Candialle, La Misse 2018 Chianti Classico

Jarkko came into wine by coincidence. He hung out with a lot of Italians while studying in Holland, visited during harvest, and ended up staying on to work with a small producer in Chianti Classico for the next 5 years. His wife Josephin is from a German brewing family, she says she “grew up in the countryside with the smell of brewing steam in her nose”, and knew she wanted to be involved in agriculture in some way. They met in Italy and bought their farm in 2002.

Candialle is an ancient place for growing vines and olives, it was first mentioned in papers from the 14th Century, and officially mapped in a census in 1716. They think the name derives from Latin and means ‘The House of Candio’. It’s located at the southern tip of the “Conca d’Oro” an amphitheatre of vines just below of the village of Panzano in the heart of Chianti. The farm is surrounded by woodlands, 20 of the 48 hectares that they own is wooded, there are also meadows, scrub and olive trees. Josephin explained that there’s a long history of polyculture in Tuscany, people owned a mix of fruit and olive trees, vines and vegetables.