2013 Dellatorri Chianti

This young Chianti greets with black cherries, vanilla, and spice, an enjoyable sophisticated wine for around a dime. Leather and spice on the tongue, with dark fruit that I can't place. I want to say dark cherry on the one hand, but that is perhaps too often used, and here I am not sure that is what I am getting. The leatheriness and pepper cover the fruit up, and the fruit is there at the end and on the finish. It is pleasant to me all around, as I prefer wines that do not have a lot of new world fruitiness. Medium dryness and a lingering finish. I rank this wine an 83. To me there is something slightly unpleasant on the finish, the fruits trying to make their way through the leather, and the combination detracts from the wine, but not enough to make it a wine I would not buy again because of the price and decent quality.


EDIT : I opened the wine and drank it immediately. However, as I drank it and it opened up (in the bottle) it softened and improved, raising it to, I would say, an 85. The fruits came out and rather than "dark cherry" I got pomegranate. Obviously it is best to open wine up with a decanter, and I have read that you really cannot decant wine in the bottle because of the small size of the neck. I suppose not technically, and not effectively if the wine actually needs decanting, but experience shows me that a decent wine can improve simply with the cork off.