complexity, and silky tannins.
🍾 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.