Wine of the Week! 04/01/2024

Tolaini Donna Laura
Ali Sangiovese Toscana Rosato

Normally $19.99 / Now on Sale for $14.96
100% Sangiovese (Chianti Classico IGT)

Pier Luigi Tolaini entered his adulthood with the immigrant’s crazy dream — leave home, go to a land of opportunity, make your fortune, then come home. The crazy thing is Tolaini actually did it.

Growing up in Tuscany, Tolaini left Italy as a young man and made his way to Canada. Settling near the oil fields of Manitoba, he got a job driving trucks of water to the oil workers. Then he bought his own truck and drove water to the workers. Then he bought more trucks. Then Tolanini started a trucking business. Then he built that business into TransX — Canada’s largest transportation company for shipping fresh and frozen food. You know … like you do.

After becoming one of this continent’s leading trucking magnates, (and after driving race cars until his reflexes started to slow with age — again, like you do) Tolaini and his daughter Lia Tolaini Banville, in 2004, started Banville Wine Merchants (one of our wine distributors). In the same year, Tolaini founded his own winery in Castelnuovo Berardenga in the Chianti Classico region of Tuscany. He now co-owns it with his daughter, who runs the Donna Laura line of wines out of it.

Tolaini Banvillle has named her Donna Laura wines after her aunt. She wants them to be expressions of pure organic Sangiovese fruit that are balanced and affordable. However, this specific wine is named after her daughter. “Ali” means “wings” in Italian and refers to Tolaini’s daughter, as she is her mother’s “Little Angel.”

Tolaini Banvillle has the Sangiovese grapes for the Ali crushed and then left on the skins for two hours to produce this rosato, which, true to her goal, boasts a full berry fruit with a supportive acid structure.

Get the Ali cool but not too cold to fully enjoy its balance.