Current Chianti Classicos – many of serious interest

See details of our Italian Wine Festival for other Italian tasting notes.

The following 40-odd current Chianti Classicos, mostly Riservas unless made by an estate that has a policy of putting all its best wine into the principal Chianti Classico bottling, were tasted earlier this month. They are all either 2003s and 2004s. The 2004 vintage, like 2001 and 2006, is famously good in inland Tuscany but this tasting showed just how successful 2003 was in many of these high altitude estates where Sangiovese grapes struggle to ripen in a less hot year. (One can imagine on the basis of the...