Chianti Classico Vintage Chart

For Chianti Classico, vintage quality is heavily influenced by the region's weather, particularly during the crucial summer and autumn months. Temperature variations can significantly affect the flavors and structure of the wine. Additionally, rainfall, especially in summer, poses challenges, potentially leading to fungal diseases in the vineyards.

It's crucial to understand that while some Chianti Classico wines can be enjoyed relatively young, exceptional vintages and producers offer wines that benefit from aging, revealing more complexity over time, especially the Riserva and Gran Selezione examples.

How Wine Folly Rates a Vintage

We gather the facts about a vintage and how those features affect the wines. This way, you can better find the vintages that fit your needs (whether you're a collector or looking to drink now).

Quality

Generally speaking, the more consistent the vintage, the better the quality.

The crop consistency determines the quality of a vintage. In some years, we see average to high consistency.

On other vintages, quality is much more variable. In these variable years, it's best to look for producers who consistently produce high-quality wines because they can roll with difficulties growing grapes.

Weather

Ideally, producers want consistent temperatures year in and out for consistent quality. Of course, this is not very likely to happen as weather changes frequently. During harvest, rain, hail, and heat waves are key events that can create a difficult vintage.

Seasonal events include frost, hail, drought, and even wildfires. These events affect the quality or size of a vintage.

In warmer climates, getting enough rainfall during the growing season is key for healthy grapes and ripening.

In cooler or more moderate climates, getting enough but not too much rain and getting the right amount of sunshine and heat are important for producing ripe grapes.

Volume

Contrary to popular belief, low volumes do not always equal high quality. Producers can have very high-quality years where volumes are also high.

The opposite is also true, where we might have low yields but the quality may be low - due to disease in the vineyard or poor weather conditions.

So why do we care about volume? If there's more, it can lower prices, and the prices might be higher if there is less.