Graduated price

Anyone who thinks of Chianti as the classic wine in a straw basket is not historically wrong – but is mistaken when it comes to the reality of one of Italy’s most diverse wine appellations. Chianti DOCG now covers a vast area in Tuscany, stretching from Florence to Siena and comprising seven sub-zones: Colli Senesi, Colli Fiorentini, Rufina, Montalbano, Montespertoli, Colli Aretini – and at its heart, Chianti Classico, which has long held its own DOCG status. What remains is a designation with a vast geographical scope, reflecting the Tuscan hinterland – and where, if one is serious about it, one can produce fascinatingly authentic wines, even without Fiasco Classico these days.

Altesino has always been a pioneer in Montalcino. The house was the first to introduce cru wines and the first to introduce barrique ageing for IGT wines – and proved that Montalcino can do more than textbook Brunello. The Rosso di Altesino is the opposite of textbook: not a DOC, not a DOCG – a Toscana IGT that nevertheless shows what Altesino is all about. 80% Sangiovese, supplemented by Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, harvested by hand on the eastern hills of Montalcino, fermented in stainless steel, matured for six to eight months.

As early as 1928, Marchese Niccolò Antinori created a Chianti Classico that was to mature and improve – a wine for embassies, royalty and the world's great hotels. Almost a century later, Villa Antinori Riserva carries on this legacy, reinterpreted in the spectacular Antinori nel Chianti Classico winery: delicate, decisive, elegant. The grapes grow where Tuscan wine history is written – on the historic vineyards of Tenuta Tignanello and Badia a Passignano, right in the heart of Chianti Classico.

Every year, La Crena is one of the best and most refined Barbera wines that Piedmont produces. The vines in the Vigna del Nove parcel date back to the 1930s. This vintage will also need many years to develop its full expressiveness, but that's the way it is and we love this crazy development potential so much. La Crena is creamy and rich in the glass, dense, very concentrated with an abundance of layers of fruit that only develop fully with further years of ageing and make for an energetic, exciting wine. SUPERIORE.DE