ONLINE TASTING: Spotlight on Sangiovese with Jimmy Smith

Enjoy a rather special evening discovering the most important black variety from Italy - Sangiovese. We have expertly selected a range of world-class wines crafted from this famous variety from its spiritual home of Tuscany, plus Umbria, Emilia-Romagna and even France (Corsica) and the new world. Included in the tasting is the supertuscan Tignanello which is majorly crafted from Sangiovese, and famed for being one of the original supertuscans. As always on these tastings, wine school founder Jimmy Smith will be including full WSET examiner’s tasting notes. Rather attend an in-person tasting? We are hosting this same tasting again at our flagship venue in West London on Tuesday 20th September 2022 at 7:00pm. Sangiovese Sangiovese is and has always been THE dominant grape of central Italian red wines, and Chianti in particular. Because in the mid-20th century Chianti was frequently lightened with the addition of tart, pale-skinned Trebbiano grapes and stretched by the addition of fuller reds imported in bulk from the south of Italy and the islands, it was far from easy to determine what Sangiovese's innate qualities were. It has been only in the last couple of decades, thanks to a systematic research programme by producers in the Chianti Classico heartland of the greater Chianti region, that the myriad clones of Sangiovese grown all over central Italy have been studied and assessed. Sangiovese's dominant viticultural characteristics are that it can vary as much as Pinot Noir in its sensitivity to place and that it ripens relatively late. Today, fine Sangiovese is an altogether nobler wine. It will be the product of much lower yields so that there is real concentration of colour and savour. As for the elusive flavour of pure Sangiovese, it ranges in a spectrum somewhere between mulberries, prunes, spice, tobacco, sometimes leather and chestnuts (there seems to be some common thread of colour here!) It tends to be savoury rather than sweet, and if not fully ripe can smell distinctly farmyard-like. TASTING FEE STRUCTURE: For this special two-hour tasting, a wine tasting kit is included in the listed price which includes a 50ml tasting sample of each wine. Note: Tasting kits will be despatched to attendees within the week leading up to the tasting.  Tasting kit delivery can be made to anywhere within the UK. Deliveries may be available to other European destinations for an additional cost - please email us at info@westlondonwineschool.com if you are interested in receiving a tasting kit to a destination outside of the U.K before purchase.