“A delightfully tart nose is full of Rainier cherries and dried cranberries, with undertones of minerality and herbaceousness. The palate runs with the cherries and adds oranges to the mix, with a latent heat and a thrilling amount of acidity elevating a minty freshness through the finish.”

“The organic Querciabella 2019 Chianti Classico Riserva Querciabella shows richly concentrated fruit with blackberry and cherry layered with light spice and mineral. This wine represents a selection of fruit from Greve, Radda and Gaiole in Chianti, and each parcel is vinified separately before the final blend is made. Production is 19,000 bottles.”

“The Batàr bottling from Querciabella is made from a fifty-fifty blend of pinot bianco and chardonnay, with the wine barrel-fermented and raised in twenty percent new oak. The 2020 Batàr is the new release from the estate and offers up a deep, ripe and complex bouquet of apple, white peach, raw almond, a lovely base of soil, citrus blossoms and a discreet framing of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and nascently complex, with a superb core of fruit, lovely mineral undertow, zesty acids and fine focus and cut on the long, impeccably balanced and classy finish. Readers may recall from my estate feature on Querciabella a few years back, their Batàr ages long and gracefully and is really not into its apogee until a decade out from the vintage, so it is still very early days for the 2020 vintage here. It is quite tasty today, but still quite primary and additional layers of complexity are sure to emerge with further cellaring. 2023-2050.”

“The 2020 vintage of Chianti Classico from Querciabella is a beautiful wine on both the nose and palate. Readers may recall that this bottling is made from one hundred percent sangiovese, raised in a combination of barriques and tonneaux and with ten percent of the oak new each year. The 2020 version comes in at fourteen percent octane and offers up a beautifully complex nose of cherries, red plums, cigar wrapper, lovely spice tones, a lovely foundation of soil, 28 gentle notes of cedar and a dollop of fresh oregano in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and complex, with a lovely core of fruit, fine soil inflection, moderate tannins and fine length and grip on the well-balanced finish. This is certainly approachable today, but a year or two in the cellar will allow the backend tannins to fall away completely and the wine to drink with a more velvety texture. First class Chianti. 2023-2045+.”

“The 2019 Chianti Classico “Riserva” from Querciabella is a simply outstanding young wine. The Riserva bottling is made from a vineyard selection across the prime parcels the winery owns in the townships of Greve, Radda and Gaiole, with all of these parcels in the highest altitudes in the villages. The wine is raised in twenty percent new oak for fourteen to sixteen months prior to bottling and the 2019 version comes in at fourteen percent octane. It offers up a beautifully complex bouquet of red and black cherries, cigar smoke, black tea, lavender, fresh oregano, a touch of smoked meats, lovely minerality and cedar. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and nicely structured, with superb depth at the core, lovely soil undertow, fine-grained tannins and 31 excellent balance on the long, focused and extremely promising finish. This needs some time in the cellar to blossom, but it is going to be outstanding wine once it starts to emerge. 2029-2075.”