Castellani Chianti Classico Riserva 2017

The first wine I have had the pleasure to review for this course would be a Chianti Classico 2017 Reserve from Famiglia Castellani. This wine comes from Santa Lucia, a village in the region of Tuscany, Italy. This wine had an ABV of 13% and a price of $16. As a Chianti, it is predominantly made up of a variety of grape known as Sangiovese.

According to an employee at the wine store, this was a very good wine. It scored a 93 from renowned critic James Suckling. According to reviews from wine.com, it has orange-peel and blackberry notes, with medium-to-full body and is tangy and fruity.

The wine was ruby red in color, with a strong alcohol smell. It smelled a bit like cherry and dark fruit (perhaps blackberry?). The taste of this wine was dry and medium-bodied, leaning more towards being more full-bodied. It tasted of tart cherries and oak. It was not very sweet, but it was acidic. I would not say it was very fruity as the wine review mentions, but it is tangy.

There does not seem to be an overview of Chianti in the Wine Folly book, but on page 250 it does give some tasting notes of Chianti Classico as well as other various wines from Italy. It describes this variety as a medium red, with notes of preserved cherries, aged balsamic, espresso, and dry salami. While the only note from these I got was the cherries, I will say that this wine with a side of salami and cheese would be out of this world.

However, the chief grape variety in this type of wine is Sangiovese, and details on this variety can be found on page 162 of Wine Folly. It lists flavors and aromas of this variety as cherry, roasted tomato, sweet balsamic, oregano, and espresso. Again, I do not notice any of these notes except for the cherries.

I was recommended at the wine store to put out cheese with this wine, but I did not heed their advice. This was a mistake; the wine would have gone very well with a meal or a snack. On its own, it was not very easy to drink. I believe it is a very good wine for an Italian meal like pasta, especially if the sauce is tomato based.