Podere Il Carnasciale Il Caberlot Sommelleria Toscana IGT 2019 - demi MAG

97 points Vinous Media: The 2019 Il Caberlot (Sommeleria) is a powerful, intensely aromatic red from Il Carnasciale. Layers of flavor and texture build effortlessly, leading into a long, plush finish that is wonderfully inviting, even in the early going. Readers should note that the Sommelleria is not a new wine but the designation the estate has used for their 750ml bottling, mostly intended for restaurants, since 2013. - By Antonio Galloni on August 2023

I visited Il Carnasciale back in June 2017, we were met by the Carnasciale enologist Marco Maffei and winemaker Peter Schilling. Peter showed us the home vineyard "Carnasciale", healthy and green in the warm June sun with shoots and leaves rising up from the small goblet trained old wood of the vines. Read about that visit in my article here: Wine Solutions Visits Carnasciale in Tuscany

• Grapes: 100% Caberlot
• Soil: The Carnasciale Vineyard sits at 420m, while the other vineyards are planted at 150-175 meters in limestone soils with chalk and sandy components
• 40+ distinctive lots: Each parcel is vinified and matured in wood separately until the blending is conducted at around months.
• Vinification: Vinified in stainless steel
• Maturation: Aged in Burgundy sized casks (228L) of new and used French oak barrels, just 75% is new in 2015. The new French oak is always a medium toast of Ermitage and Taransaud.
  

"Podere Il Carnasciale" is well known within fine wine circles for their exclusive use of the Caberlot grape. Caberlot is a little-known grape and is only used to make wine here at Il Carnasciale, no where else on the planet is it made in a wine for sale to the public. Besides Il Carnasciale, there are no records or instances of the grape being used in any production capacity. The vines that existed where the grape was found growing wild a few decades before the Carnasciale story began. Read more about this amazing story here on my website article of my visit to the winery.

During my visit here in 2017, the wines we tasted were excellent and quite unique in their combination of wine styles that draw from Tuscany of course, but also Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Loire. In warmer years I would say the wine is very much akin to Cheval Blanc, while in cooler years it is much like the greatest of all red Loire wines Clos Rougeard, but with a little more density. All 3 'Grand Vin' wines from Cheval Blanc, Clos Rougeard and Il Carnasciale see a good dose of wood and all 3 are excellent, world-class wines.

It is of no surprise to find out that the winemaker Peter has a deep background making wine in Burgundy. The terroir impact is indeed on display in these special wines based on the barrel samples I tasted. In bottle, the overall impression of the wines is a beautiful density and purity, with a persistence and energy in youth that mellows and broadens over time. I have had vintages 5-14 years old of both Caberlot wines and can say they age gracefully, with beautiful tertiary notes and soaring aromatics. Similar to how a great Bordeaux ages, the Caberlot wines deepen in complexity, mellow in structure, and broaden the nose and palate with more aroma and flavor dimension.