POGGIO BESTIALE

Nestled in the hilly Italian countryside of Maremma Toscana with its vineyards descending towards the Tyrrhenian Sea from a height of 300m, The vineyards here offer some of the best views we know of the Tuscan coastline. It is a beautiful and yet still quite a wild place. La Fattoria di Magliano was set up in 1996 by Agostino Lenci. Agostino, fascinated by the history of the region and its centuries old wine-making traditions, sees his job and duty to safeguard nature – both wild and agricultural. Bringing in the expertise of Sassicaia's winemaker Graziana Grassini was a shrewd move and she still oversees the wine-making here with aplomb. Minimum intervention and now completely organic with certification from 2018 onwards, Agostino and his team are making smart and wonderfully characterful wines here from local varieties and some small productions of some very charming Super Tuscans too.

Nearly twenty-five years, on these beautiful vineyards are maturing and producing the best fruit of their lives, vine age and bio-dynamic practices means these wines now really are better than ever since the first harvest in 2003. And we should not forget that even when young these vineyards were producing wonderful fruit - the 2004 Poggio Bestiale was rated Italy's best Tuscan wine under £20 in Decanter magazine – quite an achievement for a wine with such a short history. The soil here is sandy with a good amount of clay, which combined with a good dose of sunshine and sea breeze, results in some really beautiful wines – full-flavoured, ripely rich but with a dynamic twang of acidity and pep that makes them just so drinkable.