Klaus Johann Reimitz

After several years in Chianti Classico, Klaus Johann Reimitz is likely the most Tuscan of all the German winemakers based there. Born in 1951 in Düsseldorf, he moved to Italy in his 20s to study philosophy at the University of Perugia. As he later discovered, his true vocation wasn’t academia but the craft of winemaking. Since the early ’80s, Radda in Chianti has been Klaus’s home, while Sangiovese has remained his focus, challenge, ally, and source of satisfaction to this day.

Klaus worked at the Montevertine winery for 25 pioneering vintages of the single-varietal Le Pergole Torte, which, together with Sergio Manetti and Giulio Gambelli, he helped make into a wine of worldwide fame. Since 2010, at the Poggio al Sole winery owned by his friend Johannes Davaz, Klaus has been cultivating first-class Sangiovese vines on a vineyard plot of just over one hectare, planted in 1992 and named after his great-grandmother Tamara von Boronzky, herself a wine connoisseur of high standing. 

In the cellar, he oversees the wine’s maturation in his large barrels with dedication and keen attention, using “eyes, nose, and mouth,” as well as enormous patience, strong nerves, and an acute sense for the decisive moment. In the wine world, the extraordinary and rare wines that emerge this way have been enthusiastically received. One critic described them as “a new dimension of Sangiovese,” noting that the wine “comes across as neither rustic and basic nor tailored to an international clientele. It retains its untamed character while remaining unusually elegant and refined.”

Klaus has two wine-savvy sons, Tancredi and Thomas, who now assist their father with certain decisions and management tasks.

_{^{Anna Manetti and Klaus J. Reimitz during a tasting at Montevertine}}