For our tasting today here at Wine-Searcher David Allen MW, our Wine Director tries a Gran Selezione Chianti Classico – Castello di Albola’s 2016 ‘Santa Caterina’ .
Castello d’Albola is an Tuscan estate in the heart of the iconic Chianti Classico wine region. Its vineyards are dominated by Chianti’s infamous grape variety, Sangiovese, complemented by smaller vineyard plots of Cabernet Sauvignon and Canaiolo, as well as the white grape varieties of Malvasia and Trebbiano that are cultivated specifically for the estate’s Vin Santo del Chianti Classico wine.
The estate can trace its history back to the early part of the 11th Century. By the 1500s Castello d’Albola had gained a revered status among the noble families of Florence, and was passed between several of these families, who all contributed towards the establishment of viticulture on the estate. In 1940, Prince Giovanni Ginori Conti became the proprietor of Castello d’Albola, and in 1979 the estate was acquired by the Zonin family of Veneto.
Today, Castello d’Albola comprises 125 hectares (308 acres) of vineyards planted between 1150 to 1805 feet (350 to 550 meters) above sea level, in limestone and clay soils. The estate is also planted with more than 4000 olive trees from which Castello d’Albola produces its own extra virgin olive oil.
The estate’s portfolio features several Chianti Classico wines, including two Gran Selezione and one Riserva. The Cabernet Sauvignon-based Toscana IGT is hand-picked in the vineyard prior to a fermentation with indigenous yeasts. It spends 14 months aging in barrel prior to 12 months in bottle before it is released.
Castello d’Albola’s historic wine cellar in Albola was in fact built by the Pazzi and Ginori Conti families and now houses the estate’s Slavonian oak barrels and French oak barriques. The Zonin family has added to this with the construction of a new two-storey winery where the estate’s grapes are vinified, stored in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks and, in the case of the red wines, matured in oak barriques.
To find out more about this wine, its pricing and where to buy it follow this link to the Wine-Searcher website: https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/castello+di+albola+santa+caterina+grand+select+docg+chianti+cls+tuscany+italy/2016
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hello there today I’m taking a look at a wine from Tuscany I’m looking at some wines from aanti producer this is castilo De alola um and this is their Santa Catarina and this is a kti Classico Grand selexion so the the grand selexion the sort of top tier of kti classicos made from exceptional sites sometimes only released in the best vintages so looking to be the top player of quality for k now the state Castillo de Al alola located in the village of Radder sits right at the heart of the Kean Classico region so in a relatively high altitude area The Vineyards lie between 350 and 550 m above sea level and also an estate with a long history there are records of the estate dating back to the 11th century and certainly by the 1500s wine making was established here and it was a site that was owned by various of Tuscany’s noble families who built the castle there obviously so you have families such as the pazzy family and the Gori family and ownership passed between these these Noble houses right up until 1979 when Prince Giovani ginori Conti sold the estate to the zonin family zonin are a family-owned company from the Veno large wine producers there with a very good International distribution so they they bought the estate and in the succeeding 45 years have continued to invest in it to ensure that it stayed as a state-of-the-art facility so they they’ve completely rebuilt cellers and Barrel Halls there’s gleaming stainless steel fermentation equipment throughout the the estate now the estate has quite a large range of wines they have several different brands of of kti Classico they have kti resera and in fact they’ve got two grand select only classic go this particular wine comes from a single 5 hectare site it’s 100% s vas the site is at 550 m above sea level so it’s one of the higher sites so this is somewhere where the altitude can moderate the temperature it’s a relatively warm region but the fact that they’re 550 m above sea level ensures that you get cool nights so that the vines and the fruit can cool down again so the vine doesn’t get too hot so it’s it’s not respiring acidity so you can get good ripeness in the wine but still retain good freshness this is a south facing site and it has what they call gesto soils so this is a clay soil with quite a large proportion of shist Rock in it so I’m assuming that clay will be very good at retaining moisture in Seasons where there’s drought and and the shist The Rock content in the soil will be helpful in absorbing daytime heat and reflecting it back back at the plant to Aid ripening the estate in total has somewhere in the region of 125 hectares of Vines Now wine making is very traditional everything will be handpicked these are Hillside sites so that’s pretty much the norm fermentation goes ahead in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks and they they probably will use temperature both to warm the the Mast up to start fermentation fairly promptly but also to to stop it from getting too hot later on in the fermentation batting goes on for for 3 weeks so you get three weeks not just a fermentation but of the skins macerating in the juice and the wine once man alactic conversion has been completed in tank the wine is then put into Barrel now 50% of