Fongoli Montefalco Sagrantino Fracanton
Country: Italy
Region: Umbria
Grapes: Sagrantino
Vintage: 2015
Fongoli is an historic Montefalco estate dating from the early 1900s when Decio Fongoli began farming grapes and olives alongside the breeding of pigs and cattle. Since 1999 the estate has been run by Decio's great-grandson Angelo who follow the traditional approach of ageing in large oak barrels, vinifying with indigenous yeasts, and working with local Umbrian varieties including Sagrantino and Trebbiano Spoletino. Today the property - managed entirely along biodynamics principles - extends for about 35 hectares, of which 23 are vineyards, with the rest made up of olive groves, woods, truffle grounds and meadows.
Fracanton is Fongoli's top cuvée and a true tour de force of what Umbria's star variety Sagrantino is capable of. Made from the estate's oldest plots and fermented on skins for 90 days in open top clay amphora with daily punchdowns before pressing off to age in old slavonian oak casks for 6 years and bottling without filtration or sulphur. Vivid and ethereal with abundant smoky red and black fruit and enticing notes of roses, violets, tar, tobacco and souk spices. Tremendously rich and full-bodied on the palate culminating in a tense, lightly bitter finish.