Winemaker Notes
Pair this wine with Korean short ribs, ragù sauces, gnocchi with roasted rabbit, and beef negimaki.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas and flavors of plums, berries and orange peel. Full body, soft tannins and a fresh finish. Some balsamico too. Delicious red. Drink now.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Chianti Classico Riserva Berardo is a beautiful and complete expression of 100% Sangiovese with great textural richness and a big sense of power at the back. The wine starts off in a slow and rather understated manner, but it finds its momentum quickly and becomes very generous along the way. This Riserva needs to flesh out further. Give it a few more years of bottle aging.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of chopped mint, underbrush, spiced berry, toast and a whiff of iris take shape on this savory, approachable wine. Made entirely with Sangiovese, the ripe round palate offers dried cherry, raspberry, truffle and licorice framed in supple tannins. It finishes on a savory, almost salty note. Drink through 2020.
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Wine Spectator
Dense, evoking cherry, plum, leather, tobacco and earth flavors, backed by a line of firm tannins. Balanced in a lean, wiry manner, showing fine potential. Drink now through 2023.
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.