Third-Generation Nose, Freshly Polished
TASTING NOTES: “Pour it and the glass lights up bright ruby red with a violet halo — gorgeous before you even take a sip. The nose hits fast: intense, focused, layered with ripe red and dark fruit and just enough earthy, floral Sangiovese character to signal this isn’t a one-note wine. On the palate it’s silky but structured — ripe, elegant tannins wrapped around forest fruit, dried cherry, and a soft touch of vanilla from its time in oak — finishing bright, savory, and hungry for food. This is a Chianti built for the table: think grilled steak, wild boar ragù, aged pecorino, or honestly just a really good Sunday dinner with people you like.” (AbV 13.5%)
VARIETALS: Sangiovese
BARRELS: Not specified.
PAIRS WITH: N/A
THAT REMINDS ME OF: Wild boar ragù, this wine’s suggested food pairing.
Wild boar in Tuscany isn’t just dinner, it’s basically a mascot. If you’ve ever wandered through Florence’s Mercato Nuovo, you’ve met the evidence: a bronze boar called Il Porcellino that every tourist ends up petting whether they plan to or not. The ritual is specific — you drop a coin in his mouth, let it fall through a small grate below, then rub his snout on the way out, and if you do it correctly you’re guaranteed to return to Florence someday. Nobody enforces this. Everybody does it anyway.
Porcellino’s been getting fondled since 1634, when Pietro Tacca cast him, and the wear tells the whole story: his nose is polished a bright, buttery gold while the rest of him has gone dark green with age, which is about the most efficient centuries-of-tourist-traffic tracker imaginable. Tacca didn’t even sculpt from a live pig — he copied a Hellenistic marble the Medici had acquired, which was itself a Roman-era copy of an older Greek original. So the guy currently getting his nose rubbed by strangers in a piazza is at minimum a third-generation reproduction, and the only one of the bunch anyone’s superstitious about.
