Sangiovese from Montepulciano, Tuscany, Italy

Sangiovese 80%, Merlot 20%

Purchase Price $18.99

Vinous 90, Cellar Tracker 88, ElsBob 89

ABV: 14%

 A ruby red, clear wine with vibrant tastes of red fruits. A acidic medium finish that smooths out the tannins. This is meant to be a young wine so don’t overdo it with meal prep. It will go fine with spaghetti in a marinara sauce.

A very good fine wine slightly overpriced at $20. Buy it if you can find it under $14. Current prices range from $14-16. This wine needs to breathe. The first sip from a just open bottle will be rough. Give it 30 minutes.

Trivia: The village of Gracciano, Italy, near the Poliziano vineyard, sits in a Tuscan landscape where everything has happened but nothing that will ever make it to Jeopardy. But it does lie heavily at the crossroads of Etruscan, Roman, medieval, and Renaissance history. Not a place of singular world‑shaping events, but of continuous layers of civilizations that march through and over the land that helped shape the modern world.

From 700 to 100 BC, the entire Montepulciano–Gracciano ridge was Etruscan territory, and they were already cultivating grapes. God bless ‘em. Beyond that, very little was known: their language vanished, their tombs were looted, and Rome’s shadow seemed to erase them…until last year.

In 2025, archaeologists from Baylor University uncovered a sealed Etruscan chamber tomb at San Giuliano, northwest of Rome. Dating to roughly 2,600 years ago, the 7th century BC, it is one of the most significant Etruscan finds in decades. Inside were four individuals laid on carved stone beds, surrounded by more than 100 grave goods: iron weapons, bronze ornaments, ceramic vessels, and delicate silver hair spools, all in their original placement.

This tomb, along with two others discovered recently, is giving researchers an unprecedented chance to illuminate the civilization’s inner life: family structure, gender roles, trade networks, ritual practices, and social hierarchy.

The emerging picture suggests a culture older and more urbanized than early Rome. A society whose religion, architecture, and political symbolism Rome borrowed heavily. Etruscan elites were likely not destroyed but absorbed into the expanding Roman world.