Aromatic, silky and spicy, this Guado al Tasso complements its ultra rich blue and black fruit with fresh-cut herbs, espresso, dark chocolate and a touch of licorice and earth. The palate almost shimmers with energy as it builds to a powerful finish, leaving a trail of fine-grained tannins in its wake. Sunny, dry, and warm, the growing year of 2012 made for a very genial yet superbly balanced Guado al Tasso. A blend of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, 18% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot, the 2012 Guado al Tasso is a thoughtful mix where each constituent grape adds something, but there’s no question that the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. Antinori ferments each parcel separately, blending the mix after a year of aging; after blending, the wine ages for six months in barriques before bottling. The child of a warm vintage, this ’12 is approachable early, but it will also develop beautifully in the cellar.
- Country: Italy
- Region: Toscana
Some nurture particularly close family ties, and a business serves as a traditional medium for honoring one’s heritage. With respect to the Antinori and della Rocchetta families, however, viticultural genius truly seems to run in the family, rendering their Bolgheri triptych—Tenuta San Guido (Sassicaia: Mario Incisa della Rocchetta); Tenuta dell’Ornellaia (Ornellaia & Masseto: Lodovico Antinori); and Guado al Tasso (Guado al Tasso: Piero Antinori) a powerful evocation of a wine dynasty. While Piero was technically the last of the family to enter Bolgheri’s Maremma, Guado al Tasso formally established his claim to the Maremma, as it was founded upon land inherited by his mother, Carlotta della Gherardesca Antinori, whose family had a long-standing presence in the region. It is also significant to note that Sassicaia, the premiere Super-Tuscan, effectually served as the philosophical foundation of Antinori’s Tignanello, as brothers Piero and Lodovico (prior to their split [in 1985]), sent Giacomo Tachis to direct the vinification of Sassicaia. Their experience directly informed Tignanello’s conception, validating the application of the Bordeaux model to Italian wine.
|
