2018 Fattoria di Piazzano Chianti DOCG Tuscany 750 ml

“You can feel the quality in this wine,” our Master Sommelier Sur Lucero said, after we’d all had a chance to savory the ruby-hued 2018 Fattoria di Piazzano Chianti, with its vibrant red fruit character harmonizing with earth, herbs, and the perfect amount of bright Sangiovese cut. “This is what classic Chianti is all about.” 

This is the bottle we wish every local pizza place or pasta joint always had on hand, cooled to a perfect 60 degrees and ready to pair with first-course calamari with red sauce to the last bite of chicken marsala—and sip on into the night. Sleek, savory, and bursting with raspberry, red plum, and smoke-kissed cranberry, it’s an Italian red steal that brings unthinkable quality and a 91-point score for just $16. 

For that price, we’d stack a couple cases and open them with abandon, and without a shred of guilt. It is, as Antonio Galloni says, a “bold, potent Chianti that delivers the goods and then some.” We were thrilled to fork over $20 (shoulda been $28, more on that later) at our local joint and score this kind of Sangiovese complexity and quality. 

Red or white. 

Those were our wine choices when we opted for a local trattoria’s “Box and Bottle” curbside package. We took advantage of their $20 wine deal, adding a bottle to our meal and taking the handoff of the Fattoria di Piazzano through our passenger-side window.

We were thrilled when we got home, popped the bottle, and discovered that our no-effort bottle was a no-brainer-case-buy type of Chianti. We downed it with our pizza funghi and ricotta gnudi, and the next morning, over strong black coffee, did our diligence on Fattoria di Piazzano.

It makes sense that the Bettarini family behind the Piazzano label can pack this kind of quality and charm into a bottle whose price comes in well below that of a New York-style pie. They have farmed Piazzano in the rolling hills south of Empoli ever since their forebear Otello purchased the property in 1948—that means they can turn out high-quality wine for next to nothing.

The winegrowing tradition in the area goes back much further than Otello’s day, with excavations on the property revealing amphorae that date back to the 4th century. Those ancients clearly knew what they were doing: The estate runs across a fault, which (as we see all over the world) results in an incredible array of soils throughout the vineyard. 

Siblings Rolando and Ilaria Bettarini have taken that soil diversity and run with it, vinifying each vineyard block separately on native yeasts, aging the wine in cement tanks, and blending the best expressions of Sangiovese, Canaiolo, and other native Tuscan grapes. They sell what doesn’t make the cut—in other words, only the estate’s best makes it into a bottle with the Piazzano label on it. And in the superb 2018 vintage, they’ve outdone themselves on quality.

We’ll give our local Italian joint huge props for being on top of it. Be prepared to give yourself massive credit for stocking up on this red, and having it ready when the perfect moment strikes. It’ll be soon (and often), we guarantee.