Another wine cask from the Felsina estate. This time, a Chianti Classico, which looks like it might have been a limited edition produced for the Russian market. It’s bottled at 55% and has spent less than a year finishing in Chianti casks before being released in 2007.
Nose: Sharp and a touch aggressive with alcohol. Hedgerow berries – wild strawberries, prunes, reduced sugars – almost caramel and gummy bear sweetness and fairground candyfloss (raspberry flavour – possibly blue in colour). The addition of water is quite interesting here – introducing bread and yeasty notes as well as some rose petal herbals.
Taste: A pleasant, slightly viscous arrival, that mixes raspberries and strawberries – both reduced into jams and preserves. Milk chocolate and pastries are joined by a slightly mineral undertone of steeliness. In the mid to back palate, cask influence comes to the fore with both ginger and prickly pepper and drying sappy wood. Reduced, this has an interesting tartness of white wine and grapefruit juice – but, it also reveals some rawness of the underlying spirit.
Finish: Short, initially sweet with berry fruity, but increasingly drying and somewhat tannic.
This Chianti finished Arran is pleasant enough, but struggles at times to balance the sweetness of the wine with a fairly heavy cask influence. There’s a lot of drying spice here which jars against the brighter, fruitier elements within the nose and palate. Water improves the overall integration, but in doing so unearths some youthfulness. Reasonable, but not an outstanding success.