GOT LEGS

Do you remember how I recently wrote that rosé is not just for the summer? (In reference to Bosco Falconeria’s rosato that anywhere else in the world would have been classified a light red.) It’s still true and I stand by that. But it’s also true that on a day like today, when you can feel the hot sun on your bare skin, the heat penetrating through to your bones, it is culturally ingrained in us to search for a specific colour: pink. And today, I’m lucky to have two pink wines that are made to be drunk all summer long.

LA TORRE ALLE TOLFE Rosato Lunella 2024 IGT 12.5% ABV

Colour: pink, obviously; a dark pink. It’s what I’d call adult pink, as opposed to Barbie pink.

The nose at first is discreet and elegant; red berries and blood orange. Take a sip and enjoy. The mouthfeel is wide and generous. Expansive. Alive. This is provence-style rosé for natural wine people. By which I mean, it’s first and foremost a wine which happens to be pink, rather than something pink by design.

It has got structure and character; the acidity is really well balanced and the red fruit rules the roost beautifully. There’s a lee-sy note which gives body and a saltiness to finish. Vibrant. (I’m writing these tasting notes 5 days after opening and it holds up really well.) I’m thinking of all the wonderful fresh summer Mediterranean dishes that you could pair this with… endless variations on salade niçoise.

Geeky notes: La Torre alle Tolfe is situated just a couple of kilometres from Siena, right in the heart of Tuscany. They’re a women-led team, and strong advocates of regenerative farming as well as making natural wine etc etc. The grapes are hand-harvested, there’s a really short maceration (2-4 hours) then fermentation takes place in concrete tanks. The tech sheets say that the grapes – 100% sangiovese – are grown on sandy soils. The wine is the product of two harvests – one earlier in the season for acidity and one later for phenolic ripeness. Maybe that’s the secret for good rosé!

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LA TORRE ALLE TOLFE Rosato Lunella frizzante IGT 2023

Don’t let yourself be lured in by the attractive colour – somewhere between pinot grigio blush and polished copper pot. I say don’t get lured in, because in just a second, when you take a sniff and a slurp, you’ll realise that it’s got bite! The nose and particularly mouth is not what I was expecting at all! It’s a beautiful bomb of curry spices and saffron. It’s nutty, too, and the smell reminds me of a negroni – slightly orangey with the spices of vermouth, and a very slight smokiness. I take a sip and it’s really savoury. There’s aromatic pink peppercorn, a bit of tomato leaf, and there’s tons of chinotto fruit.

Acidity doesn’t feel super high. It’s bone dry. There’s a gentle pearlage. If you look for bread-y or lees-y notes from your sparkling wines, you won’t find that here, or at least not in this particular bottle. The dominant characteristic is that savoury, umami, flavour.

Geeky notes: Like the previous wine, it’s also made from 100% sangiovese grapes which did just a couple of hours on the skins. It’s col fondo meaning that a still base wine (predominantly the rosé “Lunella”) is blended with a small proportion of frozen grape must in the following spring and it referments in the bottle to create the bubbles.

I asked Mania if the savouriness is typical, and typing with one hand while “holding a sheep” (it’s lambing season and Mania is also a vet), she replies:

“I taste it on both the still and frizzante and believe it is one of the characteristics of the marine soil… the most incredible thing is that we also get it in our olive oil in the most calcareous and oyster rich grove!”

Maybe because from the pink appearance I was expecting something more conventionally classical when in fact this is far more underground. This is sangiovese as you’ve never seen it before!

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