Cafaggio Chianti Classico Villa Cafaggio Riserva

Brought to a CMS blind tasting Pours a medium garnet with an orange rim. This wine is...hazy. Getting a LOT of non-fruit on the nose. Dirt, dust, dried basil, dried porcini mushrooms, tobacco, tomato leaf atop stewed red cherries and stewed raspberries. Intensity of aromas is high. Right off the bat, everyone knew that this had age (CMS says "vinous"). Pretty similar on the palate, which is lead by mushrooms and tomato leaf before showing a lot of stewed red …

Just what it should be, though it took 20 years. Tremendous ageability for a pretty modest wine. Drink within the next couple of years.

Still quite fresh. Drink or hold.

After waiting 20 years for this wine to be a good drink, it was very very good. It has always had dense ripe fruit, but the unpleasant metallic taste and cough syrup are gone. It is just starting to have attractive tertiary flavors. Plenty of structure remains but the tannins have resolved just enough. Drink or hold another 5 years.

This bottle is still holding up surprisingly well, but it is not (and never was) an outstanding chianti. Certainly was a decent bottle, but lacks the depth and complexity of one of the really top chiantis.

When first opened had an unpleasant metallic taste, and was going to pour it down the drain but decided to try it again the next day, when it was in fact much better. Flash forward about 10 days later, still in the refrigerator, and this 17 year old Chianti was very nice. Young-looking, gutsy with secondary fruit flavors and plenty of acidity, chewy tannins, and a little bit of metal that was now just a component adding some complexity. Perhaps …

Dark, brooding deep and powerful. Black fruits are loaded with iron fillings. There’s a lightness of fruit countered by the darkness of soot.

I've waited for this wine to come aound, but I'm not sure it ever will. Seems to have core of fruit still but hard tannins and a metallic component make it a less than pleasant drink.

Previous bottle was off. This is more like it. Herbal nose with some vegetal notes, quite nice. Still very firm structure with pretty forward tannins. Very obvious leather on the pallet. Not too complex wine; but pretty long finish which is slightly drying. Defenitely to decant !

Herbal & warm nose (slightly cooked) Very little on the pallet except for drying tannins, especially on the finish totally off balance. Hope this was an off-bottly