2007 Capezzana, Villa de - Vin Santo del Chianti Classico La Chimera HALF BOTTLE (375ml)

“Chiesamonti” is a 1.3-hectare parcel adjacent to the town of San Felice in Castelnuovo Berardenga, with a stonier soil profile and a lower clay content than Giovanna’s home turf. The vines, now over a decade old, used to be blended into “Cinque” in their younger years, but she now feels they are ready for prime time, and this wine—bottled on its own for the first time in 2018—provides a fascinating counterpoint to “Le Trame”: silkier, higher-toned, and overall prettier, with a more blatant mineral underpinning and less sumptuously fleshy fruit. It spends two years in Stockinger barrels, just like its sister wine, and it comprises nearly entirely Sangiovese, with just a touch of Canaiolo.

The fabled local grape of Montefalco is the Sagrantino and the Pagliaro vineyard, situated at 1,300 feet in altitude, is dedicated in large part to this grape variety. The harvest of Sagrantino normally occurs during the second half of October. The cuvaison extends for forty to fifty days. The wines is then aged for one year in stainless steel, another two years in large Slavonian oak barrels and, finally, spends one more year in bottle (the wine, like all Bea wines, is unfiltered) before release.