CEPPARELLO 2020 17++ points – Walter Speller, May 2023, JancisRobinson.com : Dark ruby. Enticing, lifted, rich cherry laced with the perfect dose of oak. Polished, full, concentrated and supple on the palate; suave and long, with finely ground tannins woven into the succulent fruit. Quite rich and full-bodied on the finish and clearly a very ambitious wine, but could do with a little more of Sangiovese’s bite. That may come with more age.
96 points – Monica Larner, May 2023, WineAdvocate.com: Supple and smooth, the 2020 Cepparello brings Sangiovese to soaring heights in a manner only Paolo De Marchi can manage. This is his second to last vintage before he would retire and sell this historic estate. The wine opens to medium to full-bodied concentration with dark plum and redcurrant. Those cede to sweet spice, earth, crushed stone, rusty nail and candied orange peel. Give the wine more time to flesh out with cellar age. It registers a powerful 15% alcohol content.
94 points – James Suckling, May 2023, JamesSuckling.com: Attractive red and dark berries with dried flowers, nutmeg and cocoa powder. Dried orange peel and wet earth, too. Medium- to full-bodied, toned and steady with fine-grained tannins that are slightly chalky. Polished and even with a lingering finish.
Harvest was carried out by hand during the second week in October. After crushing, the must fermented on the skins in oak vats for about three weeks at 30-32°C, with délestage and pumping over carried out twice a day to give good colour and soft tannins. The maceration tank was emptied of the fermenting must, the cap was dried out for 4-5 hours and then the must was poured back over the cap. After malolactic fermentation, the wine was racked into barrels. It was 100% barrel-aged, a third in new French and American oak (with American barrels making up 3-5% of the total), a third in one year old oak and the remaining third was put into two year old oak. The wine remained in barrel for 18 months and then matured in bottle for one year before release.
Hailing from Alto Piemonte, the Di Marchi family moved south to Tuscany when they purchased two adjoining estates ‘Isole’ and ‘Olena’ in the 1956 near San Donato in Poggio, in the western part of the Chianti Classico zone. Both were small derelict sharecropping hamlets at the time, but soon became ‘Isole e Olena’. At the age of 25, after studying at Geisenheim, Montpellier, Beaune and UC Davis, Paolo de Marchi took over the property from his father and began to buy his first barrels to produce his first wines. At the time, white grapes were an integral part and a legal requirement for production of Chianti Classico. Paolo soon ignored these requirements and dedicated his time to the study of Sangiovese. Among many of his quality driven initiatives, Paolo developed substantial improvement in the quality of Sangiovese plant material, from which the whole region benefited. He also restored traditional terraces across the 50 hectare estate. Albeit famed for crafting one of the world’s very best Sangioveses, Paolo also dedicated much of his time establishing small vineyards of Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.
The iconic ‘Cepparello’ was first produced in 1980, but it was not until 1982 that Paolo was convinced of the superior quality of this wine. Vinified outside of the legal requirements for Chianti Classico, Paolo bottled his single varietal Sangiovese under ‘Vino da Tavola Toscana’, something he has maintained until today under the IGT Toscana label, despite the changes in Chianti Classico DOCG laws enabling producers to vinify 100% Sangiovese wines in 1996. Cepparello takes its name from the small stream that originates at the highest point of the vineyards on the estate. Cepparello is produced from a selection of the best Sangiovese on the property, typically including the oldest vines, some of which nearing 60 years old.
Vineyards are located on South/South-West facing slopes at an altitude of 400 to 480 metres above sea level, these are some of the highest and westernmost vineyards of Chianti Classico, enjoying a cooler climate enabling a unique elegance to the wines. Soil on the estate is primarily made up of galestro, a schistous clay.
In 2022, with no heirs able to take over the management of Isole e Olena, Paolo and his wife Marta decided to sell the property to ensure its future. The French group EPI are now the proud custodians of the illustrious estate. Later this year, Paolo and Marta will be moving back to Alto Piemonte to join their son Luca on the family’s ancestral Proprieta Sperino in Lessona. On one of Paolo’s most recent visits to London in late April 2023 he murmured “After looking after Isole e Olena for 47 years, it is now time for me to look after my wife.”
VINTAGE REPORT 2020 : The 2020 season started with a mild, dry winter. Temperatures dropped significantly in March and care was needed in the vineyard to prevent any frost damage to the vines. Summer was dry and mild with the steady conditions lasting until the end of August, when the region encountered bouts of rainfall. However, things settled by harvest and yields were excellent in quality.
WIll age beautifully over the next several decades.
