Chianti Archives

Wine bars and restaurants and Wine of the Week

Classic classico

Published 4. August 2023 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

I have been a couple of days in Grimstad, Norway, the beautiful seaside town of my childhood. The most inspiring restaurant these days is Smag & Behag. They have also opened another restaurant in neighbouring Kristiansand. But this is the original. The wine list is not very extensive, but they have a magnificent underground cellar, high ambitions – and the selection is well-crafted and consists of organic and natural wines of good quality.

Hans Petter Klemmetsen, founder and chef
(Credit: Smag & Behag)

For a four course meal I selected four wines together with the waiters. The three first wines -young and beautiful- were Brocard‘s saline Chablis Sainte Marie 2022, Domaine de Nozay‘s flinty Sancerre 2022 and Olivier Merlin‘s raspberry-scented Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2021. Instead of going for a dessert with a sweet wine I chose a selection of cheeses and this week’s wine, a classic style Chianti

Castell’in Villa is located in the south of Chianti Classico, just outside the village of Castelnuovo Berardenga east of Siena in Tuscany. The farm is run by the Greek-born Princess Coralia Pignatelli della Leonessa, who lives in a medieval tower on the property. Out of a total of 300 hectares, 54 ha are vineyards that are all grown organically.

The sangiovese grapes are grown in old river deposits with pebbles and sand, in a vineyard planted in the 1960’s. The grapes were picked by hand and spontaneously fermented, before 3 weeks’ skin maceration. The wine is aged in large oak barrels. Unclarified and unfiltered, and low sulfur (<40 mg/l).

Chianti Classico 2018 (Castell’in Villa)

Dark cherry red, with a beginning hint of brown. Aroma of red berries, herbs, leather, mushrooms. Firm and fine-grained tannins, good acidity, notes of tea and plums, with a decent concentration and length.

Price: Medium

Caparsa’s Chianti Classico

Published 12. May 2023 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Caparsa is run by Paolo Cianferoni and his family since 1982. Paolo started in 1999 a renovation process. The estate now covers 11 hectares of vineyards in Radda in Chianti, all certified organic and worked biodynamically.

Paolo believes in acidity as a key factor for quality and the wine’s ability to age. In his interpretation of tradition, wine is complementary to food. To achieve the best balance he is a strong believer of cement vats, to avoid oakiness in the wine.

According to Paolo’s philosophy, healthiness means quality. “It’s the territory that gives originality to all [our] products”, he says, “flora, fauna, insects, fungal, microorganisms, soils, weather conditions, fields exposure, together with the workers and [ourselves]’, all of this make the wine unique”.

Chianti Classico was first bottled in the 2016 vintage. It is made from 100% sangiovese of 60 year old vines. The grapes are spontaneously fermented. The wine spent two years in cement and has been just lightly filtered.

Chianti Classico 2019 (Caparsa)

Ruby red. Red fruits (cherry), wild berries, autumn leaves and earth. Bold and textured (a slight dryness from the clay), medium-bodied, layered, good acidity, quite long.

Price: Medium

Best cellared a few years or paired with roasts and other tasty meat (and rich sauces)

Holy wine for the holiday season

Published 22. December 2017 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

When the halls are decked, and the ding dong goes merrily on high, a vin santo can be a perfect wine to the seasons sweets, not least Italian delights such as panettone and biscotti.

As many of our readers would know, vin santo (meaning “holy wine”) is a type of straw wine, as the grapes are typically dried on straw mats, as the story goes, untill Easter. The sweetness can vary a lot, but it’s almost always quite sweet or very sweet.

Badia a Coltibuono (meaning “abbey of the good harvest”) has been a leading Chianti producer for long, with origins back to the 11th century, when the Vallombrosan monks planted the first vineyards in the area. It was finally acquired by the present family in 1846, and now it’s run by Piero Stucchi-Prinetti and his children.

They also make a riserva “occhio di pernice” (‘partridge’s eye’), the rosé version, from typical red chianti grapes. This vin santo is made by the traditional white varieties trebbiano and malvasia, all -both red and white- organically farmed.

The grapes are hand-picked, then dried in well-ventilated rooms, before fermentation is carried out with the help of native yeasts. Ageing is then done for 6 years in big casks and barriques.

Vin Santo 2009 (Badia a Coltibuono)

Golden amber colour. Aroma with figs, roasted nuts, figs and a touch of honey. In the mouth it’s opulent, but not as sweet as many others. It’s balanced by a very good acidity, and the finish is long.

Price: Medium

Tag: Chianti

Classic classico

Caparsa’s Chianti Classico

Holy wine for the holiday season