2018 La Ricolma

Once again, my tasting at San Giusto a Rentennano was a real highlight of the time I spent in Chianti Classico. San Giusto is one of the few estates that marries noble origins with an artisan approach to farming and making wine. The result is wines that are stunning across the entire range. "Two thousand eighteen is very much like 2016, except that the last phase of ripening was accelerated from 10-25 September," Luca Martini di Cigala explained. "We were helped by rains of about 25mm in August that were pretty modest relative to the heavier rains that fell in other parts of the region.” The San Giusto wines are increasingly done in large format and/or neutral oak, which has really helped the purity of these impeccably farmed sites to come through in the wines.