Price vs Quality: A Sommelier Blind Tests 3 Chianti Classico (€13, €23, €36)

There is a comforting little idea that once you pass the cheap supermarket shelf, one is nothing but marketing. People love to say that a fancier label or a double the price is a total con and your tongue cannot really tell the difference anyway. Tonight, I'm putting my own reputation and my entire career on the line to test this. Welcome to the Ultimate Brutally Fair Blind Test. Here are the rules. I gave my assistant a budget and a very specific mission. He went out and bought three bottles of Chianti Classico. The Entry Level, Riserva and Gran Selezione. They are made from the exact same grape, Sangiovese. Sangiovese-based blend to be precise. They come from the exact same hills between Florence and Siena and here is the kicker. They are made by the exact same producer. The only thing that changes is the price. The Bottle A costs €13, Bottle B costs €23 and Bottle C costs €36. I have absolutely no idea which one is which. If the internet is right and the price is just a psychological trick, I'm going to fail, mix them up and completely embarrass myself on camera. But if my tone earns its keep, we're going to decode exactly what that extra money actually buys you. Hi, my name is Anja Gariboldi. I'm a professional sommelier, wine judge, and diploma WSAT graduate. Let's get it started. All right, I'll start with glass number one. Interesting, this one is like a bit shy. It's not exploiting in the fruit. To be honest with you, I would actually decant it. Can you pass me the decanter, please? So I'm getting sour cherry, dried rose petal, a little tobacco, maybe some leather. There's definitely something earthy going on here. You know what? I think I'm going to check them all on the nose first. All right, glass number two. I feel like this one is completely different to the first one. It's much more like immediate. I get bright cherries, fresh red berries, maybe a little violet as well. All right, let's try glass number three. This one, it actually feels like sitting right in the middle. There's more concentration than the second wine, but it's a little bit, at least on the nose, it's more approachable than the glass number one. A lot of ripe cherry, plum, sweet spices, maybe a little cedar, some dry herbs as well. So right now, after testing all of them on the nose, if I really had to judge purely on the nose, I would probably say that the glass number one is the most complex out of all of them three. It's not trying to impress you immediately. It keeps unfolding. That's why I actually asked for an encounter. Let me taste them again. I feel like the glass number two is actually more aromatic and the fruit jumps straight out of the glass, while glass number three smells a little riper and slightly more oaky, but that's exactly the problem. An expressive nose sometimes doesn't necessarily mean it was a serious wine. At this point, I think I just need to taste them because the real difference between different types of Chianti Classico is usually in the structure, it's in the length and the finish, not necessarily in how loud they smell, right? Italy is much more than Barolo, Chianti and Prosecco. Having lived here and traveled to its wine bridges, I discovered producers and stores most visitors never see. Join my free webinar on August 29th to talk about it. The registration link is below. Let's do this on the palate. Glass number one. The Italians are very fine. They feel like everywhere all over my palate. The acidity is driving the wine. It feels long, it feels layered and it's still changing in the glass, even though I decanted it like 10 minutes ago. If I had to bet my money, probably I would still say that this wine smells and tastes to me like Gran Salazzone. All right, glass number two. It's very juicy. It's extremely energetic and I feel like it's very easy to understand, if you know what I mean. The tannins are lighter, definitely, than in the previous one. They're harsher. The acidity is refreshing and everything feels like very open. I feel almost like everyone can enjoy this at any kind of dinner. All right, glass number three. Let's give this one a try on the palate as well. So the tannins are definitely firmer than in glass number two, but not as tightly as they were in glass number one. There is more richness to it, but I still have that Chianti classical, like typical freshness. To be honest with you, this is where I'm hesitating. It definitely has more depth. The glass number three has more depth than the glass number two, but it's also much more approachable than glass number one. Part of me wonders if this could actually be the Gran Salazzone that's maybe simply showing better today, but the only one thing that stops me... Let me try again. The only thing that stops me is this texture. Glass number one has that extra precision and persistence that I usually expect from the top wine. I'm gonna go with my instinct again, because I think that instinct is always, always right. Always instinct over the intellect. I would say that the glass number one is Gran Salazzone. I'm really hesitating between glass number two and glass number three, but I still think that this wine, glass number two, is less complex than glass number three. So I'm gonna give it an entry-level Chianti Classico and glass number three would, for me, would be Chianti Classico Riserva. Let's see if my tongue just earned its keep or embarrassed me in front of millions of people. So before I reveal all the bottles, here is what makes Chianti the perfect feature. Unlike most wine, Italy prints on the label. You do not have to guess the tier. You have to read it. All right, let's do the reveal. Grazie lezione. Knew it. Oh god, I'm a little bit nervous between bottle two and three. I hope it's not Riserva. Hold on. No, it cannot be Riserva. Come on. Yes. Chianti Classico entry-level. Imagine this one is also an entry-level. And Chianti Classico Riserva 2020, ladies and gentlemen. I'm still not that bad, right? All right, so I'm super happy about the reveal, meaning I'm still not that old to do good blind tasting. Now let me try and explain you each bottle I've tasted. The first one, the entry-level Chianti Classico. So 13 euros Chianti Classico 2022. The base tier, which for Chianti Classico still means real quality. At least 80% Sangiovese from the historic zone, aged a minimum of 12 months. See the seal on the neck? The black roaster, or as we call it in Italian Gallo Nero. That's your guarantee. It's genuine Chianti Classico. The premium heartland, not the big cheap. Chianti's old. In the glass, exactly what the youngest tier should be. I get bright cherry, violet, juicy acidity, light grip, drink it tonight. Fresh and honest. This is not the loser of the night. All right, the middle one. Chianti Classico Riserva 2020. 