Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia 2021

Sassicaia is, by near-universal agreement, the wine that started the Super Tuscan revolution. Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta, a Francophile with a deep admiration for Bordeaux, married into the della Gherardesca family's coastal Tuscan estate in 1940 and, noticing the striking similarity between Bolgheri's gravelly soils and those of Graves, planted Cabernet Sauvignon here in 1944 — initially purely for family consumption. It wasn't until 1968 that a vintage was finally released commercially, and the wine's reputation grew so fast and so far beyond anything Italian wine law had a category for that in 1994 the government created an entirely new appellation, Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC, just to house it — a single estate holding its own denomination remains almost unheard of anywhere in the world. The blend has stayed remarkably consistent for decades: roughly 85% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Cabernet Franc, hand-harvested from 75 hectares of estate vineyard, fermented naturally in stainless steel, and matured around two years in French oak (typically a third new). Today the estate is guided by third-generation Priscilla Incisa della Rocchetta and managing director Carlo Paoli, continuing exactly the stylistic imprint that made the wine legendary in the first place.

The result is Italy's most consistently garlanded red: cassis, wild blackberry, and dark plum meet graphite, cedar, tobacco, and a distinctly Mediterranean lift of wild herbs and violet, all carried on fine-grained, classically proportioned tannins and vibrant acidity that give the wine real longevity. Recent vintages have scored perfect or near-perfect marks from Wine Advocate and Decanter alike, and top years are built to age gracefully for thirty years or more, evolving toward cocoa, leather, and autumnal earth.