2020 Sassicaia
Buying options
Tasting notes
This is a gorgeous wine – offering immediacy and exoticism. The nose is expressive with incense, cigar-box, perfume, cedar and sweet, dark spice aromas that waft from the glass. The palate follows with a rich velveteen flow of intense and opulent fruit – concentrated dark berries with a bright, crunchy freshness to it. Despite the initial openness, there’s focus here, the wine tightening up with its tight core of fruit, revealing its potential on a long, smoky and savoury finish. It’s amazingly drinkable now, but will only offer more over the next decade or two.
Critic scores
Average Score
Monica Larner, Wine Advocate
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Made with difficulty from the lockdown vintage. Luscious fruit with balsam notes. Lots of pleasure and potential here. (JR)
Lustrous youthful ruby. Balsamic and deep and less lifted than 2021. Just hints of cigar box. Slumbering cherry with hints of cassis. Lush but not rich palate with a good dose of acidity, elegant and vibrant with well-judged sandy tannins building a real unity. Elegant, sleek and fresh. (WS)
Both gourmet and restrained, and like all great wines there is a sense of contrast, of being enveloped by what is happening on your tastebuds while also being woken up by a lick of fresh acidities. Grilled butterscotch on the nose, with balsamic, fleshy raspberry and blackberry fruits, roses, olive pit, baking spice, rosemary, red liqourice, such a stunning, concentrated core, very different to the 2019 in character, both exceptional. Carlo Paoli director, 50% new oak for ageing after a cool spring then hot mid summer and end of season.
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.