Winemaker Notes
The Gran Selezione Villa Rosa perfectly embodies and interprets the characteristics of its exceptional vintage, offering a ripeness, tannic texture and progression granted only by the best years. The color is vivid and rarefied, anticipating a bouquet that reveals to be extremely elegant, characterized by floral notes that overlap and intertwine with a delicate fruitiness and slight hints of spiciness.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A dense, layered red with plums, a touch of dark chocolate, as well as walnut character. Medium to full body. Velvety tannins. Flavorful finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Villa Rosa is a beautiful manor house that sits among the softly rolling hills, all planted in vines, in the lower and most luminous part of Castellina in Chianti. The Famiglia Cecchi 2016 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Villa Rosa is a delicate and silky expression that is driven forward with rose, tobacco and dusty earth or crushed limestone. Those floral elements distinguish the wine, showing rose hip, dried lavender or violets. Enjoy this with Tuscan chicken-liver pâté crostini.
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Wine Spectator
A burr of tannins surrounds the core of black cherry and blackberry fruit in this Chianti Classico, with earth and mineral accents chiming in. Shows a rustic side for the vintage, yet the fruit is ripe and stands up to the structure as this finds equilibrium in the end. Best from 2021 through 2036.
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Decanter
Spicy nose with a cinnamon and Indian spices character. Soft and juicy palate, round tannins and medium length. Elegant, mineral finish.
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.