Antinori
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Antinori,
For laying down,
To hit the market in June, the 2016 Tignanello is a rock-solid wine and a stunning beauty. The wine offers an impeccable level of precision and laser-focus delivery of fruits, spices, tilled earth, espresso beans and Mediterranean herbs. This vintage follows the classic blending formula of 80% Sangiovese with about 13% Cabernet Sauvignon and 7% Cabernet Franc. The vines are now 15 to 20 years old. Compared to the 2015 vintage that ultimately appeared more chewy and succulent, this expression from the iconic 2016 vintage is more vibrant, nervous and jazzed. It shows more savory spice, saltiness and minerality, with a beautifully integrated quality of tannins. Some 320,000 bottles were produced. This wine is at the top of the list of some of the best Tignanello ever made, including the vintages 2007, 2009, 2010, 2013 and 2015.
Monica Larner - 31/05/2019
Monica Larner - 31/05/2019
Antinori,
For laying down,
The 2014 Solaia will be released during the second half of 2017. This is a fine-tuned expression that shows a focused sense of detail and careful attention. The quota of Cabernet Franc has been upped by a hair and this makes a big difference, especially in terms of the wine's bouquet. Otherwise, this celebrated Tuscan blend is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon with Sangiovese. It opens to dark fruit aromas with crushed mineral, pipe tobacco, pressed flower and toasted spice. Its appearance is midnight black and profound. The wine delivers a sense of sheer excitement and nervousness that will subside with another few years of bottle age. Nonetheless, I think a certain amount of that bright edginess or rigidness will always be part of this cool vintage Solaia. In the mouth, the wine is firm, compact and dense. The tannins are chiseled to the point of sublime integration. Marchesi Antinori made 40% less Solaia in this vintage in order to maintain the quality you taste here.
Monica Larner - 28/04/2017
Monica Larner - 28/04/2017
Antinori,
Ready, but will improve,
Rich, dark fruit on the nose, black cherry fruit from the Sangiovese dominating the blackcurrant fruit from the Cabernet at present, potent and powerful with hints of graphite in the background. Full-bodied and savoury on the palate, dark cherry fruit again, but more influence from the Cabernets creeping in. Mouth-watering acidity gives away its Chianti Classico roots, while soft, fine tannins complete the picture. Fabulous balance and a long, elegant finish rounds off this great Tignanello. Drinkable from 2020, but better still in 2025-2035.
Chris Pollington – Private Account Manager
Chris Pollington – Private Account Manager
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
Deep ruby. Grilled herbs and coffee complicate ripe, smoky black fruits on the nose and palate. Soft and fleshy in the mouth, showing a high-pH mouth feel. The youthfully chewy, long finish features smoky tannins. One of the more successful Guado al Tassos of recent memory.
Ian D'Agata, vinous.com December 2014
Ian D'Agata, vinous.com December 2014
Antinori,
Ready, but will improve,
The best vintages of Solaia are 1990, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010 and now 2013. Marchesi Antinori's 2013 Solaia is a profound and meaningful wine that is based mostly on Cabernet Sauvignon with Sangiovese and Cabernet Franc in supporting roles. It sports a dark and thick texture with plump fruit and spice, grilled herb and black pepper. The bouquet is intense and layered with the kind of complexity that is best admired as the wine shifts and evolves in the glass. The textual impact is also impressive—you feel the inherent power and the structure, but these elements are never overdone. The best is yet to come; this Solaia is built for long cellar aging.
Monica Larner - The Wine Advocate, 30th Dec 2016
Monica Larner - The Wine Advocate, 30th Dec 2016
Antinori,
Ready, but will improve,
2011 Solaia has a ripe, perfumed nose with sweet plum, blueberry, morello cherry and cassis notes. It is a nose that really confirms the favourable growing conditions they had in 2011, there was clearly an abundance of healthy grapes. The palate is less flamboyant than the nose, which at this stage of its evolution can only be a good thing. The cassis and blueberry show again with a really pleasing acidity that gives the wine a lovely definition and flow. It is mouthfilling and stylish with herb and cedar notes on the finish rounding things off beautifully.
