Grape variety Cabernet Sauvignon

LUX VITIS comes from Cabernet Sauvignon vines over 12 years old and contains a small amount of Sangiovese. The 2019 vintage is rich and powerful, with full intensity. On the palate, a core of dark cherries and blackberries, framed by sweet spices, bitter chocolate and campfire embers. As with the other wines in the Tenuta Luce portfolio, oak spice and tannins play an important role in the basic style expressed here. Only 6,600 bottles were produced. LUX VITIS will reveal its true treasure only with years of ageing. SUPERIORE.DE

Only 5,000 bottles leave the estate – a silent witness to Paolo De Marchi's uncompromising obsession with quality. From the best Galestro and Alberese soils at high altitudes, one of Italy's most convincing Cabernets has been produced here since the 1980s. The 2018 embodies the soul of an exceptional vintage: 24 months in French barriques, forty per cent of which were new, followed by three silent years in the bottle. This patience shapes a wine of rare depth – dark blue fruit, lavender, mocha and espresso weave themselves into a complex tapestry of flavours. Burgundian elegance and Tuscan soul come together here: velvety tannins envelop concentrated cassis and blackberry flavours, while notes of sweet tobacco, graphite and chocolate characterise the long finish. A wine that rewards patience and only shows its true colours after years of ageing – paolo De Marchi's vision of Cabernet as an expression of Tuscan terroir. SUPERIORE.DE

In the quiet of 2019, Paolo De Marchi's decades-long vision of Cabernet Sauvignon as an authentic terroir expression of the Tuscan soul came to fruition. After more than forty years of tireless viticultural revolution, the maestro proved once again that international grape varieties do not become commonplace wines on the Galestro and Alberese soils of Isole e Olena, but express their new home in every drop. Only 10,000 0.75-litre bottles and 240 magnums were produced from the south-west-facing vineyards at altitudes between 350 and 400 metres. The 2019 benefits from an almost ideal vintage: mild winters, balanced rainfall in spring and a classically dry Tuscan summer produced grapes of exceptional concentration and elegance. 24 months in French barriques, forty per cent of them new, followed by three years of bottle ageing – this patience creates a wine of impressive complexity.

Ventaglio. A plot of just one hectare whose rows of vines unfold in a fan shape around a centuries-old holm oak with a magnificent crown, while ash, alder and field elm trees form the natural boundaries of this unique amphitheatre. Here, 120 metres above sea level, not far from the hills of Donoratico, the red sandy soils of the coast give way to calcareous clay soils with the characteristic stony skeleton of alluvial origin. Since 2015, Ventaglio has been the Tenuta's first single vineyard and represents a visionary project: exploring the full potential of Cabernet Franc in Bolgheri. Only vinified in exceptional vintages, a limited edition of 2,700 bottles of a wine is produced that forever redefines the boundaries between Bordeaux noblesse and Tuscan terroir authenticity.

The 50th harvest year of Sassicaia. It snowed in Bolgheri in February 2018. The last time this happened was in 1985 – the year that is considered the greatest Sassicaia in history. The Siberian "Burian" winter storm brought temperatures below zero for days, killed the pests on the vines and replenished the soil water reserves. A promising start. What followed was a cool, slow wine year: moderate spring, temperate summer, refreshing nights well into September. Tenuta San Guido began the harvest seven to eight days later than usual – and selected more rigorously than in most years: The vineyards in the lowlands were not included. The higher vineyards, Castiglioncello and Quercione, characterised the character.

"Sassicaia really was our house wine back then," says Priscilla Incisa della Rocchetta, daughter of the president of San Guido, Marquis Nicolò Incisa della Rocchetta. "It was more of a wine experiment that was only tested within the family and among friends, until we went on the market for the first time with the 1968 vintage. Today, this wine is all about elegance and balance. We like this style, which is not so much about the body. Sassicaia is a good representative of what we want to convey as a style."

"Everything was slow, calm and beautiful." This is how cellar master Carlo Paoli described 2013. After an April frost that regulated the natural grape yield, a summer without extremes followed – no heat spike, no stressful events, just a gradual, even ripening that gave the Cabernet Sauvignon on the gravel marl soils of Tenuta San Guido exactly what it needed: Time. Priscilla Incisa della Rocchetta, granddaughter of the founder, called the result a record year for Sassicaia. The harvest began at the beginning of September with the Cabernet Franc, which was the first to reach phenological ripeness, and ended at the end of September in the high vineyards of Castiglioncello.

There are vintages that are underestimated on release and only assert their true status over the years. The 2009 Sassicaia is one of them. When it came onto the market, critics debated 2008 and 2010, but anyone who listened carefully realised that the 2009 climate year in Bolgheri was simply perfect. A long, cold winter secured the water reserves. The spring began cautiously, the summer gifted the vineyards with warmth and pronounced day-night temperature contrasts – conditions that lead Cabernet Sauvignon to extraordinary phenolic ripeness on the gravel soils of Bolgheri. The harvest began at the beginning of September and was flawless.

Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta is said to have once said that Sassicaia is always great in years with an eight at the end: 1958, 1968, 1978, 1988, 1998 and 2008. The sentence sounds like a legend – but it holds water. 2008 was a year of transition: spring began cool, the vegetation was delayed by ten days, the summer gradually warmed up and led to a concentrated, structurally rich harvest. It was also the first year in which the new oenological team worked together with the legendary Giacomo Tachis – a baton that was passed in slow motion.

There are wines that become living memories. There are grape varieties that only discover their true calling when they are far from home. And there is sibling love that survives death and becomes immortal in liquid form. Dedicato a Walter is all of this at the same time – above all a 100% Cabernet Franc of such moving purity that it is one of the rarest and most precious treasures not only of Bolgheri, but of Italy as a whole. Walter Allegrini died far too young in 2003, just two years after he had begun to realise the Tuscan dream together with his sister Marilisa. But his spirit lives on in those three magical hectares of the Via Bolgherese vineyard, the most prestigious area of Bolgheri, reverentially known as the "Soprastrada". This extraordinary plantation with south-west exposure at only 56 metres above sea level benefits from Bolgheri's unique microclimate, where salty sea breezes meet the intense exposure of the Tuscan coast. The Cabernet Franc – the noble grape variety that traditionally ensures elegance and finesse in Bordeaux blends – finds the ideal conditions here to develop completely independently and in its purest form.

Camarcanda is a rich Bolgheri Rosso Superiore with a dark bouquet of black fruit, espresso, chocolate, liquorice and tar. The palate is extremely full-bodied, with outstanding depth, dense structure and a firm body. Opulent and long, this wine already shows a wide range of personality. SUPERIORE.DE

2021 – a Tuscan vintage for the ages. In the annals of Bolgheri, this year will be remembered as the one that revealed the perfection of the Mediterranean terroir in its purest form. A rainy winter, which replenished the water reserves for the coming summer, was followed by a growing season of classic elegance: a cool spring initially delayed budding, but when temperatures rose at the end of May, the development of the vines accelerated in an ideal way. The summer of 2021 was characterised by the Mediterranean drought that makes Bolgheri so unique – three months without any significant rainfall, but the vines did not suffer. The deep, sandy soils, enriched with limestone and stones, had stored the winter moisture and continuously nourished the roots. The exceptional day-night temperature difference, which was amplified by the nearby coast, was decisive and gave the grapes the freshness that makes the 2021 so distinctive.

"Sassicaia really was our house wine back then," says Priscilla Incisa della Rocchetta, daughter of the president of San Guido, Marquis Nicolò Incisa della Rocchetta. "It was more of a wine experiment that was only tested within the family and among friends, until we went on the market for the first time with the 1968 vintage. Today, this wine is all about elegance and balance. We like this style, which is not so much about the body. Sassicaia is a good representative of what we want to convey as a style."

There are wines that have made history. And then there is Sassicaia – the wine that started a revolution and changed Italy forever. The first commercial bottle saw the light of day in 1968, at that time still classified as a modest Vino da Tavola, today the only wine in Italy to be honoured with its own DOC. What began as an experiment by a visionary marchese became a legend. The name says it all: "Sassi" – stones. An idea that Mario Incisa della Rocchetta had in the 1940s is rooted in the stony, calcareous soils of the Bolgheri hills, between 100 and 400 metres above sea level. Inspired by the great wines of Bordeaux, he dared to do the unthinkable: to plant Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc in Tuscany, where only Sangiovese had reigned for centuries.