Winemaker Notes
This true classic is the first wine bottled at Badia a Coltibuono in modern times, beginning in the 1950s. It represents the estate's history and a significant part of the history of Chianti. Like the annata (the non-riserva version), this wine uses a traditional blend of Sangiovese and complementary varieties. But to ensure that only the very best is bottled as Riserva, at each step in its production the utmost care is taken to achieve excellence, beginning with a careful choice of the best grapes in the best vineyards, manual sorting at the winery, long maceration on the skins, and a second selection of only the best lots after the first year of cask aging. The resulting wine is complex, deep, nuanced, and extremely long lived. It transcends the freshness and complexity of the annata, showing how power and elegance can live together and develop for decades.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Showing beautiful results in an excellent vintage, the 2016 Chianti Classico Riserva is a graceful and elegantly tempered red wine. It makes good on all the basic promises of traditional Sangiovese: the complexity and elegance of the grape and that fresh acidity. It opens to a mid-weight style, making this a perfect wine for roast chicken and roast potatoes. Pretty mineral notes appear on the close, and the tannin is beautifully integrated.
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Wine & Spirits
Lively acidity and fi ne-grained tannins give a seamless structure to this wine’s high-toned red berry fl avors. The blend (sangiovese with ten percent of colorino, canaiolo and ciliegiolo) refl ects this estate’s emphasis on native Tuscan varieties, and vines of up to 40 years of age impart balance and concentration. A wine of classic elegance and restraint, it has the structure and freshness to improve over the next decade. Best Buy
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James Suckling
This is firmly placed in red-fruit territory with frozen strawberries, dried red cherries and fresh herbs. Round and juicy on the medium-to full-bodied palate and succulent on the finish.
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Tasting Panel
Aromas of earth and spice; smooth, rich, and mellow with complexity and finesse; long and elegant.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The same blend, but aged 24 months in French and Austrian casks, the smaller production 2016 Chianti Classico Riserva offers a ruby/plum color as well as lots of baked cherry and redcurrant fruit interwoven with spice box, licorice, and sandalwood nuances. Medium-bodied, nicely concentrated, and balanced on the palate, it has more concentration as well as length and should benefit from a year or three of bottle age. It should keep for over a decade.
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.