Featured Producer

Podere Il Carnasciale

Il Carnasciale is the producer of one of Italy’s most extraordinary wines. This is a tiny vineyard near Montevarchi on the eastern side of the Chianti hills in Tuscany. The estate was the creation of husband wife duo of Wolf and Bettina Rogosky, neither of whom had a wine background but had a passion for the great wines of Tuscany and had the burning passion to create their own. The original vineyard was 1/3 of a hectare and planted at an elevation of 420 metres on an ancient olive grove with poor gravelly soil. The couple, under advice of Remigio Bordini, one of Italy’s great pioneering viticulturists, to plant their vineyard with a Cabernet Franc clone which has recently been discovered in the Colli Eugani hills of NE Italy, where the variety had started to develop Merlot characteristics, and the resulting wine took on a character of on its own, hence the name, Caberlot.

Since her husband passed away, Bettina has nurtured her vineyard with aid from her long time collaborators Peter Schilling and Vittorio Fiore, and is now producing one of Italy’s truly excellent reds. Due to the scarcity of the production, the wine is rarely seen. The wine is also only produced in magnums (save for a few double magnums), and maximum about 1500 of those per year. Since 2002 Bettina has also produced a tiny amount of a 2nd wine, simply called Carnasciale, which is marketed in regular bottle sizes.

The wine itself has and incredible bouquet which combines the spicy blackcurrant and bramble elements of Cabernet Franc with notes of scorched earth, violets and dried herbs which evokes top-end right-bank Bordeaux, but has the edginess and flamboyance which could only be Tuscany. With age, the wine develops an elegance and complexity which is unsurpassed.

These wines are included in our July and August Italian offer with 15% off, so now is an excellent time to stock your cellar with one of the wine world’s truly exceptional one-offs.