Winemaker Notes
Castello di Meleto Chianti Classico Riserva offers ripe fruit, aromatic herbs and spicy and peppery notes. Full, complex and persistent mouthfeel with soft tannins.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Smoke and forest fruit with a hint of mint. Extracted and big but youthful. Plummy, with ripe red fruits and some savoury notes, spice, smoke and a hint of fennel. Concentrated, with great acidity.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Chianti Classico Riserva is a medium ruby red color and is ripe and expressive with notes of candied cherries, sweet herbs, and crushed flowers. I love the refreshing quality this wine retains for this vintage. With juicy fruit up front, it has a refreshing lift all the way through, with ripe tannins and a great mineral-toned, clean finish. It offers a touch of warming spice on the finish, with a toasted bit of incense, and is very well done. Drink 2024-2034.
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James Suckling
Notes of ripe berries, plum skins, ground spices and moist earth, following through to a medium body with ripe and supple tannins and vivid fruit character. Crunchy finish.
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Vinous
The 2020 Chianti Classico Riserva is complex and beguiling right out of the gate. Black cherry, menthol, new leather, licorice, mocha, lavender and spice are some of the many nuances that flesh out with a bit of air. There's plenty to admire in this resonant, layered Riserva from Meleto.
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Wine Enthusiast
A primarily sanguine and umami nose is lifted by bitter citrus and sweet, tart wild cherry. Those fruity notes star on the palate, before a herbal, minty finish that is accentuated by sleek acid.
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.