Why it matters
The producer
Fattoria Il Muro is the Pancaro family's farm outside Arezzo, and the family has held it for approximately two hundred years. It sits in the eastern corner of Tuscany, in the Chianti DOCG zone, farming hillside vineyards and olive groves above the Castro stream valley. Two wines carry the estate's name publicly: Spigallo, a Chianti built on Sangiovese with a Merlot component aged in chestnut barrels, and Lama, a Chardonnay di Toscana IGT matured across oak and steel.
The house style is fresh and accessible. These are not wines pursuing concentration or age; they are made to drink well and to reflect a hillside farm that has been worked by the same family across generations.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Arezzo sits at Tuscany's eastern edge, farther from the Chianti Classico heartland between Florence and Siena, but still within the broader Chianti DOCG boundary. The vineyards descend on hillside terrain toward the Castro stream's valley plain, an orientation that provides the vines with drainage and air movement. The climate is cooled by proximity to the Alpe di Poti, a hill mass that produces strong diurnal temperature variation: warm days push ripeness, cool nights slow it and hold acidity in the grapes.
Soils here are galestro, the friable schist-based rock found across much of Tuscany's wine country. Galestro drains quickly and warms fast in spring, pushing vine roots deeper for water and producing grapes with a clean, mineral edge rather than heavy extracted fruit. On a label, these conditions translate to Chianti with fresh acidity and a lighter body than wines from denser, clay-dominated soils farther west.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The vineyards grow on the galestro hillsides above the Castro valley. The environmental conditions the estate describes support cultivation without heavy chemical input, though no formal certification is documented in available sources.
In the cellar, Spigallo ages for six months in large traditional Tuscan barrels made from chestnut wood. Chestnut is an older choice in Tuscany; most modern Chianti producers moved to French oak barriques or large Slavonian oak casks during the 1990s. Chestnut has a tighter grain than oak and releases tannins more slowly, giving the wine a slightly earthier, more regional character without adding the vanilla or spice notes associated with French oak. The large barrel size limits surface-to-wine contact, preserving the Sangiovese's natural acidity and fruit rather than covering it with wood.
Wines to know
The range in view
Spigallo is an 80% Sangiovese, 20% Merlot Chianti DOCG. The Sangiovese carries the wine's acid line, its cherry and dried-herb fruit, and the firm tannins that define Chianti as a category. The Merlot rounds the mid-palate and softens the finish without pushing the wine toward an international style. Six months in chestnut barrels adds a faint earthy depth and integrates the tannins without adding oak flavour. The wine is built for the table: it has enough tannin to sit beside food but enough freshness to drink without it.
Lama is 100% Chardonnay, sold as a Toscana IGT because Chardonnay falls outside the Chianti appellation rules. The split oak-and-steel regime produces a pale wine with floral aromas, clean fruit, and firm acidity. The 2023 vintage shows the lighter, fresher end of Tuscan Chardonnay. The 2022 vintage, assessed independently, carried fruit, acidity, and a toasted-almond note from the oak portion of maturation.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Spigallo Chianti DOCG is composed of 80% Sangiovese and 20% Merlot. It is 80% Sangiovese aged in chestnut barrels, and it carries the estate's character more directly than any other bottle: the galestro hillside acidity, the traditional ageing vessel, and the Chianti framework that has defined this farm's wine for generations. In the glass it is fresh and dry, with cherry fruit, firm tannins, and a clean finish.