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Tasting notes
This firmly structured, medium weight, restrained example of Sassicaia exhibits an impressive deep, dark ruby color, and a perfumed, super-ripe nose of black fruits and toasty vanillin from aging in new oak casks. In the mouth there is excellent concentration, crisp acidity, and plenty of tannin, glycerin, and alcohol in the admirable finish. Though it is neither as multi-dimensional nor concentrated as the other-worldly 1985, nor as opulent as the 1982, it is, nevertheless, another brilliant example of what heights Cabernet Sauvignon can achieve in the soils of Tuscany. Wine Advocate.August, 1992
Critic scores
Average Score
Robert Parker
Monica Larner, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
The 1988 Sassicaia is among the most interesting wines made in this decade, although it does not surpass the high-performing 1986, 1985, 1984 and 1982 editions. The bouquet opens to savory tones of barbecue smoke and mesquite wood with cured meat, beef jerky and even a touch of white chocolate. The oak element is evident and has never fully integrated, despite the many years of beauty rest this wine has accrued in the sleepy cellars of Tenuta San Guido. Those exotic hickory or cedar wood characteristics give this wine unique definition. This was a very hot vintage and you can feel the weight of that ripe fruit. I have shortened the drinking window accordingly. Apr 2017, www.robertparker.com
About the producer
Tentuta San Guido produces Sassicaia – Italy’s most famous wine. An icon from the Bolgheri coastline of Tuscany, made from Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, its rise to prominence in the late 1970s sparked the Super Tuscan revolution.