Taste: Oreno 1999 is a dark, dense, purple-black colored very fruity wine with lush, intense aromas of blackberries, coffee and toasted oak along with hints of dried citrus rind and smoked meat. It is full-bodied, with lovely big texture, silky tannins and a remarkably long finish.

Viticulture: Green harvest, at the end of July, reduced vine load to 1 or 2 bunches per cane. Harvest, following a technically and phoenologically excellent year, began in early September for merlot and the end of September for sangiovese and cabernet sauvignon. The grapes are severely sorted at harvest, when they are picked individually by vineyard and exclusively by hand, with two-to-three passes through each vineyard for highly selective picking, with grapes from the third pass sold to other vintners. The first selection, of the finest grapes, is for Oreno; the next, also of excellent quality, is for Crognolo, while grapes from the third pass are sold to other vintners.

Vinification: Moretti prefers to blend sangiovese with merlot for weight and body rather than cabernet sauvignon for structure, as is typically the case with super-Tuscans. He has found, too, that merlot performs well in this cooler part of Tuscany. Each vineyard, variety and pass is handled individually, from de-stemming through fermentation, with special yeasts, 50% in 85-hectoliter stainless steel fermentors and 50% in 200 hectoliter glass-lined cement fermentors. The wines were fermented on their skins for 15 days and another 5 days off the skins, with manual punching down of the cap daily followed by complete natural malolactic fermentation. The wines were racked and then blended. Oreno 1999 was aged 30% in first year and 70% in second year 225-liter medium-toast Allier barrels for 15 months. The wines were racked and blended, and then aged six months in bottle prior to release from the winery.

13.5% alcohol, total acidity 5.2 grams/liter, pH 3.6; total production, 833 9-liter cases, packed in six-bottle cartons.

This is Sette Ponti’s first vintage of Oreno, named for a small river that runs through the estate. With 50% non-traditional Chianti grapes, it is the more international in style of Moretti’s two wines and incorporates cabernet sauvignon for structure and fragrance. The Moretti family has produced wine on their property in Tuscany’s Colli Aretini in the Valdarno (the valley of the Arno) in Chianti since 1957. The wine was sold in bulk until 1996 when Antonio Fioravante Moretti, an Italian business magnate, followed his passion and decided to bottle his own wines. Moretti’s first wine was Sette Ponti 1998 Crognolo, followed by the 1999 and 2000 vintages, and this 1999 Oreno. In this short time, he has made a reputation for creating exciting super-Tuscan wines that are, in the process, redefining the wines of the Colli Aretini.