2013 Dievole Chianti Classico Riserva Novecento 750 ml

Europe’s Meltdown … 93pt Chianti Classico Riserva “On SALE?”

Europe’s meltdown has had profound effects on the economic future of a number of excellent European growing regions. While uber-wealthy collectors in China and Silicon Valley push top-vintage Burgundy and Bordeaux prices into the stratosphere, lesser appellations in the southern Rhône, and now even the fabulously complex, wild-berry Sangioveses of Chianti Classico, are taking it on the chin.

As you develop your buying strategy for the 2016 calendar year, consider that some of Tuscany’s most revered estates have been obliged to lower prices to cope with the economic storm. As Parker’s Wine Advocate so emphatically pointed out, few new releases are more compelling than Dievole’s spectacular 2013 Chianti Classico Riserva Novecento.

When Sangiovese hits on all cylinders, the top Riservas of Chianti Classico are absolutely intoxicating, combining wild-berry concentration, mineral complexity, and chiseled structure.  Unfortunately, even for the Tuscan elite, Sangiovese is also notoriously temperamental, with berries on the same cluster often maturing irregularly.

The 2013 growing season offered Dievole a near-perfect script.  The beauty of the vintage — and its wines — lies in the cool temperatures, the resulting extended growing season, and the unusually dramatic summertime diurnal temperature shift.  Mild days and cool nights allowed growers to harvest at their leisure, row-by-row, with the coolest parcels at Dievole not coming in until the second week of October.  When the call to pick was made, sparse clusters were strewn with berries no larger than the tip of your little finger.  The Sangiovese was absolutely LOADED with natural sugar, even as acids remained quite firm.  

We LOVED this wine at VinItaly and, like Parker’s Wine Advocate, consider it to be one of the standouts — at any price — of this one-of-a-kind vintage.  Bright ruby-red.  Mouthwatering aromas of crushed red fruits, black cherry, pine needles, smoke, and sweet spice. Big, broad, and large-scaled on the attack, darkly concentrated, chewy in texture, and almost brooding, with a sweet, powerhouse core of red fruit and dark cherry preserves, finishing with superb tension and fine tannic cut.  Drink now-2025. 

$50 on release.  As good as Chianti Classico Riserva ever gets at $28 this afternoon — largely thanks to a European economy gone awry.  Shipping included on 4.