Winemaker Notes
Crafted to capture the fruit flavors and bouquet of Chianti, this wine shows great balance and drinkability with a lively acidity to pair with a wide range of foods. Isole e Olena's goal is to produce an outstanding Chianti Classico which expresses the site and our traditional varieties, Sangiovese and Canaiolo.
Blend: 85% Sangiovese, 15% Canaiolo
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Super-spicy Chianti fully focused on licorice root, restrained black cherries, fresh violets and meaty notes. It seems to be a serious effort, with graphite flavors allied to firm, chalky and chewy tannins, crisp acidity and a super-polished finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Isole e Olena 2021 Chianti Classico is a softly textured and charming wine that is impeccably buttoned up and balanced. It offers terrific value at this price point. This wine is packed with bright fruit, wild cherry and blue flower. It ends with a blast of refreshing acidity that is consistent with Sangiovese.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
As a young wine professional, I tasted and drank Chianti Classicos because they were readily available, but they were just another wine on a shelf or wine list. Today, these wines remain accessible, but their quality has significantly improved. The 2021 Isole e Olena Chianti Classico is one of the best in this all-important category. This wine reveals savory spices, authentic black olives, and early summer blackberries. It should be ideal with Vietnamese pork kebabs. (Tasted: May 30, 2025, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Spectator
Complex, balanced and supple in texture, this red boasts cherry, strawberry, rose hip, iron and almond aromas and flavors. Refined, with vibrant acidity driving the mouthwatering finish. Sangiovese and Canaiolo. Drink now through 2032
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.