february 19, 2026
A bottle I almost forgot…
(and couldn’t ignore)
Reading Time: 6 mins
In June 2025, I was invited to visit a small group of producers in the heart of Chianti Classico. Among them, one estate remained vividly in my mind, not only for the wine, but for the soul behind it.
I am talking about Luciano from La Scheggiolla, a small family-run winery deeply rooted in tradition.
Luciano welcomed me the way only certain Tuscan producers can. With warmth, irony, and that subtle eccentricity that makes you smile immediately. But behind the humor, there is seriousness, discipline, and an almost stubborn attachment to the land.
As we walked through his vineyards, he spoke about producing wines with minimal intervention and keeping sulfur additions as low as possible, not because it sounds good on a label, but because he wants the vineyard to speak clearly and honestly.
Then, at one point during the visit, he showed me something that moved me even more than the barrels.
He brought out an old accounting notebook from the time of mezzadria, the sharecropping system that defined rural Tuscany for generations.
Every year, the mezzadro, the sharecropper, would go to the main farmhouse and sit down with the fattore, the estate manager. Together they would write the agricultural report of the year. Harvest results. Livestock. Expenses. Production. And at the end of that accounting, both would sign the page, formally closing the farming year.
Ink on paper.
Effort turned into numbers.
A season of labor sealed with a signature.
Holding that notebook in my hands, I felt something shift. Wine is not only fermentation, barrels, and tasting notes. Wine is continuity. It is generations who counted every liter, every sack of grain, every grape cluster because survival depended on it.
Later, as often happens in Tuscany, the visit flowed into lunch at a local trattoria in Chianti Classico. Wooden tables, handmade pasta, wine poured generously, conversations about past vintages and future hopes. The kind of lunch where time slows down and you leave carrying more than just memories.
I came home with a few bottles from La Scheggiolla.
And I will confess something to you.
Sometimes I follow my instinct, buy wines that move me, and then, between travels and events, they quietly disappear into a corner of my warehouse.
Last week, while reorganizing everything, I found one of those bottles again: Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2013.
I opened it without expectations, simply curious.
And it surprised me.
Within the Chianti Classico denomination, Gran Selezione represents the highest quality tier. The wine must come exclusively from estate-owned grapes and age for at least thirty months, including bottle aging.
It is a statement of identity and selection, a declaration that this wine represents the estate at its best.
More than ten years after harvest, this 2013 is remarkably alive. The color shows elegant garnet reflections. On the nose, layers unfold slowly: dried cherry, tobacco leaf, leather, and a refined balsamic touch that reminds me of forest undergrowth after rain.
There is depth without heaviness.
On the palate, the tannins are silky and fully integrated. The acidity is still vibrant, lifting the wine and carrying it into a long, harmonious finish. It does not demand attention; it earns it quietly, sip after sip.
Within twenty-four hours, I had already placed a significant order.
Because when a wine not only tastes beautiful but also carries the weight of history, of handwritten ledgers, of signed agricultural years, I know it belongs in my selection.
You will now find this Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2013 from La Scheggiolla inside my Toscana Wine Club, carefully selected and ready to reach your table.
Perhaps, when you open it, you will taste not only Sangiovese, but also a page of Tuscan history written in ink.
From Tuscany, with gratitude and a raised glass,
Claudia 🍷
Ready to toast?
