Supersleek with silky fine tannins, very dark fruits like blackberries and blackcurrants with interesting notes of graphite, liquorice and asphalt finishing witha herbal bittersweet note. The description of aromas and flavours would make you think of something like a big meaty St Estephe but this has a beautiful lightness of touch which makes it nuanced and veryintriguing. Since2019,. it contains a higher proportion of grapes from young vines of Sette Cieli and an amount of the off-cuts of Indaco.It needs time to open up – so a good decant is helpful – and kept for 3 or 4 years, it should really be superb. But it will keep longer.

#Tasting#

SetteCieliarrived on the Tuscan scene a few years after the boundary lines of the Bolgheri appellation had been drawn. At the time the boundary was set, no one thought someone would plant above the woods on the next hillside over from Sassicaia, but actually above Gaja’s Bolgheri property, Ca’ Marcanda. But they did. Originally intended as a place to breed horses and a family retreat. Wine-loving friends came to visit and pointed out Sassicaias original vineyard, under the castle, that you see when you look over your right shoulder, and then a bit to the left of that, the Masseto vineyard. So they started to plant vines in 2000, and since 2012, the young Ambrogio Cremona Ratti who inherited the domain has been at the helm. He brought in winemaker Elena Pozzolini who came back to the area after several years of international experience in Argentina and California, and they share some of the viticultural team of Ornellaia.As Matthew Jukes says “this estate is a superstar in the making.”