Matt Tipping, Fine Wine Sales Manager
We often taste wines which leap out of the glass, but 2011 Solaia does this with a vengeance. On the nose there is a beautifully crafted wall of complex blackcurrant and juicy dark fruit from the pure, ripe Cabernet Sauvignon. Laced within this are light, deft touches of subtle cherry and dark plum fruit coming from the Sangiovese. On the palate this purity is clear to see again where there further complexity comes from the refined and framing oak. As the fruit of the palate seamlessly moves into the structure and body of the wine there are notes of coffee, fine chocolate and a whole span of herbs and spices – nutmeg, cloves but also sage and rosemary to name but a few. There is no doubt that this is a bold wine if you take it as a whole, but there is a very uncommon level of refinement and subtly here. 2011 Solaia can be drunk now such is the finesse and subtly of the tannins but I feel that if you can leave this in the cellar even for 2 or 3 years there will be added layers of complexity ensuring that this is a very special wine indeed.
Gary Owen, Private Account Manager
Another triumph from the superb 2011 vintage in Bolgheri, Tuscany. Stunningly rich and focussed, the high proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend is clear to see. Lifted and pure cassis fruit dominates the nose, supported by plum, rip Antinori is the most famous name in Italian wine and the influence of Piero Antinori in the last 25 years has been nothing short of revolutionary. Antinori's flagship wine, Tignanello, first appeared in 1971 and caused a sensation by its use of Cabernet Sauvignon in a Sangiovese blend and with its practice of ageing in small French barriques. Antinori was accused of vinous treachery and treason but soon barrique-aged blends of Sangiovese and Cabernet began appearing all across Tuscany.
Solaia, a twenty hectare (50 acre) vineyard of the Tignanello estate with a south-western exposure, is situated at 350-400 meters (1175-1325 feet) above sea level on a soil of calcareous rock (known as “alberese in Tuscany). The Marchesi Antinori firm produced this wine for the first time in the 1978 vintage with an initial blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Cabernet Franc, a blend repeated again in 1979. In the following vintages 20% of Sangiovese was added to the Cabernet grapes and the ratio of Cabernet Franc to Cabernet Sauvignon was changed in order to create a wine which has now become definitive in its various composing elements.
Matt Tipping, Fine Wine Sales Manager
We often taste wines which leap out of the glass, but 2011 Solaia does this with a vengeance. On the nose there is a beautifully crafted wall of complex blackcurrant and juicy dark fruit from the pure, ripe Cabernet Sauvignon. Laced within this are light, deft touches of subtle cherry and dark plum fruit coming from the Sangiovese. On the palate this purity is clear to see again where there further complexity comes from the refined and framing oak. As the fruit of the palate seamlessly moves into the structure and body of the wine there are notes of coffee, fine chocolate and a whole span of herbs and spices – nutmeg, cloves but also sage and rosemary to name but a few. There is no doubt that this is a bold wine if you take it as a whole, but there is a very uncommon level of refinement and subtly here. 2011 Solaia can be drunk now such is the finesse and subtly of the tannins but I feel that if you can leave this in the cellar even for 2 or 3 years there will be added layers of complexity ensuring that this is a very special wine indeed.
Gary Owen, Private Account Manager
Another triumph from the superb 2011 vintage in Bolgheri, Tuscany. Stunningly rich and focussed, the high proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend is clear to see. Lifted and pure cassis fruit dominates the nose, supported by plum, rip Antinori is the most famous name in Italian wine and the influence of Piero Antinori in the last 25 years has been nothing short of revolutionary. Antinori's flagship wine, Tignanello, first appeared in 1971 and caused a sensation by its use of Cabernet Sauvignon in a Sangiovese blend and with its practice of ageing in small French barriques. Antinori was accused of vinous treachery and treason but soon barrique-aged blends of Sangiovese and Cabernet began appearing all across Tuscany.
Solaia, a twenty hectare (50 acre) vineyard of the Tignanello estate with a south-western exposure, is situated at 350-400 meters (1175-1325 feet) above sea level on a soil of calcareous rock (known as “alberese in Tuscany). The Marchesi Antinori firm produced this wine for the first time in the 1978 vintage with an initial blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Cabernet Franc, a blend repeated again in 1979. In the following vintages 20% of Sangiovese was added to the Cabernet grapes and the ratio of Cabernet Franc to Cabernet Sauvignon was changed in order to create a wine which has now become definitive in its various composing elements.
