Wine Spectator | 95–100 Points

There are wines that become legends before they are even drunk – and then there is Madonna del Piano 2019. In the small votive chapel that gave this mythical vineyard its name, the faithful of centuries past could hardly have guessed that one of the most monumental Brunelli in wine history would one day be born here. But that is exactly what happened in 2019, when the stars aligned perfectly over Montalcino. The 2019 vintage is already being described by connoisseurs as a dream vintage – a year in which nature did everything right. A cold, rainy winter replenished the water reserves, a balanced spring ensured even budding and a moderately warm summer without extreme heat or heavy rain created ideal conditions. In September, mild temperatures and large temperature fluctuations between day and night brought the perfect ripening that only exceptional vintages achieve.

The Vigna Loreto covers one and a half hectares. Steep, stony, facing east – the slope faces the morning, not the midday sun. The soil is rich in tufa and pebbles, poor in nutrients, without indulgence. The vines come from a mass selection of eight of the estate's own Sangiovese clones, which Mastrojanni has selected over decades: the estate's genetic memory in every vine. It was Gabriele Mastrojanni himself who recognised Vigna Loreto as a parcel in its own right – the ability to show finesse where Castelnuovo dell'Abate otherwise convinces with power. Today, every vintage confirms what the founder saw: Loreto speaks more softly than the great Brunello, but more precisely. The eastern exposure gives the wine freshness, the tufa lends it mineral tension, the poor soils force concentration without over-ripening. 36 months of ageing in Allier barrels between 16 and 33 hectolitres – the small formats, the closeness that the wood gives the wine without dominating it.

The fruit for Tenuta Nuova is harvested from a south and south-east facing slope at 250 to 300 metres above sea level. The soil is loose and mixed with gravel, which allows access to air and moisture.

Since summer 2023, Chianti Classico producers have been allowed to include the eleven additional geographical indications (UGA = unità geografiche aggiuntive) introduced in 2021 on the labels of the top Gran Selezione category. For Chianti Classico winegrowers, it is a logical step to produce wines that reflect the area in which they were produced as authentically as possible. And customers can thus deepen their knowledge of the relationship between the wines and their region of origin - a real added value.

Rabajà is one of the legendary parcels of Barbaresco – a sun-drenched, perfectly orientated site with limestone and marl-rich soils that has been synonymous with powerful yet incredibly refined Nebbioli for generations. The 2020 vintage draws its depth and precision from this terroir. The year brought a balanced combination of warmth and moderate rainfall, resulting in perfectly ripe harvestwith a fine tannin structure. The colour in the glass is a dense garnet red with orange highlights. The bouquet unfolds in layers: dark cherry, ripe raspberry, violets and dried roses, plus tobacco, liquorice and a mineral nuance. On the palate, the wine is structured and focussed, with clear fruit, a concise but fine-meshed tannin structure and a lively acidity that gives it length and energy. The finish is deep, savoury and of rare persistence – a Barbaresco that brings the essence of Rabajà to the glass in pure, unadulterated form. SUPERIORE.DE

Giacomo Neri's rather new top Brunello was born with the purchase of a very special vineyard. True to the winery's philosophy of producing wines only from the best terroirs around Montalcino, a small 7-hectare parcel with over 45-year-old vines was acquired a few years ago. This was preceded by over 40 years of friendship with the previous owners, with whom Giacomo's father Giovanni Neri planted the vines and nurtured them over the past decades.

Cepparello – named after the small stream that rises at the highest point of the Isole e Olena vineyards. This name has borne the revolutionary vision of Paolo De Marchi since 1980, when 100 per cent Sangiovese was still a taboo in Chianti Classico. With this wine, the Piedmontese visionary not only created one of the first Supertuscans, but also probably the most authentic portrait of the Sangiovese grape – pure, uncompromising, unadulterated. The Sangiovese vines grow on the characteristic Galestro soils from the estate's best sites, exposed to the south-west at an altitude of 400 to 480 metres. These slatey clay soils give the wine its unmistakable minerality and elegance. The 2020 embodies De Marchi's signature style in its purest form. A mild, dry winter and a drop in temperature in March, which required extreme vigilance against frost damage, was followed by a classic Tuscan summer. Dry and mild until the end of August, then scattered rainfall before the weather calmed down in September – ideal conditions for grapes of exceptional quality and quantity.

Chiara Boschi's Cannubi 2020 beguiles on the nose with layers of fragrant fruit. A sensual Barolo and yet quite typical in its vineyard character. Soft, silky tannins frame the long finish. A wonderful wine, characterised by its balance and above all by the sweetness of its tannins. Very full-bodied, focussed and with great length. SUPERIORE.DE

Barolo Cannubi 2021 is a great wine that emphasises the classic beauty of Nebbiolo and the top vintage. This wine is like a statue of a Greek goddess with perfect proportions and feminine aesthetics. The bouquet is multi-layered, with bright fruits, white pepper, mint, orange peel and spicy liquorice. The tannins are polished and fine, with a hint of the characteristic limestone chalk that you sometimes taste in Cannubi. The lively acidity rounds off this extremely elegant, fresh and graceful wine. Very full-bodied and focussed, with great length and great potential. SUPERIORE.DE

The Falletto vineyard in Serralunga d'Alba is considered the centrepiece of Bruno Giacosa's work. The south and south-west facing slopes with calcareous marl soils produce Nebbiolo with unmistakable depth and structure. The 2020 vintage was characterised by a warm, sunny summer, balanced by cool nights and a long, stable autumn – ideal conditions for fully ripe, aromatically complex grapes with precise acidity.

