Description
It doesn’t get much better than this. Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia 2018 in magnum format. One of the most iconic dry red wines in the world. They have taken the Bordeaux blend – and taken it to Tuscany.
Tenuta San Guido is named after the Saint Guido della Gherardesca who lived during the XI century. It is located on the Tyrrhenian coast, between Leghorn and Grosseto, in Maremma an area made famous by Italian Nobel prize winner Giosuè Carducci, and it stretches for 13 km from the sea to the hills. The Sassicaia wine, the Razza Dormello-Olgiata thoroughbred stud farm and the Bird Sanctuary Padule di Bolgheri are the three defining aspects of the vineyard. They divide the estate between the Padule on the coast, the horse’s training grounds on the plain, and the vineyards planted up to 350 meters on the hills. The latter have been given their own DOC, the DOC Bolgheri Sassicaia, the first, and so far only case in Italy of a DOC contained in one estate.
In the 1920s the Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta dreamt of creating a ‘thoroughbred’ wine and for him, as for all the aristocracy of the time, the ideal was Bordeaux. In the 1940s, having settled with his wife Clarice on the Tenuta San Guido on the Tyrrhenian coast, he experimented with several French grape varieties (whose cuttings he had recovered from the estate of the Dukes Salviati in Migliarino) and concluded that the Cabernet had “the bouquet I was looking for.” A wine made mainly from Cabernet Sauvignon was a fundamental change to the Tuscan and Piedmont tradition of Sangiovese and Nebbiolo, respectively. The innovative decision to plant this variety at Tenuta San Guido was partly due to the similarity Mario Incisa had noted between Tuscan terrain and that of Graves in Bordeaux. “Graves”, or “gravel” in French refers to the rocky terrain which distinguishes the Bordeaux area; similarly, the gravely vineyard sites in Tuscany impart the same characteristics on Sassicaia, “stony ground”, as its cherished French brother.
With this classic and cooler vintage, Sassicaia has reached a level that no one else in Bolgheri has obtained yet. The nose is closed but precise, delicately perfumed with nuances of violet and peony, cherries and mulberries, minerality, purity and precision. The bouquet is already open, evolving constantly and delivering so much complexity and grace. Delicate and subtle in texture on the palate, it is lithe and precise, with great freshness. The silky and powdery tannic structure provide a lingering finish. This is a very touching wine, charismatic and energetic.