Winemaker Notes
#12 Wine Enthusiast Top 100 Cellar Selections of 2019
Selvapiana’s flagship wine, Francesco Giuntini created this wine destined for long aging, to best represent the character and quality of Rufina’s and Selvapiana’s Sangiovese.
Pair with duck, lamb, pork, wildboard.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Combining an irresistible pairing of earthy elegance and ageworthy structure, this fragrant, focused red boasts heady scents of smoke, wild berry, pipe tobacco, sunbaked earth and rose petal. The taut linear palate shows lovely tension, delivering juicy Morello cherry, crushed raspberry, baking spice and licorice framed in youthfully firm but refined tannins. Fresh acidity lends balance and energy. Drink 2022–2035.
Cellar Selection -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Selvapiana 2015 Chianti Rufina Riserva Vigneto Bucerchiale is a generous and exuberant expression of Sangiovese that remains ever-faithful to its traditional and territory-driven roots. This wine speaks with a Tuscan tongue, giving voice to wild berry, earthy truffle and aromas of Mediterranean herb. The finish is softly fruity with subtle structure (which is firm and binding nonetheless) and fresh acidity.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2015 Chianti Rufina Riserva Bucerchiale offers more complexity, with beautiful spiced cherry and dark fruits as well as notes of cedary herbs and dried earth. Balanced, medium-bodied, and elegant on the palate, it's beautifully done.
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Wine & Spirits
After a few hours open, this wine’s notes of green herbs and sappy twigs evolve toward woodsy mushroom, adding depth to the ripe berry flavors. Tightly wound, it will benefit from decanting, or several years in the cellar.
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.
Famous for its food-friendly, approachable red wines and their storied history, Chianti is perhaps the best-known wine region of Italy. This appellation within Tuscany has it all: sweeping views of rolling hills, endless vineyards, the warm Mediterranean sun, hearty cuisine and a rich artistic heritage. Chianti includes seven subzones: Chianti Colli Fiorentini, Rufina, Montalbano, Colli Senesi, Colline Pisane, Colli Aretini and Montespertoli, with area beyond whose wines can be labeled simply as Chianti.
However the best quality comes from Chianti Classico, in the heart of the Chianti zone, which is no longer a subzone of the region at all but has been recognized on its own since 1996. The Classico region today is delimited by the confines of the original Chianti zone protected since the 1700s.
Chianti wines are made primarily of Sangiovese, with other varieties comprising up to 25-30% of the blend. Generally, local varieties are used, including Canaiolo, Colorino and Mammolo, but international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah are allowed as long as they are grown within the same zone.
Basic, value-driven Chianti wine is simple and fruit-forward and makes a great companion to any casual dinner. At its apex, Chianti is full bodied but with good acidity, firm tannins, and notes of tart red fruit, dried herbs, fennel, balsamic and tobacco. Chianti Riserva, typically the top bottling of a producer, can benefit handsomely from a decade or two of cellaring.