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
Tignanello’s origins lie in a single vineyard Chianti Classico known simply as “Vigneto Tignanello” made for the 1970 vintage. From 1971 the wine was classified as lowly Vino da Tavola, and the Cabernets were added to the Sangiovese for the first time. The original Super Tuscan was born. The 2013 is the first release since the passing of the great Giacomo Tachis, Head Winemaker at Antinori from the late 1960s through to the 1990s and creator of Tignanello, Sassicaia, Solaia and many of the notable wines of Tuscany and Italy. The 2013 is a fitting tribute to this very talented man.
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
Truly an iconic wine, Tignanello’s origins lie in a single vineyard Chianti Classico Riserva ‘Vigneto Tignanello‘ made for the 1970 vintage. Even at this point it broke new ground by being the first Sangiovese aged in small oak barrels, and the die was cast from the 1971 vintage, when it became a Vino da Tavola della Toscana and was named Tignanello after the vineyard from where the fruit originates. Over the following eleven years Tignanello gradually evolved into the wine we recognise today – a wine that no longer follows the rules laid down by Chianti Classico Disciplinare.andnbsp; A blend of 80% Sangiovese, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Cabernet Franc that is produced only in the finest vintages.
Over the recent years, the growing excitement and appetite for Italy’s top wines and in particular the Super Tuscan wines has become insatiable.
The excitement behind the renaissance of the Super Tuscan wines is paraphrased brilliantly by Monica Larner of the Wine Advocate – “The buzz is back. Italy’s most iconic wine estate – the ground zero for all fine wine made in the country today – has entered an exciting new chapter with a renewed sense of purpose. This change was not sparked by any single event, rather a confluence of events starting with a fortuitous string of great vintages.” With a string of very good vintages such as 2008, 2009, 2010 and now 2011, Tignanello is on fine form.
Over the recent years, the growing excitement and appetite for Italy’s top wines and in particular the Super Tuscan wines has become insatiable.
The excitement behind the renaissance of the Super Tuscan wines is paraphrased brilliantly by Monica Larner of the Wine Advocate – “The buzz is back. Italy’s most iconic wine estate – the ground zero for all fine wine made in the country today – has entered an exciting new chapter with a renewed sense of purpose. This change was not sparked by any single event, rather a confluence of events starting with a fortuitous string of great vintages.” With a string of very good vintages such as 2008, 2009, 2010 and now 2011, Tignanello is on fine form.
Still very young and quite closed, this has cool, black fruit from the Cabernet dominating on the nose at present. The palate is supple and harmonious with plenty of ripe red fruit, crisp acidity and ripe tannins. This looks to be set to be another superb Tignanello.
Chris Pollington, Private Account Manager
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
Balsamic notes prevail on the nose of this wine, followed by aromas of ripe fruit and spices. On the palate the first sensations are velvety, with soft tannins and much finesse. The finish and aftertaste are well supported by the mineral notes which give it a lovely length and persistence, while the vineyards are situated on rocky, slightly limestone soil. Benchmark plus Bolgheri!
David Berry Green
David Berry Green
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
The 2009 Antinori Solaia is similar to the 2007 in its volume and richness, but it is less extroverted. This is another gorgeous Solaia that will drink well pretty much during its entire life. The warm year yielded a racy Solaia with no hard edges and fabulous overall balance.
Antonio Galloni - Dec-2013
Antonio Galloni - Dec-2013
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
The 2009 Tignanello is quite beautiful. Cedar, graphite, sweet herbs, licorice and leather add complexity to a core of highly expressive red fruits. The 2009 impresses for its energy, drive and focus. Today, the 2009 comes across as slightly understated relative to many recent vintages, especially 2007 and 2008. There is a silkiness and polish that is reminiscent of the 2004. Tignanello is 75% Sangiovese, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Cabernet Franc from vineyards in San Casciano Val di Pesa, one of the most evocative hillsides in all of Italy.
Longtime winemaker Renzo Cotarella has done a fabulous job with the flagships Tignanello and Solaia in 2009. In my blind tastings the pedigree of those two wines in particular came through with notable eloquence.
Antonio Galloni - Wine Advocate #201 Jun 2012
Longtime winemaker Renzo Cotarella has done a fabulous job with the flagships Tignanello and Solaia in 2009. In my blind tastings the pedigree of those two wines in particular came through with notable eloquence.
Antonio Galloni - Wine Advocate #201 Jun 2012
Antinori,
Ready, but will improve,
The Sangiovese dominates on the nose with notes of grilled meats and Morello cherries. These are echoed on the palate, reminiscent of great Chianti Classico, before the blackcurrant comes in towards to the finish to remind you that the Cabernets are there. Great acidity and full, but soft tannins indicate that this will drink relatively early, but has at least a decade of life ahead of it. Another delicious Tig’ from the team at Antinori.
