History
1959: foundation in Tuscany
Azienda Agricola Fontaleoni began in 1959, when Giovanni Troiani left sharecropping in the Marche countryside to seek a new future in Tuscany. The hills surrounding the medieval town of San Gimignano persuaded the Troiani family to purchase a small farm.
From subsistence farming to winegrowing
The original mixed farm was organized around livestock, cereals and fruit trees. Over successive seasons, the estate moved away from subsistence agriculture and progressively specialized in wine production, concentrating on the locally established Vernaccia di San Gimignano and Sangiovese varieties.
Early 1980s: the second generation
Franco Troiani, Giovanni’s son, joined the estate in the early 1980s. His arrival was associated with an increased emphasis on product quality and the decision to bottle Fontaleoni’s first lot of Chianti.
The estate today
Fontaleoni now presents itself as the work of three generations of winegrowers. The farm covers 50 hectares, of which 30 hectares are devoted to quality-wine production. A substantial proportion of production is destined for international markets.
Terroir
Location and topography
Most of the vineyards lie at Santa Maria, approximately 8 km north of the municipality of San Gimignano. A separate five-hectare block, Le Fonti, stands immediately below the walls of San Gimignano’s historic centre and faces east. Documented vineyard elevations extend from 100 to 300 metres above sea level, with several blocks at approximately 180 metres.
Soils and geology
The soils are generally medium-textured and tend toward a relatively light structure, but they vary considerably across short distances. The bedrock has both volcanic and marine origins. This geological foundation produced tuffaceous ridges with a substantial limestone component.
Clay occurs in alternating shallow and deep layers along the hillsides. These layers encourage groundwater to rise through the profile and create localized differences in soil temperature, porosity and water availability, even between nearby points in the vineyard.
Fontaleoni associates this pedological complexity with the pronounced mineral character of its wines. Seasonal climatic conditions and agronomic decisions alter the intensity of that expression from one vintage to another.
Winemaking
The vineyards are managed organically, and harvesting is performed by hand. Fontaleoni links these two choices directly to the quality of the fruit brought into the cellar.
Vineyard management is treated as part of the expression of each growing season: climatic development and agronomic decisions interact with the estate’s variable soils, producing a different intensity of expression each year. Documented vineyard elevations range from 100 to 300 metres above sea level, and documented vine ages range from 15 to 30 years.
Harvesting is carried out by hand across the documented still-wine production, while the Extra Dry sparkling cuvée is picked manually at the end of August.
White and rosé grapes are gently pressed. White musts ferment in stainless-steel tanks at controlled temperatures below 20°C; rosé fermentation takes place in stainless steel at 14°C. Depending on the intended style, white wines may undergo clarification and filtration before bottle maturation, remain on fine lees, mature in large oak, or include a small component aged for six months in small wood. Recorded bottle-maturation periods range from three months to two years.
Red-wine production uses stainless-steel fermentation. The approach includes either a short skin maceration or, for the reserve style, a long maceration followed by separation from the skins. Malolactic fermentation is carried out, with maturation either in bottle or in large oak casks followed by six months in bottle. Clarification and filtration are used for parts of the range.
The Extra Dry sparkling cuvée is vinified off the skins after gentle pressing. Its second fermentation lasts 30 days and follows the Martinotti–Charmat method.
Philosophy
Fontaleoni summarizes its identity through three ideas: terroir, tradition and passion. Its development from a small mixed farm into a specialist wine estate remains central to that identity, as does continuity across three generations of the Troiani family.
The estate’s quality philosophy begins in the vineyard through organic management and manual harvesting. It treats soil variation, the course of each growing season and agronomic choices as interdependent factors, accepting that the intensity of the vineyard’s expression changes from year to year. Vernaccia di San Gimignano and Sangiovese remain the principal links between the family’s work and its San Gimignano setting.