We’re five days away from the Autumn Equinox, when our thoughts turn to chillier days and nights, sweaters and flannels, leaves changing color and drifting in swirls to the ground, wood fires dancing on hearths — and the prospect of heartier fare braising in ovens. Of course, there’s the impediment of climate change, so temperatures may not be inducive to our ideals of a cooler Autumn, but we can pretend, can’t we?
Anyway, our Wine of the Day is the San Jacopo da Vicchiomaggio Chianti Classico 2020, Toscana, a potion ideally suited to the hearty food we envision on the season’s bountiful tables — braised lamb or veal shanks or short ribs, beef stew, pork tenderloin marinated in maple syrup and cloves, full-flavored pasta dishes and roasted game birds. It’s a “modern” Chianti Classico in that it’s made from 100% sangiovese grapes, so not a blend, but “classical” in that it’s not aged in small French oak barriques, spending, more traditionally, eight months in oak barrels ranging from 25 to 50 hectoliters, that’s 660.4 to 1,320.8 gallons. A barrique holds about 59 gallons.
The color is a radiant ruby-magenta hue that shades to a transparent rim; scents of red and black cherries are wreathed with notes of orange rind, oolong tea, dusty graphite and loamy forest floor; lip-smacking acidity carries the wine across the palate in a vibrant flow of sour cherries, melon and blueberries, with increasing hints of dried baking spice and herbal elements, all bolstered by dry, velvety tannins. 13.5% alcohol. Drinking perfectly now but could age through 2028 to ‘30. Excellent. About $22, representing Good Value.
Imported by F.X. Magner Selections, Shrewsbury, Mass. A sample from the local distributor. Image from ratcliffe-co.com.
Chianti gets no respect.
That’s sad, because good ones can be really good. I found one at a local store a while back. It was an Antinori Reserve. It had been there forever. Because it was nearly ten years old, by vintage, if I recall correctly, when I bought it. It had dust all over it. It was fantastic. The store didn’t know what they had.