The #14 Wine in the World.
One of only 22 Chianti Riservas ever rated 95 points by Wine Spectator.

Dear Artisans,

Our friends at Viticcio have done it again, which is no surprise when you make values like this year after year. This decadent Chianti Classico Riserva bursts from the bottle, and with six years of age it has already unleashed waves of black and blue fruit while refining its structure.

Wine Spectator placed it at No. 14 on the Top 100 Wines of 2025. That is the headline, but the numbers behind it are what actually make this bottle remarkable.

These are my own photos from a visit to the estate, midway between Florence and Siena. The Landini family has owned Viticcio since the early 1960s, and Alessandro Landini runs it today.

That is the whole operation: one small bottling line, a basket press, and a cellar of barriques and old Slavonian botti. Only 5,000 cases were made, and only half of those reached the United States. There is no machine behind this wine, which is exactly why it keeps outscoring bottles at four times the price.

It is farmed organically, 90% Sangiovese with a little Merlot and Syrah, aged twelve months in barrique and another twelve in large Slavonian oak. Six years after the harvest it is only now beginning to open.

The highest-rated Chianti Classico Riserva of the 2019 vintage, one of only twenty-two Riservas ever to earn 95 points from Wine Spectator, and the third time this label has made their Top 100. Five thousand cases made worldwide, half of them imported.

It drinks beautifully tonight and will still be going in 2045. We are down to sixty bottles, and this is the kind of wine our Artisans buy by the case.

Cheers,

— James Tran