Aromas of spiced plums and ripe blackberries with cloves, chocolate, toasted cedar and tar. Rich and intense with toasty character. Full body. Tannins are fine and silky. Shows depth and complexity. A little tight with long finish. Try after 2025.

This is a crowning achievement in the Frescobaldi portfolio, underlining the winery's commitment to leaner, fresher and more elegant wines. The 2016 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Tenuta Perano Rialzi is a game changer for Frescobaldi. This wine is a delight to behold. It shows dark fruit, wild cherry, crushed lilac and chalky white stone. The oak is more prominent on the Gran Selezione, and I am slightly more partial to the Riserva expression from a versatility and food-pairing point of view. That said, this is a beautiful wine from all points of view, from bouquet to the lasting intensity of the mouthfeel.

Among these new releases from Frescobaldi, the 2015 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Tenuta Perano Rialzi is my favorite wine. I liked this expression of Sangiovese from the Gaiole in Chianti subzone of the Chianti Classico appellation even more than the Brunello di Montalcino CastelGiocondo from the same vintage. The Frescobaldi team is more intimately familiar with farming in Montalcino, where they have been making wines for decades, than they are with the relatively newly acquired Tenuta Perano property. Buying this vineyard site was a very smart move, especially thanks to the gleaming white Albarese rocky soils present here. Those soils deal an unmistakable mineral note to the wine that adds sharpness, focus and brilliant linearity. In comparison, the Brunello has much broader shoulders and a heavier gait. This wine is fleeting, fragile and delicate. These are exactly the qualities you should look for in a single-vineyard Gran Selezione expression from this stirringly beautiful corner of Tuscany.