Barone Ricasoli (Brolio)

A presidency held at Brolio

The cru decision begins with repetition. Francesco Ricasoli, winemaker at Barone Ricasoli (Brolio) in Gaiole in Chianti, reads the estate by what returns, vintage after vintage. Since 1993, he has owned and served as president of the house, taking on full-time work at Brolio after a career in advertising photography. The shift matters because it names the discipline he brought with him: looking closely, then allowing the property to set the frame. Barone Ricasoli works inside one of Chianti Classico’s longest family continuities, with the Ricasoli name tied to the estate since 1141. Baron Bettino Ricasoli’s role in the modern Chianti formula gives the place a predecessor with real weight, but Francesco’s station is not a reenactment. His work sits in the present tense, with character, structure, and elegance as the stated aim. At Brolio, continuity is not passive. It requires deciding what the estate can say again without becoming fixed in habit.

Cru as a test of return

Francesco Ricasoli describes cru through recurrence: “We call it 'cru' because they have the tendency, vintage after vintage, to show the same character after every harvest, even if the climate is very different.” That sentence carries the method more clearly than a cellar diagram would. The point is not sameness of weather or season, but recognition under pressure. The estate’s named wines, Castello di Brolio Gran Selezione, Colledilà, Roncicone, CeniPrimo, and Brolio Chianti Classico DOCG, give the work its visible structure. Sangiovese holds the central line, with Merlot and Chardonnay also part of the estate’s plantings. The scale is stated plainly: 240 hectares of vineyards in the Chianti hills. Sustainability is part of the house’s production philosophy, but the sharper craft question is how each bottling keeps distinction without losing coherence with Brolio. A cru bottling has to earn its name repeatedly. One harvest is not enough.

The castle, the cellar, the hills

The estate works from a historic castle setting, with vineyards and olive groves moving across the hills around Gaiole in Chianti. The room for tasting is quiet by temperament, less theatrical than territorial; the stronger presence is outside, in the slopes, the stone, and the long view of the property. Brolio’s landscape can be picturesque, but the craft here is not scenery applied to wine. The cellar and vineyard program answer to an old estate that still has to make current decisions: what to bottle as a cru, how to hold the house style, when a wine belongs to the larger expression rather than a single parcel. In that sense, the place asks for patience from the maker before it asks anything from the glass.

What remains in the glass

The next movement at Brolio is not framed as novelty. Francesco Ricasoli’s work keeps returning to recognition, the ability of a wine to carry its site across uneven seasons without losing its line. That is the measure inside Castello di Brolio Gran Selezione.