Winemaker Notes
This wine, made with Sangiovese grapes from Montornello, has an intense ruby red color with cherry, sour black cherry, and underbrush aromas. The structure is dense and fresh, with a persistent flavor that lingers. Its character can be affected by cool and rainy summers, resulting in a more complex taste.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
I like the earthy and decadent aromas of meat and berries with bitter orange undertones. Medium body with a solid core of fruit and tight velvety tannins. All here. From organically grown grapes. So delicious now. Drink or hold.
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Vinous
The 2020 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Vigne di Montornello is the more aromatic and lifted of the two Gran Seleziones. It offers up an attractive mix of ripe red cherry fruit, cedar, spice, leather, tobacco and dried flowers. This racy, up-front Gran Selezione has plenty to offer.
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Wine Enthusiast
The savory, almost exhilarating nose gleams with aromas of gun metal, smoke, leather, soil, dried cherries and cranberries. A peppery spiciness blazes on the palate, but linear tannins and acid keep the flames from leaping too high.
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Wine Spectator
Though ripe, this red seems to be maturing quickly, offering leather, earth, autumn woods and truffle aromas and flavors. Approachable now, yet the firm tannins suggest this will continue to develop. Fine length. Drink now through 2033.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Dark ruby, the 2020 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Vigne Di Montornello is slow to open in the glass and is showing more baked aromas of stewed cherries, leather, tomato leaf, and menthol. The palate is juicy and ripe up front, with its fruit turning a touch bitter on the finish as it falls off, with ripe tannins and a soft quality to the fruit. It’s best for drinking now or over the next few years, as it lacks a bit of freshness in this warm vintage.
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.