Winemaker Notes
The wine displays a brilliant ruby red color with a bouquet revealing notes of violet and red berries such as cherry and currant, complemented by hints of black tea, vanilla, and white pepper that add complexity. On the palate, it shows smooth tannins supported by bright acidity, ensuring freshness and longevity.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
A garnet red color, the 2020 Chianti Classico Riserva Poggio Croce offers a pretty bouquet of fresh roses, tarragon, red raspberry, and orange peel. Zesty and inviting, this medium-bodied red has lovely, fresh energy with a weightless feel, ultra-fine tannins, and clean lift on an impressively long and mouthwatering saline finish. It’s a beautiful and bright style to drink over the next 10-12 years.
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Vinous
The 2020 Chianti Classico Riserva Poggio Croce is a rich, boisterous wine. Leather, game, incense, tobacco and dried flowers lead into a core od dark-toned Sangiovese fruit. There's gorgeous depth and overall presence here. Best of all, the Riserva can be enjoyed with minimal cellaring
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Wine & Spirits
A firm streak of graphite runs through this wine’s flavors of tarragon-scented black cherry and raspberry. It takes a savory turn with exposure to air, gaining notes of grilled game even as it finishes on a bright note of citrus peel.
Among Italy's elite red grape varieties, Sangiovese has the perfect intersection of bright red fruit and savory earthiness and is responsible for the best red wines of Tuscany. While it is best known as the chief component of Chianti, it is also the main grape in Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and reaches the height of its power and intensity in the complex, long-lived Brunello di Montalcino. Somm Secret—Sangiovese doubles under the alias, Nielluccio, on the French island of Corsica where it produces distinctly floral and refreshing reds and rosés.
One of the first wine regions anywhere to be officially recognized and delimited, Chianti Classico is today what was originally defined simply as Chianti. Already identified by the early 18th century as a superior zone, the official name of Chianti was proclaimed upon the area surrounding the townships of Castellina, Radda and Gaiole, just north of Siena, by Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany in an official decree in 1716.
However, by the 1930s the Italian government had appended this historic zone with additonal land in order to capitalize on the Chianti name. It wasn’t until 1996 that Chianti Classico became autonomous once again when the government granted a separate DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) to its borders. Ever since, Chianti Classico considers itself no longer a subzone of Chianti.
Many Classicos are today made of 100% Sangiovese but can include up to 20% of other approved varieties grown within the Classico borders. The best Classicos will have a bright acidity, supple tannins and be full-bodied with plenty of ripe fruit (plums, black cherry, blackberry). Also common among the best Classicos are expressive notes of cedar, dried herbs, fennel, balsamic or tobacco.