Why it matters
The producer
Petrolo farms 35 hectares of hill vineyards in the Val d'Arno di Sopra, a DOC in Arezzo province that runs along the southeastern edge of Chianti Classico. Two named vineyards anchor the estate: Bòggina, a Sangiovese parcel planted by Gastone Bazzocchi in 1947, and Galatrona, a Merlot parcel planted in 1990 and the source of Galatrona. Luca Sanjust is owner and winemaker. During the years that Galatrona was taking shape, he worked alongside Denis Durantou, the Pomerol producer who built a reputation on single-vineyard Merlot, and that influence has remained visible in how Galatrona is made and conceived.
The Bazzocchi family acquired the estate in the 1940s, and the family commitment to wine production carried forward with them. The modern estate is small, deliberate, and built around the principle that two parcels, farmed carefully and vinified separately, tell more than a broad range.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Val d'Arno di Sopra occupies the hill country of the upper Arno valley between Florence and Arezzo. In 1716, Cosimo III de' Medici issued an edict naming four wine areas of exceptional quality; Val d'Arno di Sopra was one of them, alongside Chianti, Carmignano, and Pomino. The area did not become a formal DOC until 2011, but the land itself was already producing wine when that classification caught up.
Petrolo's vineyards sit between 250 and 500 metres above sea level, on slopes where altitude delays ripening and preserves acidity. Soils are marl, sandstone, and shale, the same layered geology found across the broader Chianti country. On these soils and at this elevation, Merlot behaves differently from how it reads on flat, warm alluvial ground: the fruit stays focused rather than broad, and tannin stays firm rather than soft. Sangiovese at this altitude retains the natural acidity.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The Galatrona vineyard is planted exclusively to Merlot, and the wine is made only from grapes grown in that parcel, with nothing added from elsewhere on the estate. For the 2018 vintage, fermentation took place in small barrels and amphoras, with manual punching down of the skins to integrate the cap and extract colour and tannin without mechanical force. The combination of small vessel fermentation and amphora gives the wine different oxygen exposures during fermentation, which contributes to aromatic complexity and a more layered tannin profile.
The naturally grassed vineyard floor is left intact through the season. After mowing, the cut grass stays on the ground and breaks down as organic matter, supplying the soil with what a conventional operation would add chemically. Pressed skins from the cellar return to the rows between vines. The system closes a loop: what the vineyard produces in excess goes back into the soil.
Wines to know
The range in view
Petrolo's range is two named-vineyard lines within the Val d'Arno di Sopra DOC.
Galatrona is the Merlot wine, drawn entirely from the Galatrona vineyard planted in 1990. It is a concentrated, dark-fruited red with firm tannin, made in a style that repays extended cellaring. The 2022 vintage scored 98 points from Wine Enthusiast, and the wine has accumulated a consistent international reputation across multiple vintages. Fermentation in small barrels and amphoras with manual punching down gives the wine a particular kind of tannin: present and gripping in youth, but built to soften over time.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Galatrona is the right starting point. It is a 100 percent Merlot from a single named vineyard, fermented in small barrels and amphoras, and made in a style that the 2022 Wine Enthusiast score of 98 points has put beyond argument. Pour it from a decanter: the tannin needs air to open. Expect dark cherry and plum on the nose, then a palate where the fruit and tannin arrive together and the finish runs longer than you anticipate. It is not a soft, approachable Merlot. It is a wine built to develop over a decade, which means buying it now and holding it tells you more than opening it young.