Winemaker Notes
This is a sensual wine with notes of cherry fruit, tobacco, leather and hints of licorice and spice. The elegant tannins balance nicely with the fruit, all underlined by a fabulous stratum of acidity, making this a complex wine with incontestable structure and power. A long and satisfying finish confirms this Sangiovese is true to its terroir.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Showing great warm-vintage intensity and focus, the Tolaini 2020 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Vigna Montebello Sette represents a deep dive into Sangiovese. This elegant expression of the grape shows a bold fruit profile with spot-on ripeness and bold cherry. It follows through with a mildly creamy texture. More depth is provided thanks to delicate mineral shadings and lightly toasted spice. These are balanced and elegant results.
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Decanter
Sweet, slightly oxidised aromas of prunes, Morello cherries, mushrooms and salted chocolate. Chewy, mouthcoating tannins and crisp acidity. Big, showy and rich, with vanilla, raspberries and toasty oak. Well framed, with a long, balanced finish.
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James Suckling
A juicy and tense red with fresh red and dark berry character and hints of dried orange peel and licorice. Medium-bodied, firm and focused, with chalky tannins and bright acidity. Balanced and nicely formed.
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Vinous
The 2020 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Vigna Montebello Sette is gorgeous. Sweet pipe tobacco, incense, leather, spice and dried flowers give this deceptively mid-weight Gran Selezione tons of aromatic presence. Time in the glass is so beneficial in bringing out layers of textural resonance.
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Wine Spectator
Resounding with energy, this red offers flavors of cherry, raspberry, iron, tobacco and black pepper. Remains long and balanced in the end, with a line of dusty tannins girding the finish. Best from 2026 through 2042.
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Wine Enthusiast
The nose is sweet and earthy, with aromas of vanilla, cherry and orange peel, but also topsoil and crushed rocks. The palate is a fruit basket of strawberries, raspberries and more cherries, along with a dusting of orange zest. Acid buzzes around smooth yet dense tannins.
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.