2022 Bolgheri Superiore

Full bottle 1,347 g. 46% Merlot, 43% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Cabernet Franc. There is usually a bit less Cabernet Franc in the blend but 2022 was an incredibly challenging vintage (hot and very, very dry) so they didn’t produce Vintaglio and the Cab Franc that would have gone into Vintaglio was given to the Superiore to give the wine a bit more freshness. Fermented in concrete tanks and tronconic steel tanks. This is the year that winemaker Nico Carrara says he fell in love with concrete – it was their first vintage with the 12 new concrete tanks they’d just installed, and when the Merlot came in, Carrara put half of it in stainless steel to ferment and the other half in concrete to ferment. The difference, he tells me, was night and day. The wine finished fermentation, and in concrete it tasted relaxed, clean, beautiful, almost ready to drink! In stainless steel it tasted like ti had just finished fermenting: ‘confused, showing reduction, needed racking and more intervention to get it to show the vineyard and any finesse’. It spends 12 to 14 (maximum) months in wood and then is blended and rests in stainless steel. After bottling they hold it back one year before release. What is remarkable is how little this wine reflects the trauma of 2022. Perhaps it’s the elegance of the Cab Franc from the Ventaglio vineyard, perhaps it was the irrigation (which, says Carrara, literally saved the vineyards and vintage), perhaps it was the changes they’ve been making to their viticultural practices, perhaps it was the concrete tanks – or all of the above. But what is certain is that the fruit is fresh and bright and shining – no cooked fruit, no heft or clunkiness, no heat. The tannins are firm but supple, limber, becoming more urgent and sensuous as the wine opens. It tastes of dark cherries, cassis, blueberry sweetness, vanilla pod, cassia bark, juniper. The acidity is a drawstring, gently pulling the finish in towards wild cherry on the fragrant end. (TC)