Bolgheri Sassicaia 2016

The wine in this vintage

Sassicaia 2016 has become legendary: Robert Parker awarded it a perfect 100 points and Jancis Robinson 18.5/20, placing it among the finest versions ever made. The vintage, considered exceptional throughout Tuscany, featured a warm but never excessive summer and wide day-night temperature swings, which encouraged slow ripening and intense aromatics. Blackcurrant, cherry, violet, Mediterranean herbs, graphite and spice follow one another in the glass; the palate combines depth and lightness, with very fine tannins and extraordinary persistence. Still young, it is destined for an evolution spanning many decades and will reward patient collectors.

The producer · Tenuta San Guido

On the Tuscan coast, between Bolgheri and the sea, the Incisa della Rocchetta family's Tenuta San Guido wrote one of the most important chapters in the history of Italian wine. In the 1940s Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta planted Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc on stony soils that reminded him of the Graves in Bordeaux, at first making wine solely for family use. With the 1968 vintage Sassicaia reached the market and, helped by the collaboration with oenologist Giacomo Tachis, quickly became the forerunner of Tuscany's great Bordeaux-style reds. In 1994 the Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC was created, the only Italian appellation dedicated to a single estate. Today the family continues the work in the same spirit, alongside the grand vin with Guidalberto and Le Difese. Sassicaia's style remains true to itself: elegance before power, freshness, fine-grained tannins and an extraordinary capacity to age.

Critics' scores

• 100 Robert Parker
• 98 Wine Enthusiast
• 97 Wine Spectator
• 18.5/20 Jancis Robinson

Technical details

Producer

Tenuta San Guido

Region

Toscana

Country

Italia

Type

Rosso

Vintage

2016

When to drink

Hold, still evolving

Critics' average

98.3/100

Sizes

75 cl, Magnum 150 cl, Case of 6 × 75 cl, Case of 12 × 75 cl

eWibe code

0780116