2021 Avignonesi, Merlot “Desiderio” Toscana IGT Rosso, Tuscany, Italy.
I always enjoy tasting through the Avignonesi wines, each year I seem to find a new and exciting wine and this time I absolutely loved the outstanding Desiderio Merlot from the 2021 vintage, a wine that rises up and grabs your attention in the glass with pure Bordeaux like class and Tuscan flair. This deep garnet hued, with its elegant full body and 100% Merlot starts ff with blackberry, dark currant and black cherry fruits, along with subtle floral notes, cedary wood spice, anise and a delicate loamy earthy/stony accent that confirms you are drinking an impressive old world wine.The Montepulciano region, which I first visited in 2002 at harvest time, has a unique terroir with soils that are mainly made of marine sediments and clay with some sandy areas that provide the perfect conditions, along with the warm Summer days, for hillside Sangiovese, and Merlot, to thrive, as this wine proves with its depth, complexity and old world charm. Avignonesi typically, sees fermentation carried out by pied de cuve (vineyard yeasts) with carefully sorted and hand harvested grapes. Which the winery explains, the Pied de cuve is the process by which a vat of grapes is harvested in advance and used to prepare a natural yeast, specific for a grape variety and (or) vineyard to provide true site flavors. The 2021 was crushed and de-stemmed in stainless steel truncated-cone tanks, got an extended cool maceration and was racked to French barriques where it was aged a full 24 months, which has made for a real serious effort here! While pure Merlot, this wine really does the to Italy and especially Montepulciano.
It was great to catch up with Avignonesi’s lineup of wines again at the San Francisco Slow Wine tasting, March 2, 2026, these Montepulciano wines are beautifully made and very authentic terroir bottlings, with their solo varietal Merlot being the star of the table this year, along with the Vino Nobile. Avignonesi has a collection of about 444 acres of vineyards in Montepulciano and Cortona regions, all of which fully certified organic and biodynamic in the southern part of Tuscany. Named after the original founders of the estate, the Avignonesi family, the historic winery, has really taken a huge step up in quality in the last 15 years, and mainly as a result of it being acquired by Virginie Saverys in 2009, who has put so much passion and resources into Avignonesi, putting it into Tuscany’s elite group of producers. Saverys has grown the estate holdings in size adding some top vineyard sites and at the same time helping Avignonesi become a leader in biodynamic viticulture in the region. As well as the innovation in farming Virginie has built a state-of-the-art winemaking facility, which has become the pride of the Montepulciano appellation. She also brought in the youthful winemaking talent of Matteo Giustiniani, who was trained in Bordeaux as well as in Florence, that has really elevated the wines and while the Sangiovese based bottlings are usually my favorite, don’t miss his Desiderio Merlot! Interestingly, Avignonesi’s label is dedicated to a bull that lived the property 200 years ago and was noted for being the largest Chianina bull ever seen, and specific to the Bistecca Fiorentina, which this wine would go great with.
($45 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive