Castello della Paneretta
(Winery in Chianti, Chianti Classico)
Book an Experience
1 Hour 30 Minutes
Participants: Minimum 2, Maximum 6
About Winery and Wines
The Paneretta castle is situated in the Chianti Classico area on the western slopes of the dominating hills of the Elsa valley, looking towards San Gimignano. It was built around an ancient sighting tower. The morning after the battle from Montaperti, the “Ghibellini” ordered to leave the castle of Cepparello in 1260. This place was an important suburb and fortress of this area. So the sighting tower becomes bigger and reaches its importance. With its 309 hectares (majority wood) the Paneretta is one of the biggest farms of the area.
The first owners of the castle were the family Vettori, the last heir, Maddalena, brought it as dowry to her wedding with Ludovico Capponi in 1577. The couple restored the castle completely and commissioned Bernardino Poccetti, important manner painter, to fresco the loggia of the court. In this era the Paneretta became a place of passing by for painters and poets, one of those, Gerolamo Muzio, dedicated a poem to the castle and remained here until his death.bAlso the production of wine is documented from 1596 on. In 1696, Cassandra Capponi brought the castle an important collection of codex’s parchments and books into her marriage with the Marchese Carlo Riccardi Strozzi. This collection formed the nucleus of the Riccardian library in Florence. The Strozzi family remained owner of the castle until 1984, in this year, the family Albisetti took over.
By particular company choice the only grape varieties planted and used are Sangiovese and Canaiolo Nero. They are the results of internal selections started many generations ago. The real strength of this company is the very old vineyards with medium to high density which survived the terrible years of restructuring of vineyards in Tuscany in the sixties and seventies. Therefore all the genetic material in the winery is strictly from autochthon clones which completely reflect the characters of the soils. At the moment half of the 22 hectares planted has a density of 5,000 plants/ hectare and in the future we anticipate a density of 6,000 to 8,000 plants/ hectare. We strongly believe that using exclusively Sangiovese and Canaiolo Nero is not only our tradition but also the only answer to the increasing popularity of the New World wines. We think in fact that making good Merlot or Cabernet wines is possible wherever you are in the world, however, only the Chianti Classico region has the potentiality to produce outstanding Sangiovese and Canaiolo.