Winemaker Notes
Intense ruby red with garnet reflections. An elegant, full and harmonious bouquet persistent with suggestions of vanilla and raspberry. Long and velvety, full, generous, and warm on the palate.
Perfect with roasts and game.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This powerful red is hallmarked by forthcoming aromas of black cherry, blackberry, iron, tar and tobacco. Burly tannins prowl in the background as this unfurls to a long, detailed finish. Balanced in a broad-shouldered way.
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Wine Enthusiast
Tar, stone and the umami of mushrooms, seaweed and soy sauce open the nose of this wine before juicier sour cherries and cranberries emerge. The palate has black cherries, blackberries, milk and dark chocolate, with bitter orange at the back. Well integrated with nice length.
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James Suckling
A spicy nose with cherries, dried herbs, bark, baking spices and dried earth. Medium- to full-bodied with fine, firm tannins. Structured, with a powdery texture on the center-palate and a chewy finish. Best after 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From a cooler vintage coming after the scorching hot previous year, the 2018 Chianti Classico Riserva has soft contours and lots of bright fruit with cherry, cassis and wild plum. This is a medium-weight Sangiovese with bright acidity. It ends with earthy notes of iris and blue flower.
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Decanter
Delicious oak provides the background to chocolatey overripe fruits, mint, black pepper, and a juicy-warm finish.
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.