Petra is one of the wine cathedrals of Maremma.
Founded in 1997 in Suvereto by Vittorio Moretti and his daughter Francesca, Petra Winery encompasses a 300ha estate, a third of which is planted with vineyards. The winery, which sits 150 metres deep in the ground with a tunnel-like wine cellar, as well as the vineyard, were designed by the famous Swiss architect Mario Botta, who built the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Most of all the outlay of the building has to ensure best grape practices (e.g. gravity-flow instead of pumping) and simplify the working routine of the winery staff.
Tastings take place in a nearby farmhouse, where visitors can savour wines in the most authentic, rustic setting.
The Petra winery has four flagship wines, all of them refined in French oak and three o them dedicated to just one grape variety each: Alto made up of 100% Sangiovese grapes follows in the footsteps of Tuscany's most traditional mono-cultivars Rosso and Brunello di Montalcino; Quercegobbe (100% Merlot) and Potenti (100% Cabernet Sauvignon) are unusual but interesting examples of the more recent Super Tuscan wine culture. An exemption to the one-variety-a-bottle rule is the wine, that carries the name of the estate: Petra, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes.
Wine cathedrals have their price. Talking Tuscan wines, the young Petra winery is definitely located at the higher end of the scale (direct sale around 28 Euro per bottle for the mono variety wines).
The visit to Petra, upon reservation, takes 3 hours at the cost of 60 euros per person and it includes a visit to the vineyard, the winery and a dinner inside the winery.
Going from la Sugherosa to Petra takes 45 minutes.
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