Querciabella
Chianti Classico Riserva DOCG
Chianti Classico
2016

The producer

Founded by Giuseppe Castiglioni in 1974, in the heart of the rolling Chianti hills, Querciabella is today run by son Sebastiano, who converted the estate to organics in the 1990s. Today the estate covers over 75 hectares of Chianti vineyards, in the communes of Greve, Radda and Gaiole, and another 32 hectares in Maremma. The vineyards are surrounded by olive groves and forest, and biodiversity is of high priority. The Chianti Classico Riserva is one of the great value wines from the region.

The wine

The Classico Riserva is a blend of fruit from the estate’s best Chianti parcels, at between 350 to 500 meters above sea level. Always made up of 100% Sangiovese, the Classico Riserva is allowed to age for around 16 months in French oak barrels of varying size. A full-bodied and powerful wine, yet with refreshing aromatic complexity, integrated tannins, and a lively finish. 

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.