Are Super-Tuscans Still Super? | Food & Wine - 0 views
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What was the taste that these wines, made all over the place from all kinds of grapes, could be expected to share? Was it really place—or its absence—that was the trouble with Super-Tuscans, or was it something else?
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yonq2k on 31 Jan 12her answer is not place but people (winemaker)
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In Chianti Classico, the hills can be quite steep, while in coastal Maremma it’s all flat maritime plains, though both are bisected by the same narrow roads.
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of all the 2001 wines, the only one he’d bought so far was Redigaffi, the Super-Tuscan Merlot from Tua Rita winery. "I think it’s a very sexy expression of Merlot," Scott explained
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the founder of Castello dei Rampolla, the late Alceo di Napoli Rampolla, was one of the region’s great Bordeaux varietal pioneers, having planted his first Cabernet Sauvignon vines some 30 years ago—grafted off vines from Château Lafite Rothschild.
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his two Super-Tuscans, Sammarco (first created in 1980) and Vigna d’Alceo (launched in 1996)
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Alceo’s son, Luca di Napoli Rampolla
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The 2002 vintage was considered very difficult throughout Tuscany. "We didn’t produce a d’Alceo, so our basic Chianti was mostly Cabernet from that vineyard,
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As far as I knew, a predominantly Cabernet wine still wasn’t legal. How had Luca gotten his Chianti approved? It was easy, Luca replied with a smile. "They didn’t ask what was in it and we didn’t say." Besides, he added "It was a very good wine."
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Sammarco (a Cabernet and Sangiovese blend that was one of the first Super- Tuscans)
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Though nearly 11 years old, the wine was still quite youthful and bright, with a lively acidity. It didn’t taste like a Napa Cab—the acidity was too high—nor for that matter like a wine from Bordeaux. Were we experiencing the taste of Tuscany, or simply the vision of Alceo?
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Giovanni said. "We want our wines to taste of Bolgheri." (Had he heard the criticism that Super- Tuscans lacked a sense of place?)
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Giovanni Folonari is from one of Italy’s oldest winemaking families—the Folonaris have been producing wine since the 1700s.
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crisp, refreshing 2005 Bolgheri Vermentino
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Tenuta San Guido, producer of Sassicaia, a Cabernet blend created in 1948 (1968 was the first public vintage)
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Marchese Nicolò Incisa della Rocchetta (the son of the winery’s founder, Mario Incisa della Rocchetta)
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eight-pointed Sassicaia star set into raised wood on the cellar doors
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The Marchese also favored a less opulent style of wine that is quite different from most Super-Tuscans today, which tend to be bigger, more extracted, more ripe
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2003 pleasant but lacking in depth; the 2005 was much bigger and richer; but overall I preferred the as-yet-unreleased 2004—a structured and elegant wine
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Created in 1981 by Marchese Lodovico Antinori (brother of Piero Antinori and cousin of Nicolò Incisa)
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Lodovico’s competitive answer to his cousin’s Sassicaia and his older brother’s Cabernet-based Solaia (whose first vintage debuted two years earlier)
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Masseto, which had its first vintage in 1987, is an all-Merlot wine inspired by no less a bottling than Château Pétrus, which in great vintages it is said to equal.
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Sassicaia tends to be structured and even austere while Ornellaia is softer, more approachable in its youth.
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Tenuta dell’ Ornellaia (purchased by the Frescobaldi family about two years ago) was surrounded by a barbed-wire-topped fence and put me in mind of a white-collar prison.
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San Quentin State Prison along with winery visits in Napa and Sonoma.
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Heinz had been the winemaker in Château La Dominique in St-Émilion before taking the job
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Masseto from the unmemorable 2002 vintage was, according to Heinz, "completely sold out" though a taste of it revealed a wine that was pleasant enough but without the richness, the depth and the texture of the previous vintage, or for that matter, the 2003 or the monumental 2004.
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Riserva Rancia is consistently one of the best Chiantis in the world.
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Maestro Raro, a Cabernet wine, and the all-Sangiovese wine Fontalloro
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Giuseppe Mazzocolin and acclaimed winemaking consultant Franco Bernabei.
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Fontalloro isn’t a "cult" Super-Tuscan (for one thing, at about $50 a bottle its price is too low), as it’s subtle and slow to reveal itself, although it ages beautifully, gaining in richness and texture.
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These wines are not just the story of a vineyard or a grape but the story of a people who created something that is unique.
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Manetti refused to add white grapes to his wine as dictated by the law back in the 1970s. Instead, he created a 100 percent Sangiovese in 1976 that he called Le Pergole Torte.
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voluptuous Masseto to the earthy, minerally Redigaffi to the astonishingly elegant yet powerful 1998 Messorio
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Super-Tuscans were never about a place or a particular terroir but instead were wines born of a vision, an individual’s resistance to the status quo. And the wines that retained the integrity of that original vision—wines like Redigaffi, d’Alceo, Masseto, Fontalloro and a few others—were still highly sought-after, still very good.
