In a good year, a wine will come along that checks all the boxes: availability, price, quality, overall pleasure, and - importantly - worth revisiting. Several wines check all those boxes except for the last, which makes it easy to identify ones that make repeat appearances on the dinner table - we've usually picked up a case or more of it.
In a really lucky year, two, maybe even three of these wines will hot the radar. But that's incredibly unusual.
Reflecting on the last few quarters, there's one wine that comes to mind. It's Gabbiano's Chianti, reviewed here back in September. Probably three or so cases of this stuff have made it into the recycle bin, which, at a dinner table that prizes diversity, is highly unusual. The wine itself isn't terribly unique, as it's a fairly straightforward Chianti of better than average (but not much greater) quality.
But you can get this at the grocery store and CVS and other random places, rarely paying more than $10 for a bottle. It's refreshing with a slight chill on it, and works with anything from pasta to pizza to steak salad. You can even get it in a magnum, which is always fun for when you've got company. The 2020 vintage is slightly better than the 2021, which seems to be filling retail shelves out there.
A workhorse of a wine without anything to prove, it's bottles like this that will remind you of why we drink wine. Cheers.
