LA TORRE is an estate winery in Sant’Angelo in Colle in the south of Montalcino in Tuscany, Italy. Its main wines are Rosso di Montalcino DOC and Brunello di Montalcino DOCG. 

OWNER / Luigi Ananìa, son of Giuseppe. Luigi has a degree in agriculture from Florence University.

BACKGROUND / In spring 1976 Giuseppe Ananìa purchased a 36 hectare estate in Sant’Angelo in Colle, Montalcino. The vendors were the Ciacci family. Ananìa was an oenologist with a degree in agrarian science. His thesis concerned the differences in Brunello wines according to vineyard location. The holding included a large farmhouse on the top of the hill, surrounded by a wilderness of brambles, broom and ilex trees. Previously La Torre had been worked as a mixed farm by sharecroppers, with livestock, cherry trees, wheat, vines and olive trees. The house, where a family of eighteen used to live in the sharecroppers’ time, included cellars where the grapes were processed and the wines aged. Local legend concerning the name “la torre” held that beside the farmhouse a tower once stood belonging to the Sassetti family, who owned the hillside estate before the Ciacci family. According to the legend, one branch of the Sassetti family discovered gold in the foundations of the tower (la torre) and decided to demolish the entire building to take the gold and flee to Florence. There is a street called Lungarno Sassetti in Florence, but it is not known if there are any links to the Sassetti’s who ran away from Montalcino, or whether the tower with its gold really once stood where there is now a Brunello vineyard.

VINEYARDS / 1976 Giuseppe Ananìa planted the first vineyard, two and a half hectares in area, in 1976. / 1999 In 1999 Giuseppe’s son Luigi Ananìa, planted another three hectares. The vineyard now totals about five and a half hectares and surrounds the house on the south and west.The estate is thirty-six hectares in size, of which 5.6 hectares are vineyards, in four square blocks. 100% Sangiovese. Cordon. South- and south-west facing. 430 metres above sea level. Stony terrain. Soils of Eocene origin over a base of pietraserena, galestro and limestone.

RED WINES

IGT TOSCANA ROSSO, LA TORRE / 100% Sangiovese bottled early.

IGT TOSCANA ROSSO, AMPELIO / Blend of Sangiovese, Ciliegiolo and Alicante. Named after a local wine grower friend. Oak aged

ROSSO DI MONTALCINO DOC /18 months in French oak vats (25hl I think) with a small percentage in French barriques.

BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO DOCG / 1982 La Torre’s first Brunello vintage. Released in 1987. / 1999 Like old claret, some VA, decent old style, but very forward considering how few years this has had in bottle when tasted at Guelfo Magrini’s house on Wed 22 Dec 2004. / 2000 Light but good style, classic Sangiovese, old world, like this a lot at Benvenuto Brunello 18 Feb 2005.

BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO DOCG RISERVA / 48 months in Slavonian oak vats with nearly one fifth aged in barriques. / 2006 Bottled.

CONTACT

Azienda Agricola La Torre, Località La Torre, Sant’Angelo in Colle, I-53020 Montalcino (SI = Siena), Italy / Tel+39 0577.844073