Winemaker Notes
Pairs well with roasts and game.
Blend: 90% Sangiovese, 10% other grape varieties
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A complex red showing aromas of raspberries, red plums, tangerines and hot stones. Medium to full body, round and velvety tannins and a bright, precise finish.
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Wine Spectator
In the austere camp, delivering plum, cherry, graphite, leather and earth notes. Vibrant, firm and long, in a traditional style. Headed in the right direction, but just needs time to get there. Best from 2021 through 2032.
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Decanter
Cigar box, spice, floral and cherry aromatics and flavors. Fresh, well made, compact and still fairly youthful with a long finish and good development potential.
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Jeb Dunnuck
A step up over the 2014, the 2015 Riserva di Famiglia offers more purity and vibrancy in its blackberry and black cherry fruits, and it's medium-bodied, has terrific spice, dried herbs, and leather nuances, ripe tannins, and a great finish. It's already delicious yet has good freshness and purity, and should easily keep for 6-7 years or more.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chianti Classico Riserva di Famiglia (90% Sangiovese with other red grapes aged in botti for 12 months), is a plump and rich red wine with lots of primary fruit intensity. This warm-vintage expression delivers thick layers of black cherry, dried blackberry, spice and cured tobacco. The tannins are soft and yielding. The ripeness is almost too much of a good thing. The wine reveals a very accessible and immediate personality. Some 60,000 bottles were made.
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.