Monte Antico is a proprietary label of the important Italian wine marketers, Neil & Maria Empson. Three and a half decades of passion and experience have gone into the Empsons’ tribute to the heartland of Italy. Their unique affinity to this extraordinary region has led them to make their own mark on Tuscan soil: with the Maestro of Italian winemakers, Franco Bernabei, they have styled Sangiovese, the Tuscan grape per eccellenza and expressed its ultimate potential, complementing it with minor percentages of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Monte Antico (which, incidentally, means “ancient mountain”) comes from choice hillside vineyards on diverse soils – compact, very fine-textured limestone, at an altitude of 400-450 meters above sea level; the classic, clayey/calcareous, rocky galestro, also at altitudes around 400 meters; and clayey/siliceous/calcareous soil, at an altitude of 250-300 meters: a cross-section of Tuscany’s best.
The finest selections are cherry-picked according to harvest conditions in the individual terroirs and microclimates. This balanced orchestration of geological diversity makes for the wine’s consistent excellence.
