#7 in Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Most Exciting Wines of 2023!

Every year Wine Spectator publishes their Top 100 Most Exciting Wines of the Year, and this year’s number 7 is a truly brilliant wine that offers phenomenal value. Always rich and more like a Brunello than a Chianti, this is a wine that punches well above its weight and in 2020 it has truly excelled. Great value and well deserving of its ranking.

Antinori’s Chianti Classico Riserva is consistently outstanding, and classic in 2020. The grape source is the iconic Tenuta Tignanello, the source of Antinori’s game-changing super Tuscans Tignanello and Solaia. CEO Renzo Cotarella oversees the winemaking. His team blends 90 percent Sangiovese with Merlot and Cabernet Franc after fermenting and malolactic conversion in open-topped, conical stainless steel tanks; aging takes place in 225-liter French oak barriques for 14 months. The wine’s iron, olive and tobacco notes deliver that Tuscan feel, and the riserva designation, for just a few dollars more, ensures greater depth, structure and longevity than the annata.