2013 Marchesi Mazzei Chianti Classico Castello di Fonterutoli Gran Selezione
Community Tasting Note
pavel_p Likes this wine:
91 Points
Saturday, July 24, 2021 - Much better than my last bottle merely 4 month ago and best showing of this wine after going through a case over the last three years. This is now showing perfect integration with thyme and other herbs on the nose and bright red and dark fruit on the palate, with nice acidity providing wonderful freshness.
Overall now a very well balance wine but still nothing too deep or complex. An excellent wine with food but also nice to drink on its own. I would even say its better than one or the other Brunello from the same vintage, but then again I have not been particularly impressed by the 2013 Brunello vintage so far.
2 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue (3,177 views)
4 comments have been posted
Post a Comment
/ View pavel_p's profile
2 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue (3,177 views)
2 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue (3,177 views)
Comment posted by sfwinelover1:
7/24/2021 9:15:00 AM - Thanks, this is very helpful, since you, like me, have been one of the few skeptics of this vintage of this bottling. fwiw, re '13, I'm finding Tuscany to be not unlike Napa: very structure first, drinkable now with lots of air, but likely not nearly mature and with good probability of improvement in many cases. I may need to live quite a long time to get that point; we'll see!
Comment posted by pavel_p:
7/24/2021 4:48:00 PM - Yes, I was surprised how much better this bottle was showing, making me think that the one in March might have been off.
As for 2013 Tuscany, have mainly tried the regular BdM Annatas, and for my preferred more classic and slightly cooler climate producers find the wines often rather light weight but withouth the aromatics of very good vintages (in recent years 06/10/15/16). The richer, more modern producers and warmer, Southern cluster exposures seem more promising for longer term aging in 2013 but are not great either. Outside of BdM, 2013 Alceo is very promising in my eyes. For Flaccianello, which I often struggle to enjoy as I find it usually overdone, 2013 is for me one the better vintages. Tignanello is very solid as usual (tastes amazingly the same for me in any vintage).
Comment posted by sfwinelover1:
7/24/2021 5:52:00 PM - If your earlier bottle was off--and I had the impression you'd had a number of mediocre bottles--then perhaps so was mine, since the fruit was in deep hibernation behind intense acidity, wood and ground spice, particularly dill, which made for a tough drink, particularly on its own (full disclosure: of the various drinking options of reasonable to high quality in Tuscany, I'd put chiantis, for me, well below most Super Tuscans, BdMs and even many of the declassified sangios, like Fontodi, Flaccinello, Anfiteatro, etc. [personally, I'm not going to call any 100% sangio a "Super Tuscan", but I guess the technical meaning, if any, is so vague others might put those 3 wines in that group]). Good about to hear about the Alceos (I have 4) and Flaccinello (I have 3) showing well; I talke that you think they're good to go with a decant? I'm always happy to come across your TNs, as you are one of the few people on the site who loves Tuscan wine as much as I do (and knows at least as much!). Thanks again. Cheers!
Comment posted by srh:
8/15/2021 1:05:00 PM - TY both for the MARVELOUS dialogue in this strand 👍 🙂 , & GLAD this is finally showing more to your liking, pavel_p! 🙂 [SHOULD you be interested, I’ve uploaded info for this vintage which you can peruse at your leisure.] 😉