The sibi et paucis project is Luciano's answer to the question of what time does to great Nebbiolo. While other wines are released on the market after the prescribed ageing period, Sandrone keeps some of his Barolo in his own cellar for ten years longer – not out of restraint, but out of the conviction that Nebbiolo only reveals its true nature after years of silent evolution.

Allegrini's top-quality Riserva Fieramonte is deeply concentrated and almost black in the glass. The palate is firm and equally concentrated, with dense waves of dark fruit, spices, toast and cinnamon. The aromatic panorama of this wine is impressive, its dimension, depth and texture make it one of the greatest wines of the appellation. Wow! SUPERIORE.DE

Angelo Gaja's 2021 Barbaresco is a wine with poise and grace that has a lot to offer. Expressive spicy and floral notes are the first to open up, but what really stands out is the wine's nuance and delineation. The transparency is unmistakable. Sweet red cherries, mint, cinnamon and rose petals develop in the glass and add further nuances. The flavour is balanced and spicy, the tannins firm and the finish precise and long. This muscular monument of a red wine definitely needs a few more years of bottle ageing, with a little patience it will transform into pure elegance. Put simply, the 2021 is one of the best Gaja Barbarescos of recent times. SUPERIORE.DE

Fuligni's superb 2019 Riserva shows a beautiful tertiary intensity with wild berries and plums, followed by balsamic herbs, liquorice, grilled herbs and spices. We are delighted by the sheer opulence and richness of this wine, which remains pleasantly medium-bodied throughout, yet produces plenty of elegance and sufficient power on the other side. This Riserva from a top vintage never feels too heavy or too flat, but impresses with its disciplined energy and vitality. With each successive glass, the wine becomes a perfectly balanced world of modernity and tradition that is unrivalled in its wine form. SUPERIORE.DE

Every year, the release of the strictly limited artist's edition of Tenuta dell'Ornellaia is a special treat. Today, too, we are pleased to be able to offer you some copies of the latest and 15th edition "La Proporzione" exclusively as a 0.75l single bottle. The original wooden box with 6 bottles contains only one bottle of this sought-after collector's item.

The Brunello Riserva PS, produced only in the best vintages and thus for the first time since 2007 again in the top vintages 2010 and 2012, has a lot to offer. Rich, structured and lively bouquet of fruit and menthol. Complex, exceptionally balanced and elegant on the palate with silky tannins and a refined finish. A most impressive wine. SUPERIORE.DE

Vigna Elena is a Ravera parcel of 1 hectare in size. Just 5,000 bottles of Cogno's famous Riserva come from here every year. The Vigna Elena 2019 has just the right balance between fruit and wood, which is often a real challenge in this category. The rather bright bouquet has red fruits and nuances of truffle, ash, dried citrus peel and pressed flowers. Elegant, brooding and powerful, as only a great Barolo can be, Vigna Elena possesses a wealth of nuances and dimensions from the very first sip. Exotic spice and orange peel notes, followed later by ripe raspberries, mocha and autumn leaves. The Vigna Elena 2019 is an absolute delight. SUPERIORE.DE

The spectacular "Vendemmia d'Artista" artists' edition has been running since 2006. Every year, renowned artists are invited to design a small series of individual and large bottles of the world-famous Ornellaia Bolgheri Superiore and create an artistic world around this fine wine. It is not a matter of course that we are once again able to offer you some examples of the rare 16th edition of the Ornellaia Vendemmia d'Artista 2021 in the 0.75-litre bottle this year. As usual, this special edition is rare and sought-after, as there is only one bottle of this limited collector's item in each 6-bottle wooden crate.

With this single-vineyard Sangiovese, the Mazzei family is pursuing no less a goal than making the best wine in the Chianti Classico appellation. Seven different Sangiovese clones, four of them from the family's own 50-year research, form the basis for a Gran Selezione, which is produced at an altitude of up to 350 metres in the single vineyard Il Caggio not far from Castellina (and only in the best vintages).

Il Caberlot is more than just a wine - it is a unique statement. Since the 1980s, the Rogosky family has been vinifying one of Italy's rarest red wines with great restraint: pure Caberlot, a natural cross between Cabernet Franc and Merlot, exclusively from the tiny, high-altitude Il Carnasciale vineyard near Mercatale Valdarno. The stony, barren soils at an altitude of up to 520 metres and the continental microclimate of central Tuscany shaped the 2021 vintage in an ideal way: a fresh spring, a moderately warm summer and a long, dry autumn led to a late, selective harvest with exceptional aromatic finesse.

"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.

Since the first vintage in 1988, there has been no other wine in the world made from the mysterious Caberlot grape variety, a natural cross between Cabernet Franc and Merlot, which the agronomist Remigio Bordini discovered in an overgrown vineyard near Padua at the end of the 1960s. What began with a superstitious gesture – wolf and Bettina Rogosky buried a bottle of Sassicaia under the first Caberlot vine in 1986 – developed into a cult icon of the Tuscan wine world. Only 3,900 magnum bottles of the 2020 Il Caberlot are produced annually in the barren heights of Mercatale Valdarno, where iron-rich sandstone soils over limestone bedrock create a rarity that collectors in 24 countries covet. Each bottle is personally numbered by Bettina Rogosky and recorded in a small notebook – a ritual that emphasises the exclusivity of this wine dream come true.

There are stories that take time. This Amarone rested for ten years in a single 30-hectolitre Slavonian oak barrel – a decade of patient ageing, of slow metamorphosis, of quiet perfection. Only 2,500 numbered bottles and 200 magnums were bottled from the 2013 vintage, each in its own wooden crate, a monument to the philosophy that Carla Prospero Zenato formulates as follows: "Ci sono storie che richiedono il loro tempo" – there are stories that demand their time.