Terreno Chianti Classico Gran Selezione ASofia 2016

Sofia Ruhne is the second-generation in her family to run Terreno in the hills on the eastern side of the Greve Valley. Her father bought the estate in 1988 and moved the family there when she was seven. Her first years were spent learning, initially entertaining a host of opinions from her male counterparts (notably not Dad, however), including the declaration that the estate needed a man in charge because no one would follow a woman. In the end, she replaced most of the staff and embarked on her own path. Sofia oversaw the estate’s transition to organic viticulture , and she took the focus off French grapes to put it squarely on Sangiovese. In 2022 she was elected president of the Montefioralle UGA. 

ASofia is from the fruit of the estate's oldest vines, planted in the early 1980s, and made into a wine that sees the estate's longest élevage of 30 months in neutral 30hl casks. This comes from the Terreno Vineyard (south of Le Bonille), high on the eastern flank of the Greve Valley, rich in macigno and other non-calcareous marine sandstone soils. The specific parcel grows on a steep flank facing northwest. Soil, site, and old vines make for a wine of lovely nuance and florality. ASofia's structural profile is the horizontal counterpart to Sillano's verticality.

The wine is only made in very good years. Its grapes are harvested by hand in small crates, and a second sorting is done at the cellar. All lots and clones are micro-fermented spontaneously and separately in open-top fermenters. The wine is aged in bottle before release for at least one year following élevage. No fining and bottled with a light filtration. 

A restrained, pure and fresh wine with a lot of transparency. Aromas of cherry pits, fresh red cherries, red currants, violets, leather and chalky minerality. Full-bodied, it shows elegant, velvety tannins with lifted acidity and a mineral-laden finish.