Tenuta San Guida Sassicaia
It is, perhaps, an inevitable feature of modern society
that those who rebel in youth become, with sufficient age,
an integral part of the establishment against which they
once vehemently fought. Take the knighted Mick Jagger, for
example, or the trout fishery owning, sexagenarian, Roger
Daltrey, who once proclaimed ‘hope I die before I grow old.’
And so to Sassicaia, a wine that, in a similar fashion,
once led the Super Tuscans into battle against Italy’s rigid
DOC regulations, yet which today is as much a part of the
country’s old establishment of great wines as Chateau
Margaux is a part of Bordeaux’s.
The history of the estate can be traced back to the
1840s, but the origins of Sassicaia are more recent, the
cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc vines having been
planted by Mario Incisa della Rocchetta in the 1940s. And
therein lies the crux of the matter, as, in eschewing the
native sangiovese grape, Mario automatically excluded his
wines from the DOC system. (In fact, Sassicaia was devoid of
an official appellation, apart from the lowly ‘vino da
tavola’, until 1994, when it was finally assigned its own
unique DOC – Bolgheri.)
But this was of little bother to Mario, whose initial aim
was only to produce a wine that fitted his personal taste
for fine claret. Thus, it was not until 1968 that Sassicaia
was actually commercially available; prior to this it was a
strictly private affair.
Today the estate runs to around 75 hectares situated in
various plots around Bolgheri. The vines are 85% cabernet
sauvignon and 15% cabernet franc, and the soil is primarily
gravely, with some sand. Sassicaia, which is the primary
wine of the estate, and whose proportions of each grape
mirror those of the vineyard, is aged in one third new
French oak barrels for around two years, before spending a
further six months in the bottle before release.
It is immediately obvious as soon as one pours a glass of
Sassicaia, that this is no ordinary Tuscan wine; for obvious
reasons, its colour and bouquet are more redolent of a cru
classe claret, than a simple Chianti. This is borne out by
further investigation of our recommended vintage – the 2000
– which imparts strong aromas of meat, toffee and spice. On
the palate there is a fine structure, with strong, peppery
tannins and a notion of dark berries. There is certainly
plenty of power here, as evidenced by the long finish, but
it is polished and sophisticated and does not dominate the
experience.
The nearest comparison is perhaps a great Saint Estephe,
such as a Cos d’Estournel, but Sassicaia is more than just a
clone of one of the crus classe; the elegance, complexity
and classical balance may be the same, but Sassicaia is
somehow a brighter, slightly less introspective wine.
There can be few better ways of celebrating la dolce vita
than drinking a suitably aged bottle.
