Chocolate and cool earth notes on the nose, followed by cassis, tobacco and stewed plum flavours on the palate. This wine is elegant and beautifully balanced, rich yet smooth with medium body and supple tannins. Long and elegant finish. The fruit for this wine is sourced from the 0.4 hectare Castagnola vineyard which is located in Lessona between 290-310 metres above sea level in the Orolungo region. Soils here are ancient marine sands from the pliocene period on igneous rock (granite), topped with more recent silty glacial sediments. The soil is acidic (pH 4.5 - 5.5) and rich in minerals and trace elements including iron, manganese, aluminium and zinc. The vines are 100% Cabernet Franc from Bordeaux clones, 3309-C, 101-14 (low vigour rootstocks) with a density of 5,000 vines per hectare. The grapes were hand pick in mid October and sorted while on the conveyor belt, then destemmed and gently pressed. They were then fed by gravity into the fermentation tanks. Fermentation took pl