23 euros. The word to find here is Riserva. One word and it tells you everything. By law, it must be aged at least 24 months. Double the base and it's peeled from the estate's better parcels. And you feel that extra time, more concentration, as I said before, firmer tannin, leather, dried herb, creeping under the cherry, a longer finish than the basic one. And now the top one, 36 euros, Gran Selezione. The summit of the whole pyramid. Two rules make it special. It aged at least 30 months and every grape must come from estate's own best vineyards. Then a tasting panel has to actually approve it before even allowed to be sold. Again, let's retaste this one in the glass. In the glass, it's dense, it's layered, it's fine-grained tannin. Also needed a little bit decanting, as I said before. Real death. Lent. Is it the best wine here? Hold on to that thought. So why does the same grape from the same estate cost 13 euros or 36? People love to say it's because of a fancier label and a gritty markup. That's lazy and it's wrong. Almost the entire price difference is spent long before the bottle ever reaches the shelf. Once you understand where that money actually goes, you'll never look at the wine price tag in the same way again. So what are you actually paying for? Number one, you pay for time. The entry wine is sold after 12 months. The Gran Selezione sleeps in the cellar for 30 plus before it earns a cent. All that time the producer's money is frozen in the warehouse and you pay for that patience. Number two, selection. The base tier can use the whole harvest. The top tier uses only the estate's best parcels. Fewer bottles so each costs more. Number three, yield and hard work. Serious tiers crop the wine slower and pick and sort by hand so each berry is concentrated instead of being watery. You literally can taste that dilute versus dense. Number four, the guarantee. Gran Selezione has to pass an official tasting panel. That certification and risk is baked into the price. Now, notice what's missing. The label and the bottle weight do not move the needle. You pay for the vineyard and the time, not the sticker. Now the rule that changes how you shop forever. Every style has its own price floor. There is no single good wine costs x. Some wines are cheap to make, some are impossible to make cheaply. A fresh young red, low floor, but some wines physically cannot be cheap, whose ever name is on them. So let's take a look at what are these wines. First, traditional method sparkling wines, real champagne. Franciacorta, Altalanga, Corpinat. You ferment every bottle twice and age it for years. A 10 euro champagne style bottle is a lie. That's exactly where supermarket piece is prosecco and not the champagne. Number two, sweet wines. Think Saterno, Toccai. Grapes picked shriveled, berry by berry. One vine giving barely a glass. Nature destroys most of the crop on purpose. And number three, Chianti's big cousin. Think Barolo, Brunello, where the law forces years of aging on tiny yielding grapes. And all this Barolo cannot cost you 12 euros. So if you see a cheap one run, you are buying the drugs and it will put you off the grape for life. So next time someone brags about a 5 euro champagne or a 12 euro Barolo, you know something they don't. That's not a bargain. That's a warning label. And now, the ceiling where you stop paying for wine and start paying for name. Quality climbs steeply but then normally flattens. Cheap to medium is night and date. Great to iconic is a whisper. A little more polished for triple the price. Past a point, you are not buying flavor. You are buying scarcity. You are buying prestige. A collector's ego. A 500 euro bottle is almost never five times better than a 100 euros bottle. It's five times rarer. And rarity is not the same thing as pleasure. Which brings us back to these So did I guess all the wines? Yes, I did. Three out of three. But I'm not gonna sit and brag about it. It's not the lesson. Here's the lesson. The most expensive one, the Grand Seleccione, isn't automatically the best. It's the most serious. Yes, the Grand Seleccione is deeper and it's aged for years but it's tighter, more tonic and it wants a big Tuscan state and few years in the cellar to be honest with you. The real winner for me tonight is that 23 euros bottle of Chianti Classico Riserva. It's drinking beautifully right now. The Black Rooster gives you the premium heartland. The Riserva aging gives you the real death. And Leather and Grip, it's open and generous tonight with or without the food. More money above the spot, more structure. Yes, and longer aging but not more pleasure today and nobody tells you that. So how do you find that sweet spot on any shelf? Never ask is this expensive? Ask expensive for what? 20 euros for a generic supermarket Pinot Grigio, that shameless robbery. 20 for an estate Chianti Classico? I think that's a steal because the style sets the floor. And on Chianti specifically, the smart middle is almost always the Riserva. You can get most of the extra depth for a fraction of Gran Selezione jump. That's the buy just above the floor move. The biggest upgrade happens early, then it flattens. And actually I could have just called all the three before even tasting blind just by reading the label. That's the whole game. Is there a Black Rooster? Then it's real Chianti Classico, not the cheap zone. Does it say Riserva? Meaning it's longer aging and more structure. Gran Selezione, the estate best panel approved. You do not need my palate, you need to read the map on the bottle, which is exactly what I teach inside my Wine Sense Method course. How to know what's in the glass and whether the price is fair before you spend a cent? Grab a link for a free demo in the description below and on your screen. Some wine is too cheap to be good, some is too expensive to be worth it, and the price's bottle is rarely the one that will make you happiest tonight. Your whole job is finding your bit in between, and now you have the map. I'm Annegari Boldi. Cheers!