Winemaker Notes
Estate-grown, hand-harvested grapes are fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks with approximately 15 days maceration. During fermentation, delestage and pumping-over takes place twice a day. After the malolactic fermentation, the wine is racked into barrels and 4,000 liter casks where it matures for about one year.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
It is strange to see a bright red wine, and to smell ripe pinky-yellow peach. But I am told that peach is not such an unusual note for the Sangiovese from this hillcrest, along which the great estates Isole e Olena, Paneretta and Monsanto sit, looking out towards the Tyrrhenian sea. Winemaker Paolo de Marchi is a great fan of the native Canaiolo Nero and blends in 15%, contributing a black/violet colour, breadth, softness and spice to balance the austerity of Sangiovese. A consistently excellent wine. Drinking Window 2021 - 2030
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James Suckling
A very pretty 2017 Chianti Classico with a beautiful core of ripe fruit and layers of round, lightly chewy tannins. Dark cherries, walnuts and chocolate.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
The 2017 Isole e Olena Chianti Classico is fresh, bright, and pleasing, with a smooth underbelly. This wine exhibits lovely ripe red and black fruit in its aromas and flavors. Enjoy it with seared filet mignon over mushroom risotto. (Tasted: July 6, 2020, 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.