Chris Pollington, Private Account Manager
Chris Pollington, Private Account Manager
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
Lovely glossy crimson in colour, this exhibits a wholly Italianate sensibility attesting perhaps, to the supremacy of Bolgheri’s terroir for this style of wine. A dark, brooding, spicy core is overlain with bonfire embers, chocolate cherries and leaf-litter. Some tried thyme, rose petals and crushed raspberry eventually battle their way to the fore of a nose whose complexity truly belies this wine’s price point. At this stage it is richly textured with black plum and more herbal flavours on the palate while a touch of liquorice/aniseed at the end keeps you on your toes. It really is very complete and very difficult to fault, I struggle so see anybody being disappointed on drinking this in a year or so’s time. Drink 2019-2022.
Jared Ehret, Private Account Manger
Jared Ehret, Private Account Manger
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
Really classy on the nose, this is a classic Bordeaux blend with hints of graphite. Beautifully elegant on the palate it shows a touch of French oak barrique alongside full bodied Cabernet Sauvignon fruit in perfect balance, followed by a fine, long and satisfying finish. Superb!
David Berry Green, Fine Wine Buyer, August 2011
David Berry Green, Fine Wine Buyer, August 2011
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
The 2004 Guado al Tasso is a wonderful Cabernet based Super-Tuscan from the great Marchesi Antinori. Rich, dark fruit is the immediate sensation here with black fruit from the 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, lifted by hints of liquorice from the 10% Syrah. The reamining 40% is made up of Merlot which gives this wine great elegance and lends a certain softness to the tannins on the finish. A delicious package resulting in a full-bodied, yet elegant wine.
(Chris Pollington - BBR Fine Wine Team)
(Chris Pollington - BBR Fine Wine Team)
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
Now firmly amongst the greats of the Italian wine scene, Tignanello’s origins lie in a single vineyard Chianti Classico Riserva ‘Vigneto Tignanello‘ made for the 1970 vintage. Even at this point it broke new ground by being the first Sangiovese aged in small oak barrels, and the die was cast from the 1971 vintage, when it became a Vino da Tavola della Toscana and was named Tignanello after the vineyard from where the fruit originates. Over the following eleven years Tignanello gradually evolved into the wine we recognise today – a wine that no longer follows the rules laid down by Chianti Classico Disciplinare.
This is a Tignanello vintage with wonderful purity of fruit on the nose first and foremost. Pure, unadulterated bramble, hedgerow fruit – exquisite! Behind that initial and impressive wave of fruit there are complex layers of nutmeg, black tea and Asian spices. This continues apace on the palate, and also where the Sangiovese really comes into play. The taut structure and fine tannins build neatly through the midpalate where more layers of hoi sin, dark coffee and subtle meatiness. The finish is textbook Tignanello, refined yet focussed and wonderfully long. Drinking from 2018 onto 2030.
Gary Owen, Fine Wine
Tignanello releases are always of huge interest – a superb Super Tuscan red which still offers significant value. This 2012 release demonstrates the quality and consistency of the Antinori estate very well indeed. The nose offers generous dark fruit, black cherry and cassis with notes of clove and dried herbs. The palate is laced with fine acidity giving real energy and vibrancy, very moreish. Fine, silky and eminently approachable now, but there is more to come of course and more layers will emerge over the coming years. Drink 2018 – 2028.
Martyn Rolph, Fine Wine
This is a Tignanello vintage with wonderful purity of fruit on the nose first and foremost. Pure, unadulterated bramble, hedgerow fruit – exquisite! Behind that initial and impressive wave of fruit there are complex layers of nutmeg, black tea and Asian spices. This continues apace on the palate, and also where the Sangiovese really comes into play. The taut structure and fine tannins build neatly through the midpalate where more layers of hoi sin, dark coffee and subtle meatiness. The finish is textbook Tignanello, refined yet focussed and wonderfully long. Drinking from 2018 onto 2030.
