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13 wines to help you understand Sangiovese from Romagna

Richard Baudains takes a closer look at Romagna's Sangiovese and its sub-zones, and picks out 13 examples to try.

Romagna has shared Sangiovese with Tuscany for centuries.

Which region cultivated it first is open to conjecture, but the most likely hypothesis is that it was first grown in the Appenine slopes of the Romagna Toscana, an area culturally and linguistically Romagnola but which was under the rule of Florence from the Middle Ages until the 1920s.

From here, it spread west into neighbouring Chianti and southeast into the hills of Romagna. As it travelled, it took different paths, starting with the name.

In Romagna the first written reference, dated to 1651, is to ‘Sanzuvesa’, subsequently Italianised into the modern day ‘Sangiovese’ [Quoted in Sangiorgi e Zinzani, Romagna Sangiovese, Storia e Identità di un Famoso Vino e di un Antico Vitigno (Valfrido ed. 2017) p.12].

In Tuscany, a certain Girolamo da Firenzuola made the first known reference to ‘Sangioveto’ in 1552, [idem, p.18] and it was by this name that the variety was most commonly known in the region until well into the 20th century – in his famous notes for the blend of Chianti, Baron Ricasoli refers specifically to Sangioveto and not Sangiovese.

Shared heritage

Whether the Sangiovese of Romagna and the Sangioveto of Tuscany were the same grape with different names, or different but related varieties, we will never know, but throughout the 19th century, it was common for authors on both sides of the Appenines to make a distinction between them [Ian d’Agata, Native Wine Grapes of Italy (University of California 2014) p.427].

The ambiguity was only finally resolved in 1970 by the Italian National Grape Variety Register, which established the name of the variety as Sangiovese, and Sangioveto as an official synonym.


Sangiovese in Romagna: 13 to try

If you are a fan of the variety, these are wines you will want to know about.


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