2016 Canonica a Cerreto Chianti Classico Tuscany 750 ml

We taste hundreds of Chianti Classicos a year. Many are perfectly satisfactory pizza wines. A few epitomize what we love about the region, capturing the dusty tannins, floral delicacy, and fine imprint of terroir that elevate the Sangiovese grape. And a much smaller fraction of that number, just a handful of bottles per annum, manage to do all that at a spectacular price.

With triple 92-point scores—and a whopping deal of just $18 per bottle—the 2016 Canonica e Cerreto Chianti Classico is one of the best finds we’ve seen in some time.

“This is a terrific wine in its peer group,” advised Vinous’s Antonio Galloni, who called this bottling “soft, forward, and absolutely delicious” with “lovely juiciness and texture. This is an especially forward, ripe style, and yet there is plenty of lift as well as energy to balance things out.”

Access to this level of Chianti Classico quality at this price—nearly 50% off the retail price of $35!—means that if you’re at all a fan of vibrant red wines, you should go for the case buy here. It’s that rare, and that delicious. Hailing from the same commune that produces legends like Felsina, Castello di Bossi, and San Felice, this marries cherry-scented suppleness, elegance, and superb structure to make it a huge overperformer for the category.

In recent vintage reports, critic Antonio Galloni—who established his career on the basis of his opinions on Italian wine—has been correctly making the point that Chianti Classico is one of the last of the world’s great wine regions where the average wine buyer can still afford top-level wines by the case.

While many of us have been priced out of the higher reaches of Bordeaux and Burgundy, releases like the Canonica e Cerreto Chianti Classico show that it’s still possible to experience the magic of a famous appellation’s culture and history at a true value—especially in extraordinary vintages like 2016. Of this year, Galloni noted: “I can’t remember the last time I was this excited about Chianti Classico and its wines.”

Earthy but with super-fine, polished tannins, Canonica a Cerreto’s bottling bears the signature of the highly-regarded Castelnuovo Berardenga subzone and of its maker, Matteo Bernabei, one of the foremost Sangiovese specialists in the world. The son of famed winemaker Franco Bernabei, Matteo comes from the winemaking legacy that helped put Selvapiana, Fontodi, and Felsina on the map.

In 2016, Matteo let nature do its work on Canonica a Cerreto’s vineyards, watching the Sangiovese grapes that went into this wine ripen slowly in near-perfect conditions, with long days of sunshine, cool nights, and rain that arrived as if scripted. On gentle slopes where monks first established this estate 1,000 years ago, vines are caressed by breezes off the Arbia River, infusing grapes with the full body and fragrance that the limestone and clay soils encourage.

Even before we negotiated the discount, this bottle checked every box for us. At nearly 50% off and $18, we’re trying to calculate how much of this we want to drink over the next decade.