The 2021 Chianti Classico Riserva Marchese Antinori is particularly strong this year. Red cherry, plum, blood orange and pomegranate infuse the 2021 with notable depth. French oak is better integrated than in the past. There's less extraction today and quite a bit more finesse. This is a terrific showing from Antinori. Drink 2024-2033.
Impressive cherry and berry fruit with hints of cedar and dried flowers. It’s medium-bodied, firm and bright with a long, nicely tannined finish. This can age, but I like the tension and drive to this now. Baby Tignanello. Sangiovese with 10% cabernet. Drink or hold.
This is one of the big surprises of this tasting and ultimately represents one of the best buys in the entire extended Marchesi Antinori portfolio. The 2021 Chianti Classico Riserva Tenuta Tignanello Marchese Antinori shares the DNA of Tignanello. It is Sangiovese kissed with small parts of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Of course, the wine is more accessible and open compared to Tignanello, and spiritually, this wine is a Chianti Classico. By that I mean that the elegant minerality of these soils and the sunny flavors of its environs are the determining characteristics. You get wildflower, iris, tart fruit and plum. The wine's enhanced mineral character, with dusty white rock, is what adds lasting complexity and depth. 2024 - 2033
Among this estate's 130 hectares of vines in San Casciano Val di Pesa are the Tignanello and Solaia vineyards. This Riserva is fermented in stainless steel, undergoing a spontaneous malolactic fermentation and ageing in French and Hungarian oak barriques for 12 months before bottling. An old vintage, 2010, impressed us all in 2023 by topping the leaderboard at our ‘Ageing Chianti Classico’ panel tasting, and this 2021 equally has plenty of potential. It oozes with menthol, fresh hedgerow berries and some baked currants. There's plenty of fruit intensity, backed by well integrated wood structure, and it keeps quite a vertical profile in the mouth which helps to belie its density. Powdery tannins coat the cheeks, balanced by fresh acidity, while the inherent juiciness of the fruit waits to be unlocked with time. Drink 2025-2036.
Fairly deep and purple in colour for a Riserva, Antinori's Tignanello-vineyard-based Chianti has a succulent nose of sweet cherries and roasted plums, spice box and a touch of tobacco. The palate keeps Sangiovese at heart, with lightly sandy tannins and bright acids, but you feel the weight, textural refinement and ripeness that comes from the producer's experience and philosophy. Slick berry fruit drives the palate, its sweet edge bolstered by hints of smoking wood. The tannins too have a sheen, making this a glossy Chianti. Touches of more savoury dried fruit, leather and tobacco linger on the finish, though this is a pleasure-driven wine with so much fruit on show.
