2004 Chianti Classico

Owner Paolo de Marchi is one of those gifted winemakers who excels with any grape type he touches. His roster of wines includes a great Italian chardonnay (no, that's not an oxymoron), some of the top cabernet sauvignons and syrahs, stellar Chianti, fine Vin Santo and a sangiovese Super-Tuscan called Cepparello that is always one of the best. You might not know that the latter bottling, though usually mentioned as a pure sangiovese, actually contains up to 8% of cabernet in less than great vintages. And if you don't believe me when I say the man's a genius with just about any grape variety, try his attempt at nebbiolo with the Lessona wines he makes at his new estate in Piedmont (Proprieta Sperino). They're mind-blowingly good.

This is a terrific set of new releases from Isole e Olena and proprietor Paolo De Marchi, one of the long-time qualitative leaders in Chianti Classico. “I used to be labeled a modernist, now I'm labeled a traditionalist,” says De Marchi with a chuckle. The estate produces a wide range of outstanding wines including the superb Cepparello, one the region's top high-end 100% Sangiovese bottlings. In my multiple tastings of the wines I noticed that Cepparello has become much more accessible at an early age than in the past. In recent years De Marchi has experimented with higher-density vineyards and new clones of Sangiovese. He believes that Cepparello's newfound level of finesse is directly attributable to the fruit he is sourcing from those parcels. Both the 2003 and 2004 versions are outstanding. “Clearly 2003 was a challenging harvest, but we learned from previous hot vintages such as 2000 to leave as much leaf cover as possible,” says De Marchi. Readers should not ignore the Chianti Classico, regularly one of the region's finest, nor the more internationally-styled wines, which are differentiated from the rest of the line by their Collezione De Marchi label.