Why it matters
The producer
Poliziano farms 170 hectares of certified organic vineyard across four zones in southern Tuscany, with its home and core label in Montepulciano. The estate takes its name from a local word: in Italian, a person born in Montepulciano is called a poliziano. The most famous of these was the humanist poet Angelo Ambrogini, born there in 1454, who rose to become one of the central literary figures at the Medici court in Florence. His portrait appears on every bottle the estate produces today.
Dino Carletti bought the original 22 hectares in 1961 as a country project, growing grapes and selling wine in bulk. His son Federico, an agriculture graduate who took over around 1980, rebuilt it from the ground up: estate-only grapes, a range of distinct wines, and a sustained expansion that brought the vineyard to its current 170 hectares. Federico described himself as a self-made winemaker who learned through experimentation rather than formal winemaking training. The third generation, Francesco and Maria Stella, joined as advisors to Federico in 2019 and 2021 respectively.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Montepulciano sits in the Val di Chiana in southern Tuscany, on a high ridge between the Chiana and Orcia valleys. Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG is one of Italy's oldest classified wine zones, predating the modern DOCG system by centuries. The grape at the centre of it is Prugnolo Gentile, the local name for Sangiovese, which accounts for most of the estate's planted area and every wine in the Montepulciano range. The classification requires Prugnolo Gentile to be the dominant variety, giving every Vino Nobile from Poliziano a common structural backbone: red fruit character, firm tannins from the grape, and an acidity that supports ageing.
Beyond Montepulciano, Poliziano holds vineyards in Montefollonico, on the Tuscan coast in Maremma, and in Cortona to the east. Each zone produces under its own DOC or DOCG rules, and the fruit from coastal Maremma and inland Cortona produces wines with a noticeably different profile from the Montepulciano core.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The Simonit&Sirch method centres on pruning technique. Where conventional approaches cut canes heavily and leave large wounds, this system minimises cuts and preserves the internal flow channels that carry water and nutrients from root to shoot. Over time, vines trained this way tend to produce smaller, more concentrated crops with less stress on the plant. Applied across 170 hectares of organically farmed land, the method combines with the absence of herbicides and insecticides to produce fruit with cleaner skins and more consistent ripeness.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range moves across four levels, each with a distinct job.
Rosso di Montepulciano is the entry point: 80 per cent Prugnolo Gentile blended with 20 per cent Merlot, fermented and aged in wood for about eight months with only 20 to 40 per cent of the blend seeing oak at any size. Poliziano intends its Rosso di Montepulciano to be youthful, fruit-driven, and full-bodied. The Merlot softens the Sangiovese tannins and rounds out the mid-palate.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Viti Nuove is the place to start. It is the village-level wine, pure Prugnolo Gentile under the DOCG appellation, and it does the essential explanatory work: it shows what Sangiovese tastes like when it is called something else, grown at altitude in southern Tuscany, and handled with less oak and more attention to the fruit. Red cherry, plum, violet, firm acidity, resolved tannins. Nothing about it requires a reference point in Chianti or Barolo. Start here and the Asinone and Caggiole make immediate sense as more demanding versions of the same premise.