Le Pergole Torte is what Chianti would be if you trusted Sangiovese alone. It's 100% Sangiovese from a single hillside in Radda. It declines to be called Chianti Classico, and that refusal is what made it.
Sergio Manetti founded Montevertine in 1967 and made his first Chianti Classico in 1971. By 1977 he had planted enough Sangiovese on a parcel called Le Pergole Torte — 'the crooked pergolas' — to vinify it on its own, with no white grapes blended in. Chianti Classico's consortium at the time required producers to add a percentage of Trebbiano, a white grape that had quietly diluted the region for a generation. Manetti refused and left the consortium in 1981. His wine has worn the humble 'IGT Toscana' designation ever since, even after the Trebbiano rule was scrapped in 2006.
Montevertine
What's in the bottle is unembellished Sangiovese: red and dried fruit, herbs, fine tannin, fresh acidity rather than soft sweetness. Wood-ageing for two years gives it structure without disguising it. Wine Advocate gave the 1990 a perfect score, and Vinous and Decanter have rated vintages from 2007 to 2021 in the high 90s. None of those wines would be allowed to call themselves Chianti Classico Gran Selezione.
Reading 'IGT Toscana' on a label today is rarely a downgrade. It often signals a producer who chose freedom over a category badge — a path Montevertine pioneered. Manetti died in 2000; his son Martino runs the estate now, and Le Pergole Torte still arrives in a different artist's label every year. Refusing the system turned out to be a much better strategy than playing it.