it goes into French Oak bars and 50% I’m told goes into slavonian Oak barrels now there’s not a huge difference in terms of flavor coming from slavonian Oak and French Oak because they’re both cesil Oaks they’re both both the same species of Oak likely so the difference here I I think is is referring to the fact that one will be bars so 225 L barrels probably with a proportion of new barrels a reasonable proportion 25% and upwards whereas I think what what they’re implying is that the slavonian oak is likely to be larger and older so it’ be seasoned Oak so not giving Oak flavors but more allowing air into the wine gently to allow tannins to polymerize wi and to allow color to fix and and just to give stability to the wine so we’re talking about a relatively gentle Oak influence here and the wine will stay for 14 months in in those two different sorts of Oak at the end of that time it’s bottled and the wine then stays in bottle in the cellers here for further 18 months prior to it being released this is a 2016 so obviously it spent more time in marij than that um so let’s have a look at it shall we just to start I’ve also tried the KY Classico recently and that was quite vividly purple this by comparison almost sort of has a almost has brick red notes to the rim so there’s a a much more developed color there the Wine’s got 14% alcohol and it is sticking to the sides of the glass fairly readily we’re slowly forming some quite heavy tear there so let’s see what we make with the aroma shall we the Aromas have notes of development they have notes of powerful fruit and they also have Savory notes so there are notes of sort of forest floor development there’s notes of quite ripe perhaps red plum through to Fresh Lively juicy red cherry notes and when I’m talking about Savory notes I suppose I’m talking about things like bitter licorice or richness almost pointing at a sort of a meatiness there there isn’t particularly obvious Oak at this stage perhaps there’s a slightly Jammy touch to the red fruit as well so let’s have a taste the wine is very harmonious all its elements sitck beautifully together there’s a very firm drying tannin and there’s a very fresh acidity so you’ve got this sort of fine slightly grainy not nature maybe slightly Dusty note to the tannins on the front palette and they’re interacting with that good acidity and I’m getting quite a mouthwatering juicy very sort of plush smooth note on the front pette there’s a juiciness that’s almost sort of like a red cherries the smoothness almost like sort of sweet licorice note touches of a niece there there’s a nice complexity behind all that you’ve got this sort of red red cherry to red plum fruit with just a hint of meatiness behind it I think that’s just that sort of start of development it hasn’t quite got to a a mushroomy note of bottle development yet but it’s sort of heading towards that more Savory note of development not quite earthy more towards that sort of dried leaves forest floor sort of sort of noted development there the acidity is leaving it quite well focused you’ve got a a sort of a juicy sort of juicy red plum element on the the the Finish there sort of giving some some red fruit that has some nice length the freshness is good the structure it’s a medium bodied wine maybe medium to full bed there’s some quite good grip but it’s not drying the astringent there is a a drying nature to the tannin but there’s that sort of rich red plumy fruit alongside it that’s that’s balancing that quite nicely the alcohol doesn’t seem particularly High I mean 14% is what the label says it is I should imagine it that might be 13.8 13.9 and and there’s enough fruit to stop that from seeming hot alcoholic certainly it doesn’t feel alcoholic on the finish the oak is is really quite restrained I mean yes you’ve got those tannins but there aren’t necessarily the cedy flavor on the Finish or anything like that so a wine with lovely balance some lovely finesse in terms of its structure and its freshness and probably with the ability to to age for another 10 years or so I mean I I wouldn’t put this in the top League of grand selexion Wines By Any by any chance but at the same time this is a well-made wine I had a look at the wine search aggregated score for this vintage and that rates this as a a 92 you know good to very good not heading up to sort of a level of Excellence very enjoyable drinking at at the moment nice and open probably will mellow a little more and gain a little complexity over the next four or five years thank you very much for watching I do hope you’ve enjoyed the tasting if you have do please press the like button if you’d like to watch more of these tastings the best answer is to sign up and subscribe to our Channel and that way you can set yourself a notification every time we publish a new video I’ll leave a link in the notes below to our page for this vintage of this wine on the wine Searcher website that way you can see pricing and availability near you and other background details price history the critics notes and all the other background information that we put in there for you to see if you have any comments please leave those in the box below we’d love to know what you think about the wines we’re looking at the tastings we’re doing or anything else that relates to this thank you so much for taking the time to join us and uh we do hope you’ll be able to join us again for another tasting in a very near future bye for now
1 Comment
Thanks for good review as always. According to wine-searcher its priced around 30€. How does it compare to Bordeaux in terms of value?