Val delle Corti Riserva, when old vineyard makes great wine

Don’t make fun of yourself. Vintages are not all the same, and more a wine has great quality (as well as being far from certain contaminating forms) more the final result is substantially affected by this variable.

Some give life to full-bodied and structured wines, others to thinner and elegant wines, others represent a natural middle way, in which balance and definition are the traits that most characterize them.

But also in the substantial diversity, it is not however easy to identify for sure a hierarchical scale between them, also because the variable "personal taste" of the wines that result from this affects not a little in the judgment.

About one thing, however, I don’t think there are great discussions, namely that 2014 was in Italy - excluding islands - the worst harvest of the last ten/fifteen years.

Featured by a rainy summer like never before seen in recent times, with widespread problems of both ripeness and health of the grapes, it has produced almost everywhere discharged and slender wines, with different gears less than those of almost all other vintages.

Tuscany - the geographical heart of Italy’s wine - certainly did not escape the "curse" of 2014, and personally I found very few labels of interest, ending with buying even less.

Luckily every rule - even the most unwavering - always has its exceptions, and among the ones I remember with the greatest pleasure is the tasting of the Chianti Classico Riserva of the Val delle Corti winery.

A splendid Sangiovese from Radda in Chianti, which impressed me during the preview tasting, which I had the good fortune to reopen directly on the farm and which further convinced me the other night, after letting it rest in my cellar for three years.

A bottle still in great shape, a Riserva in which it’s likely that, in addition to the right choices made by the producer, it was the old vineyards from which the grapes are taken, capable - almost as if by magic - of giving a wine with a richness, a texture and a complexity very close to that of the best vintages.

Turning a potential ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.

 

 

Chianti Classico Riserva 2014 - Val delle Corti

Personal rating: 91/100

Grapes: 100% Sangiovese

Aging: 24 months in tonneaux and barriques (used)

Price range: 25-30 €

 

TASTING

👀 Ruby / garnet, medium intense and dense, good clarity

👃Clean, of good finesse and complexity even if not very intense. Ripe cherry, red fruits, pepper, tobacco, a slight balsamic nuance to complete the profile.

👄Gorgeous. Full-bodied and rich both in relation to appellation and vintage. Acidity and flavor typical of Radda in Chianti wines, but at the same time well balanced by the alcoholic component and by a delineated and ripe fruit. Lively tannin but integrated and with a fine grain. Persistence of surprising length, final on spicy and leathery notes, as well as with a slightly off-scale alcoholic return.