Winemaker Notes
Gallule – the ancient name of the property – is also the label of Gagliole's Chianti Classico Gran Selezione. This wine is made exclusively from Sangiovese grapes grown in centuries-old terraced vineyards on the Antico Podere Gagliole. These landmark protected terraces were already famed for their grapes in medieval times.
This is a wine of great harmony and remarkable depth, rich and complex, and with a lovely garnet hue – qualities that only very old Sangiovese vines can produce.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The organic Gagliole 2019 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Gallule comes from a vineyard site in Castellina in Chianti with 20- to 50-year-old vines. Only 2,438 bottles were made. The Gallule shows additional textural heft and fruit weight, and structure too, with black fruit tones of plum and blackberry. Despite its bigger overall dimensions, there is a graceful side to the wine with rose, lilac and sweet potting soil. Ultimately, this vintage will be remembered for its concentration and power.
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James Suckling
Very fine tannins frame this energetic and bright Chianti Classico, with red fruit, such as cherries. It’s medium-bodied with bright acidity and a crunchy finish. Postmodern Gran Selezione. Drink or hold.
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Vinous
The 2019 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Gallule is 100% Sangiovese from terraced vineyards on the original estate in Castellina. Bright and punchy, with lively acids, the 2019 is so expressive today. Even so, it needs a few years in bottle to be at its best. The purity of the fruit is striking. Red/purplish fruit, spice, mint and blood orange are beautifully delineated. The 2019 spent 12 months in French oak, 20% new, then another 12 months in 12HL casks. It's the first year in which casks have been introduced. Larger format oak seems to add delineation and freshness. There is so much to admire here.
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Wine Spectator
Plum, cherry, iron and tobacco flavors are wrapped in an embrace of vanilla and toasty oak in this red. Fluid, with a fresh feel and a line of refined tannins on the extended finish. Drink now through 2040.
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.