Firenze, beautiful and magnificent — the land of the Medici, Machiavelli, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Savonarola, Amerigo Vespucci, Galileo Galilei, Boccaccio, and, of course, the Antinori.
Interestingly, the Demidov industrial dynasty from the Urals had a connection to the city as well. Anatoly Demidov wanted to marry Mathilde Bonaparte, Napoleon’s niece, who was, technically, a princess. So he needed a noble title for the marriage and was granted the title of Prince of San Donato, which was linked to his San Donato estate near Florence. Later, when his heirs wanted to legalise the same title in Russia, apparently this could only come with land bearing the same name. So, in 1878, San Donato station opened on the Ural Mining Railway. It is still there today, right on the edge of Nizhny Tagil.
Anyway, back to Florence. My fiancée brought me there in December 2023. We stayed in a lovely hotel in the historic part of the city, right just one junction away from Palazzo Antinori, home of the legendary winemaking dynasty producing wine since 1385. Marchese Piero Antinori, the long-time head of the Antinori family business, was one of the key figures behind the Super Tuscan revolution. His Tignanello became one of the defining wines of the movement in the 1970s. Tignanello was the very first Sangiovese to be aged in small oak barrels (barriques) rather than traditional large casks. It was also the first modern red wine in the region to blend with non-traditional Bordeaux varieties (Cabernet), and among the first to completely ditch the previously mandatory blending of white grapes (like Trebbiano and Malvasia). Today it is considered one of the classics of the Super Tuscans. So, when in Florence, I knew exactly what I wanted — bistecca alla fiorentina with Tignanello.
We asked for recommendations from the hotel's concierge and he pointed us to Il Grande Nuti Trattoria, which was just around the corner. Hmmm... a touristy place, I thought. The wait was over 30 mins as the place was really popular but I'm happy I was mistaken about thinking of it as touristy — they have been in business since 1953 and know how to get things done right. 1.3 kg Chianina bistecca al sangue and a bottle of 2020 Tignanello that we shared for the two of us, was among my best wine and food experiences ever.
The Tenuta Tignanello estate sits on the southwestern hillsides of Chianti Classico, where significant day-to-night temperature shifts allow the Sangiovese to perfectly ripen while preserving its crucial acidity and aromatic finesse. The rocky, well-draining soil — a mix of alberese (hard marine limestone) and galestro (flaky, calcareous clay schist) — forces the vines to dig deep, naturally restricting yields to give the final wine a concentrated flavor and elegant minerality. The 2020 vintage benefited from a warm summer without extreme heat spikes and perfectly timed late-August rains, allowing for slow, even phenolic ripening without hydric stress. As a result, this sleek, fruit-driven wine bursts with bright Sangiovese notes, fine silky tannins, and an electric acidity that makes it gorgeous to drink right now but structurally built to age for decades.
Pairs well with
