30 years of Mazzaferrata: 1989-2019

It was 1985 when Bernardo Gondi decided to plant Cabernet Sauvignon at Marchesi Gondi - Tenuta Bossi, above the village of Pontassieve and in the heart of the Chianti Rufina DOCG.

Bernardo was convinced that the variety could achieve great expression of place if planted on those hills, always suited to producing wines of great character and extraordinary longevity. The distinctive microclimate of the area, marked by wide day-night temperature swings in summer, gives the wines intense aromas together with great finesse and elegance.

The vineyard chosen for the Cabernet planting was the one known as Pietraviva, lying at an altitude of 250 metres with a south-easterly exposure. The vineyard covers 2.7 hectares and is trained partly to spurred cordon and partly to arched cane. The soil is galestro and clay with calcareous sediments.

Initially used in a blend, from the 1989 vintage Cabernet Sauvignon was vinified on its own, giving rise to Mazzaferrata as we know it today. The decision to produce a wine that at the time seemed so far removed from the tradition of the whole of Tuscany arose both from the awareness of the great vocation of the Chianti Rufina area - which, after all, had already been a testing ground for French varieties in the nineteenth century - and from the results of the first vinifications.

Mazzaferrata, whose name comes from the Gondi family coat of arms, which indeed bears two maces crossed in a Saint Andrew's Cross, is an IGT Rosso dei Colli della Toscana Centrale.

An important, profound wine, in its thirty years of life Mazzaferrata has earned the title of the estate's champion, thanks to its precise character, impossible to reproduce anywhere else. Mazzaferrata is Bernardo Gondi's wine; perhaps the one that best embodies his vision and his desire to demonstrate the greatness of the territory and of Tenuta Bossi, which has belonged to the Gondi family since 1592.

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The Mazzaferrata vertical presents 9 vintages starting from the 1990s (vintages tasted: 1992, 1994, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2011), and the journey made it possible to appreciate the wine's longevity and that unique, noble and powerful character that Bernardo Gondi had already foreseen in 1985.

The tasting was led by oenologist Dott. Fabrizio Moltard and by Massimo Castellani, AIS delegate for Florence.