Gary Owen, Fine Wine
Tignanello releases are always of huge interest – a superb Super Tuscan red which still offers significant value. This 2012 release demonstrates the quality and consistency of the Antinori estate very well indeed. The nose offers generous dark fruit, black cherry and cassis with notes of clove and dried herbs. The palate is laced with fine acidity giving real energy and vibrancy, very moreish. Fine, silky and eminently approachable now, but there is more to come of course and more layers will emerge over the coming years. Drink 2018 – 2028.
Martyn Rolph, Fine Wine
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
Solaia is a ten hectare (25 acre) vineyard with a southwestern exposure at 1250-1325 feet(350-400 meters) above sea level, located at the Tenuta Tignanello estate; the soil is hard limestone-rich rock known in Italian as “albarese”. The Marchesi Antinori firm produced its first vintage of this wine in 1978 with an initial blend of 80% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Cabernet Franc, used once again in 1979. The blend was modified in the following vintages with the introduction of 20% of Sangiovese and the balance of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc was altered as well until the current blend was reached. Solaia is produced only in superior vintages and none was made in 1980, 1981, 1983,1984, and 1992.
Antinori,
Ready, but will keep,
The 2010 Solaia is even better than the Tignanello. Here, too, it is the wine's energy and sheer vibrancy that stand out most. Blackberry jam, graphite, tar, espresso, violets, crushed rocks and spices all take shape in the glass. The 2010 is a wine I have followed since its infancy, and it has never failed to deliver the goods. Earlier this year I had a chance to taste every vintage of Solaia back to the inaugural 1978. It is still early, but there is little question the 2010 is one of the greatest – if not the single greatest Solaia ever made
97/100 Antonio Galloni - Aug-2013
97/100 Antonio Galloni - Aug-2013
Antinori is the most famous name in Italian wine and the influence of Piero Antinori in the last 25 years has been nothing short of revolutionary. Antinori's flagship wine, Tignanello, first appeared in 1971 and caused a sensation by its use of Cabernet Sauvignon in a Sangiovese blend and with its practice of ageing in small French barriques. Antinori was accused of vinous treachery and treason but soon barrique-aged blends of Sangiovese and Cabernet began appearing all across Tuscany.
Solaia is a Cabernet-dominated blend, which, like Tignanello, is from the Santa Cristina estate and is stunningly rich. Tenuta Belvedere is in Bolgheri on the Mediterranean coast .
The Guado al Tasso estate is also part of the small, prestigious Bolgheri DOC zone which has been famous for its Rosé wines since the Seventies: along with the white wines made here, they were awarded the DOC in 1984, which was extended to the reds in 1994. The area is now best-known and admired for its outstanding red wines, the so-called Super-Tuscans. The estate covers over 1,000 hectares, 300 of which are planted with vineyards, and the rest with wheat, sunflowers and olives
Tenuta Guado al Tasso was part of feudal lands of about 4,048 hectares along about 7km of coast and belonged to the Della Gherardesca family, whose roots in this region date back to over 1,200 years ago. In the Thirties the land was inherited by Carlotta della Gherardesca Antinori - mother of Piero Antinori - and her sister, who was married to Mario Incisa della Rocchetta (who took possession of the nearby Tenuta San Guido). There were seven castles on the estate, four of which are still standing, and 86 watchtowers, built 1000 years ago to protect the family from Saracen invaders from the African coast.
There are currently 300 hectares of vineyards at Tenuta Guado al Tasso, situated at an altitude of 45-60m a.s.l. on various types of soil. The varieties planted are Vermentino (a grape variety native to the coastal area of Liguria and northern Tuscany, which has also flourished for many years in Corsica and Sardinia), Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah. There are also small quantities of other varieties including Cabernet Franc.
Many ideas and resources have been invested in the Guado al Tasso estate, for constant research into improved quality: as a result, a nursery for rooted cuttings was created here in 1994, mainly for the propagation of Vermentino, but also to produce the best possible selections of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot for use in other Antinori estates.
The mitigating influence of the Mediterranean prevents drastic temperature variations and the vines flower and ripen early, thanks to the stable, fairly warm microclimate with its extraordinary light during the final phases of ripening. Thanks to the microclimate of the "Bolgheri amphitheatre", harvesting takes place early here, about two weeks before the Chianti harvest.
The Guado al Tasso estate makes Scalabrone (Bolgheri Rosato DOC) from Sangiovese, Merlot and Syrah, Vermentino di Bolgheri DOC, a monovarietal Vermentino (made for the first time in 1996) and since 1990, the Guado al Tasso Bolgheri DOC Superiore from Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes.