100% Sangiovese. Fonterenza's Sangiovese vines occupy 4.2 hilly, contiguous hectares in San Polo, just southeast of Montalcino. All of it qualifies as Brunello turf technically, but the legal constraints on Brunello production were very tight when the Padovani sisters started Fonterenza in the late 1990s. Thus only one hectare's worth of fruit can be used for Brunello, and the rest historically went into their Rosso di Montalcino and most of it still does. But a few years ago, the Padovanis were so taken with the quality of the fruit in one alberello-trained half-hectare planted in 2005 that they started bottling it separately from the Rosso, as an straightforwardly named IGT wine.

Fonterenza's farming has been incredibly meticulous from the start, always biodynamic and certified as such for years. The vines are planted on a wildly diverse range of range of sandy, stony limestone-rich soils, mainly facing north. Like the rest, the parcel for "Alberello" is hand-harvested and vinified and aged similarly to their Rosso di Montalcino. The bunches are destemmed by hand, gently pressed and fermented spontaneously with native yeasts and a minute bit of sulfur in open-top oak vats. The maceration is around 20 days. The wine is aged in old Slavonian oak botti and cement for 24 to 36 months. It is bottled without filtration or additional sulfur. Yields are very low and thus production quite small.