Sassicaia 2018 Tenuta San Guido

* Last 2 bottles of 2018 left in stock, shipping on Monday

Sassicaia is a great Italian red wine produced by Tenuta San Guido in Bolgheri from Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc grapes harvested manually in mid-October. The area is 300 meters above sea level and rich in marl and pebbles, to a small extent clayey. The grapes are meticulously selected on the sorting table with very delicate destemming and pressing; arriving in the cellar at temperatures ranging between 20 and 23 degrees, they ferment spontaneously with indigenous yeasts. We then move on to tumultuous fermentation this time at a controlled temperature between 28 and 30 degrees. Maceration on the skins for both grapes for 15 days with pumping over and frequent délestages which favor the aromatic extraction over the tannic one. Malolactic fermentation is completed in steel at the end of November. Subsequently the Sassicaia is decanted to ensure cleanliness and oxygenation, and refines in barriques for a period ranging from 20 to 25 months, based on the progress of the vintage. Sassicaia on the nose is characterized by hints of very ripe red fruits and jam, by memories of dried rose and violet petals and aromatic herbs. Then come the mineral and iodine scents, of sweet spices and roasting. In the mouth it is powerful but silky, fresh and with noble tannins, savory and full-bodied, persistent and with a finish reminiscent of toasted almonds. We recommend Sassicaia paired with great local meats, or with Rubia Gallega.

Bolgheri DOC Sassicaia

️ Bolgheri, Italy

Tenuta San Guido

Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc

2018

️  14%

Red wine

The grapes are harvested and selected manually in mid-October. They come from soils rich in pebbles and marl at 300 meters above sea level, crushed with great delicacy. The 2016 allowed us to proceed with spontaneous fermentation by indigenous yeasts, which then becomes tumultuous at controlled temperatures of around 28°. Maceration lasts about 15 days with frequent pumping over and delestages. In November the Sassicaia also undergoes malolactic fermentation in stainless steel, then it is decanted and placed in French oak barriques where it rests for between 20 and 25 months depending on the vintage.

Pot pourri of rose and violet with hints of very ripe berries, mineral and iodine notes anticipate the spicy ones and the barely hinted ones of roasting. Very intense aromatic herbs on the finish.

Full-bodied and generous, full and powerful, the tannin is noble, the texture silky. The finish is very persistent and closes with hints of toasted almond.

Serving temperature 16°-20°

Rubia Gallega

Sumptuous son of a great vintage

Bolgheri, Livorno

“Tenuta San Guido is the result of a very long tradition, of an ethical message that has been handed down from generation to generation. It includes various excellences, wine, the Dormello Olgiata breed and the Padule di Bolgheri Wildlife Refuge.

The Marquises Incisa della Rocchetta are among the protagonists of Italian history, from the early Middle Ages to the dawn of the Baroque age and beyond. Mario Incisa della Rocchetta was born in Rome in 1889 into a Piedmontese family, studied agriculture in Pisa and immediately cultivated a strong inclination for agronomy, with the dream, already in the 1920s, of finding perfection in agriculture and respecting Earth. He moved to Maremma in the 1940s after marrying Clarice della Gherardesca in 1930, a descendant of one of the oldest families in Tuscany, that of Count Ugolino sung by Dante in the Divine Comedy. The Marquis immediately understood that it was one of the most extraordinary biotypes of Mediterranean Europe and began to experiment with some French vines, concluding that cabernet, in fact so far from the Tuscan and Piedmontese tradition of Sangiovese and Nebbiolo respectively, “has the bouquet I was looking for.”
This is how, thanks to the first scions received from the Salviati Dukes of Migliarino (near Pisa), he planted the first cabernet sauvignon vineyard on the land that slopes down from the fortress of Castiglioncello to the sea, in the early 1940s. We know , in reality, that alongside cabernet (sauvignon and franc), the vines used in the first planting were various and ranged from canaiolo to ciliegiolo to white grape vines. The mass selection, oriented towards the sole use of cabernet sauvignon, arrived more recently between 1960 and 1968.

Nicolò Incisa’s foresight leads the company to become a modern enterprise which combines family tradition with the expertise of independent managers who make the company evolve and guarantee the continuity of the values ​​of the Estate, accompanying the new generations in preserving and developing this heritage.

Today the third generation of the family as wine producers is represented by five cousins ​​with the task of preserving this culture, enhancing and increasing its values. Priscilla, daughter of Nicolò Incisa, has the task of representing and telling, as head of external relations, the indissoluble bond that exists between the company and the family, a team with heterogeneous skills and passions, grown inside and outside the borders of the Estate, and very linked to this territory. ”

From the Tenuta San Guido website