Winemaker Notes
Pure ruby-red. Fruity nose with cherry and strawberry notes. Some tertiary hints remind leather. Flavors of ripe red fruits, succulent, intriguing and long-lasting. Tannins are ripened and delicate. The aftertaste expresses a lively freshness with notes of dark red fruits, wet ground, and wood.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Fragrant and refined, this radiant wine opens with scents of violet, red berry, baking spice and a whiff of plum. The chiseled palate delivers succulent wild cherry, white pepper, cinnamon and star anise alongside firm, refined tannins. It boasts a long licorice finish while bright acidity lends balance. It's already delicious but hold for even more complexity. Drink 2020–2033.
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James Suckling
This is extremely tangy with plenty of chocolate and lemon character and hints of cedar, too. Medium body, bright acidity and chocolatey aftertaste. Very refined and well-crafted for a 2014.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione San Lorenzo flaunts its importance. It boasts confidence and an outward-looking personality that comes as a refreshing surprise. Like all Gran Selezione wines, it is released 30 months after January 1st following the harvest. That means it still has a few more months to go before it hits the market. This expression of Sangiovese shows depth and power with ripe fruit tones of cherry and forest berry. Like many of the other high profile wines I preview-tasted from the difficult 2014 vintage, I am delighted and surprised by the elegant and soft nature of the mature tannins. The wine’s finish offers bright freshness with layers of dark fruit, wet earth and forest floor.
Rating: 93+ -
Wine & Spirits
Marco Pallanti decided not to bottle his single-vineyard Vigneto Bellavista and Vigneto La Casuccia in the difficult 2014 vintage, devoting that fruit instead to this bottling of San Lorenzo. It rounds out its wild-cherry flavors with subtle notes of spice and woodsmoke from ten months in barriques (18 percent new) while brisk acidity lends freshness, emphasized by notes of orange peel and mint.
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Wine Spectator
Shows fine purity to the cherry, strawberry and leather notes, with a hint of licorice. Ripe, sweet fruit and a juicy texture collide as this plays out on the long finish. Drink now through 2025.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2014 Castello Di Ama Chianti Classico Gran Selezione San Lorenzo is a top wine as expected. TASTING NOTES: This wine is old school and Old World. Its rustic aromas and flavors of dried leaves, earth, and dust should pair beautifully with a wild blend of sun-ripened tomatoes, wild mushrooms, and pancetta. (Tasted: March 5, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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.