Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Made with organically grown grapes, this opens with enticing aromas of ripe red berry, dried aromatic herb and a whiff new leather. A blend of 90% Sangiovese with Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo and Colorino making up the rest, it’s smooth and savory, delivering mature Marasca cherry, licorice and a hint of tobacco set against firm fine-grained tannins. Drink now through 2027. Dalla Terra Winery Direct.
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Decanter
Coltibuono's vineyards are in the southern reaches of the Gaiole commune, planted with a massal selection from the estate's oldest vines. Only indigenous grapes - Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo and Colorino - are blended with Sangiovese in this traditionally crafted Riserva. It's an elegant, unpretentious wine made with a gentle touch. The tannins are finely sculpted around tangy red currant and pomegranate, with accents of orange pekoe tea-leaf, garden herbs and forest floor throughout. This is light on its feet, mellow and accessible now.
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Wine Spectator
Pure and energizing, with berry, cherry, iron and tobacco aromas and flavors allied to a racy profile. Tense and resonant on the lingering finish, showing fine balance and persistence.
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Wine & Spirits
Lifted floral scents lead into ripe cherry flavors that feel lively and high-toned for this warm vintage. Notes of orange peel and tarragon add to the brightness. It’s a charming and vivacious riserva, and a fresh expression of the vintage.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chianti Classico Riserva is a carefully measured wine that offers intensity versus grace and concentration versus finesse. This warm vintage brings forward dark fruit aromas with ripe cherry and blackberry. You also get the fresh acidity and crispness that is so specific to Gaiole in Chianti. The finish is velvety and mildly textured, and you do get that characteristic blast of fresh acidity on the finish. This wine is a blend of 90% Sangiovese with 10% total of Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo and Colorino. Some 40,000 bottles were made.
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.