The Colline Lucchesi give life to one of the oldest Italian Docs. Pieve di Santo Stefano preserves this treasure over time

The territory of Lucca has cooler climatic conditions and higher rainfall than the rest of Tuscany: this explains the composition of the traditional blends which, for centuries, have flanked Sangiovese with more precocious vines such as Merlot, Ciliegiolo and Syrah. In a situation of global warming this configuration was particularly advantageous and made the area very interesting for the development of quality wines. Wines that are perhaps less exuberant and less concentrated than those of southern Tuscany, but much more subtle and elegant. A bit like Burgundy wines compared to Bordeaux ones.

In Pieve S. Stefano all the work tends to best express the complex aromas of this particularity and is unmistakably found in the elegance, freshness and high drinkability of its wines.

The position of the estate offers a particularly favorable environment to the grape culture: the altitude of the vineyards, between 180 and 290 m, the South-East / South-West exposure, the ventilation, the inclination between 10% and 20 %, the temperature variations accentuated by the presence of the surrounding woods … everything contributes to an optimal ripening of the grapes and the freshness of the wines, endowed with the complexity of the typical aromas of the estate’s terroir.

The high draining capacity of the soils, natural or reinforced (especially in clayey areas), allows to take advantage of the contribution in water without problems for a proper health of the vineyards, in order to obtain structure in the wines. The morphological verity of the soils and subsoils (soil in general loam-clay, rich in mineral elements and poor in organic matter) on the different plots of the property gives the wines a complementarity of structure and aromatic intensity.

Due to the diversity of soils and microclimates within the property, vines and clones suitable for each plot have been carefully chosen. For example, the slopes below the Lombardo proved to be the ideal terrain for Sangiovese; the Merlots are at their best in the area located around the Roman church and the Cabernet in the sandy loam soil of Carignano.

The vineyards of the Pieve di Santo Stefano are set up to obtain the highest quality. The planting distance is 2.40 m by 90 cm for a total of about 5,000 plants per hectare. This allows to significantly lower the load of grapes per plant in the thinning phase. One of the peculiar characteristics of the vineyards is the espalier raised to 2.40 m. This considerable increase in the leaf surface allows, through the increase of chlorophyll photosynthesis, a better and earlier ripening of the grapes.
The breeding system adopted is the bilateral spurred cordon for Sangiovese and Merlot, the Guyot for Ciliegiolo, Colorino, Syrah and Cabernet.

The work carried out in the vineyard, essentially manual, aims to achieve the vegetative productive balance of each vine and each parcel in order to obtain wines that express the originality and specificity of the territory to the maximum.

The choice of conversion to organic was very reasoned and is far from fashions and “issues of etiquette”: the property is in fact deeply convinced that the high quality of the grapes never results from chemistry, but from continuous monitoring and work intense manual in the vineyard, carried out by internal staff of the company and technically prepared.

The vine (and Sangiovese in particular) is the plant that most of all has the ability to concentrate the soul of the earth that nourishes it in the fruit. From the grape to the bottle, through all the stages of winemaking, the company’s ambition is to produce wines that sublimate the properties of the terroir.

The grapes, harvested by hand and harvested in special boxes, are pressed at the end of a rigorous selection process ..

The harvest of each vine and each parcel is treated in separate tanks to respect the diversity of harvest dates and take advantage of the characteristics of each micro-soil.

The vinification takes place in steel wine tanks with temperature control.

Few pumpovers are carried out, only during the fermentation phase, to avoid over-extraction with consequent too hard and austere tannins. During the maceration phase, the absence of pumping over allows natural substances to be fully extracted from the lees that soften the tannins.

Aging takes place in steel for the company wine, Villa Sardini. The use of wood is modulated according to the type of grape variety so as to never be invasive. For this the company follows the tradition, refining the Sangiovese of selection (Ludovico) in large wood (oak barrels of 15 and 20 hl) and the Bordeaux blend (Lippo) in barrique. The woods come from the best French tonneliers.