Winemaker Notes
Blend: 90% Sangiovese, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Tantalizing aromas and flavors of black cherry and black currant are shaded by toasty, spicy oak in this harmonious yet well-structured red. This is fluid, packed with mouthcoating tannins, energetic and long. Best from 2020 through 2036.
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Wine & Spirits
Notes of tobacco and mint accent this wine’s flavors of red berry and apple skin. Charry Bourbon-barrel tones and earthy notes emerge as the wine sits in the glass, but the saturating red fruit persists through the balanced, lifted finish.
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Decanter
As of the 2011 vintage, the grapes for this wine come exclusively from Antinori's Tignanello vineyard in San Casciano in Val di Pesa. Similar to its big brother, Sangiovese is rounded out with Cabernet Sauvignon (plus Merlot) and ageing is in a combination of small French and Hungarian oak barrels. It's on the dark end of the fruit spectrum, revealing brambly blackberry flavours, though polished leather, tobacco and wood spice add dimension. While it is overall polished, the tannins have a stern edge.
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.