Il Carnasciale

Winery Podere Il Carnasciale is located deep in the countryside of beautiful Tuscany. The winery was founded by Wolf and Bettina Rogosky. The couple befriended Remigio Bordini in the 1980s. Bordini had discovered a small, abandoned vineyard near the city of Verona with some vines of a then unknown grape variety. It had characteristics of both Cabernet Franc and Merlot, so he called the breed Caberlot. Bordini allowed this grape species to be planted in just one other place in the world and that is at Podere Il Carnasciale in Valdarno. They are still the only winery in the world to work with this mysterious, natural mutation. The wine of this extraordinary grape variety first came onto the market in 1988.

The plots cover a total of 3 hectares. The planting on these plots is very dense with around 10,000 vines per hectare. Despite the high density of the vines, the yield is low. This is done deliberately to benefit the quality.

The different plots are fermented and matured separately. After maturation, there is a blind tasting, and this is how the wine intended for Il Caberlot is selected and the wine intended for Il Carnasciale. The latter is the second wine of the winery and was introduced in 2000. The Il Caberlot matures for 18 months in French oak and gets 16 months of bottle aging. This wine is only released in magnum format. Il Carnasciale is barrel aged for 18 months and then bottle aged for 6 months.

Since this grape variety cannot be found in any wine legislation of Tuscany, the wines fall under the label IGT Toscana. But that's no problem at all because Il Carnasciale achieved cult status right from their debut! And that's no surprise, because they are the only wine house in the world to produce wine from this unique grape variety. Only 1,000 cases are produced per year. All these bottles are numbered by hand and the cross on the label is painted by hand as well.

The best vintages are 2004, 2006, 2010, 2015 and 2016.