In its near-perfect 2015 growing season, Chianti Classico produced, as Antonio Galloni has written, “rich, sumptuous wines” of “great depth and intensity.” The Wine Advocate’s Monica Larner calls the wines “explosive from start to finish.”
 
One of the year’s brightest stars is the iconic Fattoria di Fèlsina. And while the estate’s Rancia and Fontalloro are, predictably, among the region’s top 2015s, they may be surpassed by the microscopically produced 2015 Fèlsina Colonia Gran Selezione.
 
With only 300 cases made, we were fortunate to locate any at all. Even better was to get a great deal on it. But quantities are very limited at this price. 
 
Super Rancia
Colonia’s greatness in 2015 is explained by its terroir. It could easily be called the “Super Rancia,” as it’s situated at the summit of the Poggio a Rancia, the upper part of the great Rancia vineyard. In other words, Colonia is to Rancia as Bruno Giacosa’s Rocche del Falletto is to Falletto. It’s the highest, best part of the site. 
 
Here, Colonia’s southern exposure and very rocky albarese soil produces Sangiovese of explosive richness and powerful structure. And Colonia is at its best in a powerful year like 2015.
 
Yet, Colonia almost never came to be. In 1966, when Fèlsina founder Domenico Poggiali purchased the estate, he understood the potential of this site and immediately began preparations for planting it. But the need to blast away rock with dynamite, and to clear the densely overgrown oak forest, became too much, and the project was abandoned. 
 
But Domenico’s grandson Giovanni took up the work again and finally completed it in 1993, nearly 30 years after the project began. For the first few vintages, the terroir’s dark and potent character was a key element in Fèlsina’s great blended Riserva, but by 2006 the vines were mature enough to produce its own bottling.
 
Gran Selezione
The job of making Colonia has always been left to Fèlsina’s legendary director, Giuseppe Mazzocolin, and revered enologist Franco Bernabei. And when the new Gran Selezione classification for Chianti Classico was created in 2014—representing the finest production, exclusively from estate fruit and given final approval for the label by a consorzio tasting panel—Colonia was Mazzocolin's obvious choice.
 
The biodynamically grown, ruthlessly selected Colonia fruit is fermented and macerated for two to three weeks at cool temperature in stainless steel, and then aged in French oak barriques for 30 months, followed by another year’s harmonizing in bottle before release.
 
Highly concentrated, very rich and deeply structured for long aging, the 2015 Colonia is more than worthy of its elite classification. It is a tour de force.
 
Don’t miss this very important Tuscan wine.