2018 Ornellaia Bianco, Tuscany, Italy

2018 Ornellaia Bianco, Tuscany, Italy

Product: 20188108573
Prices start from £481.00 per magnum (150cl). Buying options
2018 Ornellaia Bianco, Tuscany, Italy

Buying options

Available for delivery or collection. Pricing includes duty and VAT.
Magnum (150cl)
 x 1
£481.00
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Description

The 2018 Ornellaia Bianco is a powerful, dense wine. Orchard fruit, chamomile, saline notes and dried flowers open in the glass, but only with great reluctance. A rich white, the 2018 Bianco possesses tremendous weight, but it is also very much closed in on itself. I am intrigued to see how the 2018 ages.

Drink 2021 - 2028

Antonio Galloni, vinous.com (Dec 2020)

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Critics reviews

Antonio Galloni, Vinous93+/100

The 2018 Ornellaia Bianco is a powerful, dense wine. Orchard fruit, chamomile, saline notes and dried flowers open in the glass, but only with great reluctance. A rich white, the 2018 Bianco possesses tremendous weight, but it is also very much closed in on itself. I am intrigued to see how the 2018 ages.

Drink 2021 - 2028

Antonio Galloni, vinous.com (Dec 2020)

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Wine Advocate94/100
The 2018 Ornellaia Bianco is mostly Sauvignon Blanc with a complementary 15% addition of Viognier for added structure and textural support. This vintage shows the usual understated or slightly reserved character that we've seen in past editions. With a little prodding and swirling, the bouquet opens gradually to reveal a pretty assortment of d'Anjou pear, white peach, honeysuckle and toasted almond. The wine is fermented in oak, but malolactic fermentation does not occur. There are pretty dustings of saffron and crushed stone that hint at the evolution and elegance to come with extra time in the bottle. This wine was just released in May 2021.

Drink 2021 - 2032

Monica Larner, Wine Advocate (May 2021) Read more
Decanter95/100
Drenched in white flowers on the aromatics and from the first sip you are hooked. Still young at four years old but already juicy and full of just the right amount of tension. Graphite, slate, nectarine pit and concentrated Sicilian lemons. I have a few unforgettable whites, from Remelluri Blanco to Penfolds Yattarna to Bonneau de Martray Corton-Charlemagne to Pavillon Blanc, and this is right up there. Not many producers or vineyard sites can make Sauvignon Blanc (helped out by Viognier) taste this good. 30% new oak, longest white harvest in history of Ornellaia.

Drink 2021 - 2032

Jane Anson, Decanter.com (Feb 2021) Read more

About this WINE

Ornellaia

Ornellaia

Tenuta dell’Ornellaia is located in one of the world’s most exciting wine regions: Bolgheri. A breathtaking avenue lined by towering cypress trees leads inland from the Aurelia, the old Roman coastal road, up to the walls of Bolgheri’s medieval hamlet. From the village the view extends far out to sea and on a clear day the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago and Corsica can be seen.

The mild maritime climate and  the lush Mediterranean vegetation leave an imprint upon the character of the wines. Tenuta dell’Ornellaia's unique territory guides all aspects of production: limited quantities to ensure maximum quality, attention to every detail, selective hand harvesting, microvinification and ageing.

Ornellaia is a Cabernet/Merlot wine blend. Masseto is made entirely from Merlot - it is a model of rich, silky elegance and has rapidly become a modern classic.

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Bolgheri

Bolgheri

Bolgheri is a new DOC in the coastal Maremma region which first rose to prominence during the 1970s with the emergence of the so-called Super Tuscan wines like Ornellaia and Sassicaia. These new ventures had rocked the DOC establishment by using high proportions of Cabernet Sauvignon, opting out of the DOC system and relabeling their wines as simply Vino da Tavola (table wine). 

Having won universal acclaim and exchanging hands for unprecedented prices (higher even than Tuscany's finest examples), the authorities relented and awarded Bolgheri its own DOC. The actions of the Super Tuscans inspired a generation in Italy, even if some of the wines here have lost a little of their lustre since.

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Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon Blanc

An important white grape in Bordeaux and the Loire Valley that has now found fame in New Zealand and now Chile. It thrives on the gravelly soils of Bordeaux and is blended with Sémillon to produce fresh, dry, crisp  Bordeaux Blancs, as well as more prestigious Cru Classé White Graves.

It is also blended with Sémillon, though in lower proportions, to produce the great sweet wines of Sauternes. It performs well in the Loire Valley and particularly on the well-drained chalky soils found in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, where it produces bone dry, highly aromatic, racy wines, with grassy and sometimes smoky, gunflint-like nuances.

In New Zealand, Cloudy Bay in the 1980s began producing stunning Sauvignon Blanc wines with extraordinarily intense nettly, gooseberry, and asparagus fruit, that set Marlborough firmly on the world wine map. Today many producers are rivalling Cloudy Bay in terms of quality and Sauvignon Blanc is now New Zealand`s trademark grape.

It is now grown very successfully in Chile producing wines that are almost halfway between the Loire and New Zealand in terms of fruit character. After several false starts, many South African producers are now producing very good quality, rounded fruit-driven Sauvignon Blancs.

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