When "newcomers" fall in love with an area, it can happen that they not only stay but also put more love into their products and pay much more attention to quality than the locals themselves. This is particularly often observed in Tuscany. When two quality lovers then meet and run a winery together, great wines are the result.
The Austrian entrepreneur Karl Egger and his family fell in love with a wonderful spot in the south of Tuscany near Radda in Chianti and acquired an old estate there. Actually, it is even a hamlet with a chapel, so a small village, one could say, because that is what Castiglioni means in Italian. Its history goes back to the year 1078. At that time, the monks of the nearby Badia a Coltibuono monastery founded this estate, which in recent years has been lovingly restored and reactivated bit by bit by the Eggers. About 100 hectares of land belong to it. Most of it is forested, but there are also about 20 ha of vineyards and about 10 ha of olive groves, which have been cultivated since 2012.
Sean O'Callaghan – affectionately called "Il Guercio" by his friends, which could be freely translated as "the one-eyed rascal" – is actually English and was born in Sri Lanka, where his family ran tea plantations. Back in England, his father planted vines near Somerset and sent Sean to Germany, where he studied viticulture in Geisenheim and then – instead of taking over the vineyard in England – stayed there and became cellar master at the Diel winery, among others. On a vacation in Italy, he met John Dunkley, the owner of Riecine, a pioneer in Chianti Classico, and its oenologist Sergio Manetti (Montevertine – Le Pergole Torte), got the job as winemaker and stayed there for almost a quarter of a century until he met Karl Egger.
Karl Egger offered Sean O'Callaghan the opportunity to build up the Tenuta di Carleone winery, gave him free rein in winemaking, and let him redesign the cellar. From stainless steel to wooden fermentation racks, oak barrels in various sizes to modern cement tanks like in the most expensive Bordeaux cellars – Sean can vinify each individual parcel as he sees fit. The new wine cellar is a stately 600 square meters, with constant temperature and humidity. Concrete and stainless steel tanks as well as wooden barrels for fermentation are available, as well as oak storage barrels in various sizes. Sean O'Callaghan summarizes the perfect conditions in the cellar as follows: "To get the best out of the excellent quality of the grapes, processing, maturation, and storage of the wines are enormously important – and we have them now more than ever." The cultivation is organic-biological, partially biodynamic, fermentation is only with native yeasts and spontaneous. Long skin contact and slow fermentation, partly with whole grapes, make the difference.
The vineyards around Radda, extending to Gaiole, belong to the best in Chianti Classico. This forested, mountainous landscape is somewhat cooler and always crossed by a fresh breeze. Some vineyards reach up to almost 700 m above sea level. During the day, the onshore winds blow from the sea, at night the wind from the mountains picks up and cools the vines. This interplay brings a juicy, pronounced fruit, and the sparse, calcareous soils let the vines root deeply and bring elegance and mineral notes to the wines. Sean O'Callaghan's wines are often described as Burgundian. They are always elegant and finely structured. The result of his passionate work can not only be enjoyed but also admired.
