From Maremma, With Love

There is a scene in Quantum of Solace (the 2008 James Bond film) where 007 arrives in Talamone, a small coastal town on the southern Tuscan coastline. If you haven't heard of it, don't be surprised: it is not on anyone's list of must-see Tuscany. No rolling hills of golden wheat, no cypress-lined avenues, no famous hilltop towns. Just a rugged stretch of coast, a medieval tower, turquoise water, and about thirty seconds of screen time before Bond moves on to the next action sequence.

Rémi Saby saw that scene and thought: I need to go there.
And so he did. Somewhere between arriving in Maremma and falling in love with the land, a French entrepreneur from Saint-Étienne decided that what he really wanted to do with his life was to make wine. He sold his business, bought an old agriturismo on a hillside outside Magliano in Toscana, and started over.
The estate is now called Tenuta Il Quinto, and the wines coming out of it are some of the most exciting things happening in southern Tuscany right now.

The Wild South

If Chianti is the face of Tuscan wine that the world recognizes (polished, historic, well-trodden), then Maremma is what Tuscany looks like before it gets organized.
This is the southern stretch of the region, running down toward the Tyrrhenian coast, bordered by Monte Amiata to the north and the Argentario peninsula to the south. For most of its history, it was swampland, if you can imagine: malarial, largely uninhabitable, the kind of place people passed through (or even avoided) rather than settled. The reclamation, or bonifica, came only in the years following the Second World War, which means that Maremma, as a developed, cultivable territory, is less than a hundred years old. In Italian wine terms, that is practically newborn.

What the bonification revealed was something unexpected: soil of real quality. Galestro (the crumbly, mineral-rich limestone rock that defines the best vineyards of Chianti Classico) runs through much of inland Maremma, combined with calcareous and clayey subsoils that drain well and force roots to grow deep. The climate is warm, tempered by sea breezes from the Tyrrhenian and the cooling winds from Monte Amiata. It is a region that grows things it has no business growing, and it does so surprisingly well.

The grape it is best known for is Sangiovese, specifically in its Morellino di Scansano expression: a DOCG denomination that produces a version of the grape that is riper, rounder, and more immediately generous than its Chianti Classico counterpart. But Maremma has never been a one-variety region, and the producers who are doing the most interesting work here right now tend to be the ones willing to push beyond its most obvious identity. International varieties planted at altitude, native varieties brought in from other southern Italian regions, whites made with the seriousness usually reserved for reds.

Tenuta Il Quinto sits right in the middle of this conversation.

The James Bond Winery

As I found out, Rémi Saby is not a man who does things halfway.
When he bought the estate in 2016, it was operating as an agriturismo with eight hectares of existing vines. So, he didn’t waste time tinkering with it and simply reimagined it from the ground up. The vineyards were almost entirely replanted, new varieties introduced, the old ones re-grafted; and a brand-new cellar was designed, built from scratch, and completed in 2021. And I must say: the architecture is striking. Clean lines, panoramic windows looking out over the Maremma towards the Tyrrhenian Sea, a space that feels like it was built to last rather than to impress.

Today, Tenuta Il Quinto covers 70 hectares in total: forests, olive groves, and 12 hectares of organically farmed vineyard, sitting at around 300 metres above sea level. Nine grape varieties are grown across the estate. Only 40,000 bottles are produced each year across seven labels.

Running the estate day-to-day is Vittoria Saby, Rémi's daughter. Half-French, half-Italian, and entirely at home in both worlds, she grew up between the two cultures before landing in Maremma and finding that the land had something to say to her. She is quick to point out what the region represents at this moment: "I think it's one of the most interesting areas right now in terms of young people trying new things in Tuscany." There is no pretentiousness in this statement, it is simply the observation of someone who is watching it happen from the inside.

The Philosophy of No Rules

But let’s talk about the one who makes the wine: Valentina Del Bello. One of the most interesting things she says in conversation is this: Maremma gives her freedom that more established Tuscan regions simply cannot offer.
"Compared to zones like Chianti Classico or Montalcino, where the style of wine and the type of viticulture are already defined by regulations and history, this territory lets you explore all possible paths, from the choice of varieties to the style of the wine."
Valentina arrived at Quinto in 2016, brought on board after Vittoria's father met her while she was working at Château La Tour in Bordeaux. She is Abruzzese by origin, deeply connected to Tuscany by choice, and has spent eight years learning the character of these particular soils, these particular microclimates, these particular vines.
Her approach is methodical: she samples every parcel of the estate a month before harvest, returning weekly, building a mental image of each vineyard's readiness before committing to a pick date. She keeps records of every vintage, every anomaly, every adjustment. "Experience is the winemaker's first ally," she says. "Knowing how to read the sky, the wind, to sense how the day will turn… having that history is everything."
What makes her most proud is not any single wine but the ability to design a wine's style around the vintage rather than imposing a template on it. "That vision, being able to project the style of the wine based on the year, that comes with time and experience. It's not something you learn from books."

