Poliziano - The star of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

It's a great privilege to have a producer like Poliziano in our wine portfolio and we were keen to learn more about this hugely significant and impressive wine estate. Poliziano have been at the forefront of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano production for decades. We spoke with export manager, Margherita Pallecchi, and Maria Stella Carletti, who with her brother is the new generation coming through at Poliziano.

Poliziano is the surely the best-known producer making Vino Nobile – how proud does this make you feel?

I’m not so sure if Poliziano is the best-known Vino Nobile producer, but it is certainly a great honour for us, as a family originally from Montepulciano, to show our wines and more in general the history and culture from our beloved home-town around the world.

If someone is new to Vino Nobile, how do you describe the key differences to other great Tuscan wines?

Vino Nobile stands from other great Tuscan wines and wines regions in various ways: firstly, it is worth mentioning that Montepulciano is situated in a continental location with a continental weather, warm summers and fairly cold winters. This characteristic alone gives to our wines a certain structure, an intense and rich sets of aromas and most importantly a generally bodied wine, rich in tannins and in colour. So, to me, Vino Nobile always stand out as one of the most powerful wine compared to other Tuscan wines.

The next generation are working in the business now - Keeping it traditional or innovating change?

Yes, the third generation of Poliziano, being Maria Stella and Francesco, Federico’s children, are now working in the business. I guess the correct answer is a bit of both. But it is important to mention that these are just words, simple definition which do not have great meanings. Federico has constructed the company with fundamentally two principles in mind: making quality wines & cultivating exclusively our own vineyards and our own grapes. Lately, the winery has introduced also the organic principle as well (Poliziano is certified organic since 2021). Our idea is very simple: we want to carry on and continue to make quality wines produced by our own grapes which are coming from our owned vineyards. Of course we understand that it is really difficult to continue to use exactly the same approach, especially now with the changing weather conditions we are facing, but we similarly understand that certain vine growing and winemaking techniques and certain approaches have been put into practice and are now part of our “tradition” because of an in-depth, experienced based understanding of our terroir. So, to get back to your question, our idea is to continue to be traditional when it is correct to do so and to be innovative when we understand that it is time to make changes, all with the same idea: produce always quality wines from the terroir we have.

What is the next big project for Poliziano?

The next big project Poliziano is, firstly, improving the quality of our Sangiovese. The many years’ experience and knowledge that we have gathered on the field brought us to identify a restricted range of rootstocks and Sangiovese clones which have proven to work very well with our terroirs and microclimates. So what we are currently focusing on is to re-plant the old vineyards using the most appropriate rootstocks and clones to the specific location.

Secondly, and more importantly, the next big project for Poliziano is this new “estate” we have recently acquired – I Pozzi. The place is located at the edge of Montepulciano’s denomination, close to Montefollonico and over the last few years we have exclusively planted various hectares of Sangiovese which are only very recently starting to produce. The place is fantastic, different from all the other areas we own in Montepulciano, fairly higher in altitude with a very particular distinctive terroir which is already now showing a completely different type of Sangiovese compared to the one we currently make. For now, I would rather not say anything else, but I can assure that in the next years you will hear again about this magical place!!

What is your favourite food match to go with your Vino Nobile?

My favourite food match with our Vino Nobile is our local Pici al Ragù. Pici are hand-made pasta, and they can also be referred to as fat spaghetti, due to their dimensions.

Tell us something about your wines or estate that most people won’t know.

Our Vino Nobile di Montepulciano “Asinone” was the really first single-vineyard wine ever produced in Montepulciano, and one of the first 15 or 20 single-vineyard sites in the whole of Tuscany. First vintage was 1983.