San Giusto a Rentennano Chianti Classico 2002-2010

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | JULY 11, 2022

“Would you like to taste some older wines?” Luca Martini di Cigala asks as he starts to open bottles for our recent tasting of new releases. Over the years, I have been fortunate to taste complete verticals of both Percarlo and La Ricolma, along with many other wines at the ten-year mark. But as I have gotten older, I find my interest often turning more towards straight Chianti Classico (also known as Annata) bottlings, because they are less pushed in style than the more important wines and therefore often deliver more transparent expressions of place. Just as importantly, the best of these wines also offer terrific value for consumers seeking affordable reds with at least medium-term cellaring potential. So, I ask to taste older Chianti Classico, expecting an additional bottle or two to show up, but Martini di Cigala has other plans as he rattles off a list of vintages to his assistant, who is quickly dispatched to collect the wines.

Readers who want to learn more about San Giusto’s rich history will find plenty of background in my article on La Ricolma. Suffice it to say, San Giusto has built an extraordinary track record for an estate that released its first Chianti Classico with the 1978 vintage. In many ways, the Chianti Classico is the most important wine at San Giusto. With a production of around 50,000 bottles a year, the Chianti Classico comprises about half of the production, far more than the Riserva Baroncole (16-17,000 bottles/year), Percarlo (20,000 bottles/year) or La Ricolma (6,500 bottles/year).

The Chianti Classico is made from a collection of parcels throughout the estate. Aging takes place in 70HL casks and an assortment of smaller 225 and 500HL neutral oak French barrels, with bottling done just prior to the following harvest. One of the recent evolutions has been the inclusion of a small amount (3-5%) of whole clusters in warm vintages, a practice first used in 2011 to help preserve freshness. Stylistically, the San Giusto Chianti Classico is a very typical wine for the southern part of the appellation, which is to say it is a Chianti Classico built on breadth and textural richness.

Having tasted many older wines here over the years, I can’t say I was entirely surprised by how well many of the older vintages showed. At the same time, though, I was reminded that wines from challenging vintages –  those that can seem a bit unruly when first released – often reserve the greatest pleasures in time.