Why it matters
The producer
Monia Piccini makes every wine at Il Palagio di Panzano from a single grape: Sangiovese. The estate sits above the village of Panzano in Chianti, inside the Chianti Classico DOCG zone in Tuscany, and Monia's family has been native to this village across multiple generations. She took over the winemaking operation in 2004 and released her first Chianti Classico in 2007. That debut vintage earned tre bicchieri from the Gambero Rosso Wine Guide, the highest mark in Italy's most widely followed annual rating system.
The range is deliberately compact and entirely personal. Each wine carries a name from the family: a grandmother, two daughters, a father. Monia has mapped the estate's soils and uses what she finds there to explain why each parcel produces a different wine.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Panzano in Chianti is a small hilltop village in the heart of the Chianti Classico zone, positioned between Florence and Siena. The Chianti Classico DOCG appellation covers this stretch of Tuscany and requires wines to be made from at least 80 percent Sangiovese, with the best crus drawing exclusively on the grape.
Panzano occupies one of the higher points in the appellation. Altitude moderates the summer heat and extends the growing season, allowing Sangiovese to ripen slowly and retain the acidity that keeps the wines from feeling heavy. The village sits inside a natural amphitheatre formed by hills on three sides, a feature local growers call the Conca d'Oro.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The estate has two named single-vineyard parcels. San Martino has held organic certification since 2013. The organic regime excludes synthetic herbicides and pesticides and requires the grower to manage vine health through cover crops and manual interventions. For Sangiovese, which is sensitive to powdery mildew, organic farming demands more passes through the vineyard but produces fruit with cleaner skins and finer tannin.
Le Bambole is the other named parcel. It was the last vineyard Monia planted with her father. She named it for her two daughters. The parcel is farmed alongside the rest of the estate and its fruit goes into the single-vineyard wine that carries its name.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range has four known bottles.
The Chianti Classico is the estate's appellation wine. It must contain at least 80 percent Sangiovese under DOCG rules; at Il Palagio it is made entirely from the grape. It is the wine that put the estate on the map: the 2007 was the inaugural release and it went directly to the top of the Gambero Rosso scale.