Vittoria and Valentina became friends before they became colleagues, and that dynamic is visible in how they talk about the estate. There is none of the formality of a producer and their technical director. Vittoria is straightforward about the division of labour: "I'm very proud to say it's Valentina making the wines. A lot of wineries should embrace more who is actually making the wine."

The Wines

For our portfolio, we have selected four bottles that define what Tenuta Il Quinto is doing, and each one makes a slightly different argument for why Maremma deserves more attention than it gets.

I Biondi - IGT Toscana Bianco, Vermentino The everyday white of the estate, and the entry point Vittoria recommends without hesitation. 100% Vermentino grown on sandy soils a few kilometres from the Tyrrhenian coast, fermented and aged in steel on fine lees. The result is exactly what you'd want from a coastal white: grapefruit, a faint mineral note, fresh and lean on the palate with clean acidity and a dry finish. Not a complicated wine, and that's the point. Valentina describes it as the wine that lets the food do the talking, which in Singapore means it will find its place easily.
Sterpeti - IGT Toscana Bianco, Fiano This is Quinto's most unconventional wine and, not surprisingly, one of my favourites from this estate. Fiano is a southern Italian grape, native to Campania, and historically associated with Avellino; planting it in Maremma is a very unusual choice. But Vittoria's reasoning is simple: the world is changing, the seasons are changing, and the varieties that will thrive here in twenty years are not necessarily the ones that have always been here. Sterpeti comes from a single northeast-facing parcel surrounded by Mediterranean scrubland, worked in Guyot, fermented in steel, and aged for around nine months in concrete eggs on fine lees, an approach that preserves freshness while adding texture. On the nose: saffron, cumin, orange blossom, thyme, candied lemon, fresh coriander. The palate is also very happy: mineral and saline with a long finish. One practical note worth passing on: don't serve it too cold, or you'll lose everything that makes it interesting. This is a white that opens up with temperature and rewards patience.
Guardoalto - IGT Toscana Rosso A blend of Merlot, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon from three plots planted in the early 2000s by the estate's previous owners, which makes Guardoalto the wine most directly tied to Quinto's pre-Saby history. Each plot is fermented separately in steel before 15 months in second-use French oak tonneaux and barriques. Green pepper, cassis, violet, and dark chocolate on the nose; fresh and structured on the palate with fine, lively tannins. The galestro and calcareous clay soils give the Cabernet that balsamic, slightly mentholated quality that distinguishes inland Maremma from the more opulent coastal style. This is also the wine served at my wedding. I will not pretend that this is an objective data point, but I will say it held up exceptionally well over a long evening, which is the real test of any bottle.
Qvinto - IGT Toscana Rosso, Cabernet Sauvignon The flagship red, and another personal favourite. Cabernet Sauvignon with a small percentage of Petit Verdot, planted in 2016 on predominantly galestro soils at the highest and most ventilated point of the estate. Fermented parcel by parcel in steel, aged 15 months in fine-grain French oak. The nose has scents of pine, eucalyptus, black pepper, cassis, and liquorice, while on the palate it’s velvety but structured, with fine silky tannins that signal a wine built for the medium-to-long term. Valentina describes top labels like Qvinto as "a good benchmark for what we like to drink and what style we want to reproduce". Which is another way of saying this wine is as much a personal statement as it is a product.

 

Tuscany Is Not One Conversation

We talked about label shopping in the past; and in fact, there is a tendency, when people think about Tuscan wine, to reach for the same names: Chianti Classico, Brunello, and Sangiovese in general. Great wines, all of them, made in places that have earned their reputation through years of work and history.
But when it comes to winemaking, Tuscany is enormous, and the further south you go, the wilder and less defined it becomes; which, depending on your disposition, is either a problem or an opportunity.

For Rémi Saby, arriving from Saint-Étienne by way of a James Bond film, it was clearly the latter. For Valentina, trained in Bordeaux and Abruzzo and now committed to a hillside in Magliano, the absence of a rulebook is precisely the point. And for Vittoria, who grew up between two cultures and has chosen this particular corner of southern Tuscany as her place in the world, the story is still being written.
Maremma doesn't have centuries of winemaking history to lean on. What it has is soil, climate, ambition, a tendency to reject rules, and people willing to ask what this land is actually capable of. Not what tradition says it should produce.

Tenuta Il Quinto is one of the more interesting answers to that question right now.
And we are very glad to have them.