Chianti Rufina 2017, Selvapiana,

T

Thom Blach

Location
London
With Panzanella and Spanish ham. A delicious wine the slight aristocratic reserve of which becomes the most compelling of virtues in company with the strongly flavoured but clean tasting salad; yet another wine which makes me reflect that were I to see an aged vintage advantageously priced I would leap at it but which doesn't seem worth ageing on purpose.

On reflection, there is a special pleasure in wines of which I know little.
 
Last edited:
I don't think I've ever had a Selvapiana Chianti, in fact I don't recall any other Ruffina other than Frescobaldi's, however aomewhere along the line I did manage to pick up a bottle of a 2004 Sevapiana Riserva.

EDIT: Oops, my mistake, I just realized that what I have is a Villa de Vetrice Riserva not the Selvapiana.
 
Last edited:
I would certainly be tempted to have a look at the Bucherchiale again if they were putting a sensible cork like a diam in it now. The wine is potentially brilliant, but I had several terrible experiences with great vintages being destroyed by the cheapskate corks being used.
 
Selvapiana has been in the hands of the Antinori family for a long time. It is a vast estate being on some rugged hills: 250 hecaters. It was 1 of 2 very famous farms in the area owend by the Giuntini Family (a family of bankers), the other one named Casa Vecchia ("Old House"). The current owner is Francesco Giuntini Antinori. My Grandma has been in the 30s and 40s (before meeting my Grandfather) her personal Nanny and Chief of Staff. I spent several of my summers (up until 1985) at Selvapiana as Francesco hosted us very kindly. I remember fondly when I used to ride a beautiful golden retriever named Bruschetta (fantastic name for a dog in Tuscany, IMHO). There are still some graffiti I drew when I was around 5 in the little space between the kitchen and the dining room.

The wines have been old school for a long time and I can testify how marvellous 1948 can still taste. Franco Bernabei has been consulting for quite a while. Francesco has no heirs and he donated everything to his cellar man, Federico. He also adopted him. In 1979 he was one of the first producing a single vineyard Sangiovese from the Bucerchiale vineyard. The 1988 is still superb. I have one bottle in London.

Selvapiana came to prominence in 1990 when Wine Spectactor put their wine among the top 10 of the year. With 1990 being a big and famous vintage Selvapiana attracted a lot of attention in the US market. I started tasting with a lot of attention around 1999 during my PhD in California. We have a competition with my room mate for the best wine under 10 bucks and Selvapiana swept everything else. Unfortunately releases from the 2000s have proven a little too modern, i.e. with an increasing ABV (IIRC Bucerchiale 2009 is 15% and this is Rufina one of the coldest past of Tuscany nested in the foot of the Appennine mountains) and extraction. Some other wines (Fornace) were showing new oak. As with many things Tuscany the base wine is a often a lot better than the Riservas or Grand Vin (Montalcino being the classic example where vignerons have been pushing too hard for too long).

I am glad the base wine is in top form again.

(Buy whatever Chianti 2016 you can. It is an incredible vintage. Think 1999 Red Burgundy level)
 
The very best yet. It is hard to say if Sangio needs more or less time to develop than PN. However 2016 is juicy enough to be enjoyed young. Often times Sangio is hollow and left with harsh tannins, lots of alcohol wiping away the (light) floral and fruit component.

Buy with confidence.

I wish I had a Casa Colonica in Selvapiana.
 
Thom Blach said:
Does that mean that at age 21 all but the most modest will still need years to express themselves fully??
Click to expand...
I believe so. The good vintages of my earliest Chianti purchases, Frescobaldi's Nipozzano Riservas (also from Rufina) were wonderful expressions of Sangiovese. When I first started cellaring back in the late 80s it was the 1981 and then the 1982 that were the then current vintages that I bought. Then I added the back vintages that were available in the government-run specialty store, 1961, 1962, 1970, 1974, and 1975. The 1962 was had a few years ago and it was a delight and belied its age. The last time I had the 1970 and 1975 they seemed a bit dried out and despite the fact that 1974 was not a good year in Tuscany all the bottles I opened were lovely. In fact, in the first book on Italian wine I read (Burton Anderson's I think) he thought that the 1974 Nipozzano was made without white grapes, this at a time when it was a requirement of Chianti regulations.

A week or so ago I had a bottle of 2005 Rocca della Macie (a normale, not riserva) and it was in fine shape, nowhere near tiring.
 
I'm not convinced that sangiovese from Chianti benefits from being aged more than a couple of years to round out the tannins. You lose the magnificent sangiovese fruit, and what you gain to me makes for a lesser wine. I think the 2016s perhaps need a year or two to soften while retaining the vividness of the new wine, but not more than that (although time will tell)

I'm just speaking about Chianti Classico not Montalcino, which is a different kettle of fish
 
Whilst there are certainly many CC's which are delicious and approachable young (witness the indecent speed of disappearance of the 2015 Riecine I got from TWS last year) there are absolutely plenty of them that benefit from extended ageing and whilst one man's 'improved and more nuanced and complex' is another man's 'different to how it was before and I now like it less' I have been lucky enough to enjoy a whole host of CC's with significant age that have been really stunning, some of which have 'no right' to be such as a Rocca delle macie 2001 basic last year, a badia e contibuono 1985, a riecine 1988 among many others. Vintage is certainly important as is producer of course and classico does suffer from having a huge number of frankly bog standard producers who qualify simply by being within the boundary. The consorzio have tried to ameliorate this with the introduction of Gran Selezione, but if you talk to producers like Montevertine you realise that the requirements introduced to qualify actually move the wines further away from where they should be as a true expression of the grape and the terroir. Of far more interest to my mind would be a classification based on geography and a grading of the vineyards/estates in a Bordeaux or Burgundy model which would more accurately reflect the differing styles within the region, allow for a degree of difference in overall grape blend and regulate ageing. Of course the smaller producers are in favour of this but the real powerhouses would have much less of an interest as many of their wines would be classified low down any order.

Of course we were originally talking Rufina rather than classico and there are to my mind more examples of Rufina that are younger drinkers than classico but with a couple of notable exceptions, Selvapiana being one and most especially with Bucherchiale. Sangio in hot vintages can, with age, tend towards the stewed so it's certainly not a hard and fast rule to say that it ages, certainly plenty that do not ( a castell n villa 1995 springs to mind as do, sadly a fair few 1997's that ought to have been better). As many winemakers have come to realise globally, acidity plays such an important role in making ageworthy wines that really hot vintages in Tuscany skew the balance too far away from it and result in immediately delicious drinking with little future potential.
 
I seem to recall reading something by Jancis Robinson a few years ago in which she said she preferred to drink sangiovese at no older than seven years. That’s quite hard to believe, isn’t it? For my taste, most (not all) wines made from the grape do tend to dry out by the time they’re 20 years old, though.

Edit, in the light of Chris’s post with which this crossed: two nights ago we drank Chianti Rufina Riserva 2012 by Frascole. TWS recommended drinking this by 2018. It was certainly fully mature at seven and a half years old.
 
Chris if I summarise your post you're saying 'it depends' and I agree with you. But as a general tendency good results are in my experience the exception rather than the rule. Also a question of taste

Bucherchiale has an ageing track record so probably not a fair example, ditto Pergole Torte
 
Chris Hambleton said:
Of far more interest to my mind would be a classification based on geography and a grading of the vineyards/estates in a Bordeaux or Burgundy model
Click to expand...

Did you see Walter Speller's recent grading of Chianti along the lines used in St Emilion? The three GCC As were Castell'in Villa, Montevertine and Isole & Olena.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top