A poll taken a few years back asked Europeans to name the ten things they most associated with Italy: Chianti, the famous wine f

Chianti Classicos are certainly the most famous, and potentially the richest and most profound of all Chianti, though this is true only of the Riservas, for Chianti in general is meant to be a refreshing, everyday table wine that thanks to high acidity, pretty fruit aromas and flavours and light alcohol levels goes marvellously well with many different types of food. Typical aromas and flavours of Chianti are violets, sour red cherries, red currants, black tea leaves and liquorice. As Chianti ages, it develops strong underbrush and woodsy elements that add great finesse to the overall sensory experience. The Chiantis from the Rufina area are the most different of all, as this is the coolest part of all of the Chianti subzones, and the wines made there have the highest acidities and the most elegance of all. They are also the Chiantis with the longest aging potential: in fact, it is not rare for a Rufina to last 40 or fifty years in the bottle! Of the other subzones, the best is probably Chianti Colli Fiorentini, wines made by a dedicated group of producers who believe in the quality of their terroir and their wines, the quality level of which is generally much higher than the average of other Chiantis. On the other hand, the other Chianti subzones are often disappointing, especially Chianti Colli Senesi, that is located next to Montalcino, and therefore is blessed with a fantastic terroir, but the wines made there rarely if ever amount to anything special. Hopefully this will change over time.

Brunello di Montalcino is the exact opposite of Chianti, in that it’s not meant to be a fresh wine to be drunk young, but rather to be a very full bodied wine that rivals the world’s best and is capable of aging forever. Indeed, Biond-Santi, one of the most famous producers of all (and the family that first produced a Brunello di Montalcino back in the mid 1800s) still has bottles from 1888 and 1891 in its cellars! In fact, Brunello is one of the youngest of the world’s truly great wines, as it only has about 150 years of history. In the early 1800s, Clemente Santi (the family was not yet called Biondi-Santi) realized that one of his sangiovese subvarieties was capable of giving far better wine than any other, and so he propagated it and called it sangiovese grosso or brunello, because its berries where larger than most and darker, or brownish (bruno in Italian means brown). A 100% sangiovese wine, the best examples of Brunello are richly perfumed, velvety wines that are a joy to pair with all important meat dishes and can stand up to the best from Bordeaux and Napa very easily. Since Brunello can take a while to mature and is always rather expensive, there is a lighter red wine made in Montalcino, called Rosso di Montalcino (also 100% sangiovese), which is often a baby-Brunello (made from younger Brunello vines or from vines grown in less than ideal sites) and is a far more accessible wine to drink often, and young.

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano falls somewhere in between the other two wines as it is a blend of roughly 70% sangiovese and 30% other grape varieties, such as cabernet and merlot. Vino Nobile was once a very famous wine known for particularly tough tannins and made with a special clone of sangiovese called prugnolo gentile, but unfortunately has now fallen on tougher times. The all too liberal addition of other grape varieties such as merlot and cabernet to the sangiovese in the blend and the great differences between wines made that all carry however the same name, that of Vino Nobile, is a major mess, as the wine has lost an identity that had been built over the centuries and now tastes like many other Supertuscan wines (pure sangiovese or sangiovese-cabernet-merlot-syrah blends) made everywhere else in Italy. A real shame. Just as in Montalcino, there is a lighter red wine here to try as well, called Rosso di Montepulciano, that costs less and can be drunk while the Vino Nobile from the same producer ages in the cellar. If you would like to try a Vino Nobile, there are some excellent producers to choose from: Boscarelli, Contucci and Dei produce today what are the most authentic, true-to type Vino Nobiles made. Unfortunately, the wines given the highest scores by many Italian wine guides and magazines are far from the best, but that, my friends, is a whole other story right there. Maybe next time.....

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