Tenuta di Valgiano, “Palistorti” Colline Lucchesi Rosso

Anyone who doubts whether organic and biodynamic farming have an impact on a wine’s character should taste “Palistorti'' from Tenuta di Valgiano and then re-assess. None of us here has any doubts, I can assure you of that, and today’s ’18 is an especially vivid reminder of the kind of wine you get from sustainably farmed grapes: ripe, dense, and deeply flavorful without the glossy sheen that comes from excess residual sugar, expensive oak, and other means of engineering flavor and texture in the winery. “Palistorti'' is more raw than cooked, if you will, a wine that could be categorized as a “super Tuscan” but doesn’t really meet the stylistic parameters most people associate with the category. Plus, it hails from the Colline Lucchesi, or the “hills of Lucca,” which in the pantheon of Tuscan wine is an out-of-the-way locale. But make no mistake: Tenuta di Valgiano, which was created from a near-ruin in the early 1990s, is one of the most special properties in all of Tuscany. It’s a bio