.. clickety click '66', two fat ladies & a Sassicaia 2023

Yes folks, it´s that time of year that our friends over there in Bolgheri send us their latest tasty taster of their last bottled vintage of Tenuta San Guido´s Sassicaia. The 2024 and 2025 vintages are still in barrel, thank goodness, I am told. So we pour ourselves a thimble of 2023 vintage and here it goes….

”These vintages do happen now and again, it really is a classic.” Priscilla Incisa della Rocchetta on her Sassicaia 2023

“It was a classic season like the 2021,” explained Priscilla, who said that, since the unpopular style of the 1990s (the first I had heard of this one as I rather like their 1994/95/96/97/98), the estate was making Sassicaia in a more elegant style, “we had the challenge of rain and, with that, mildew attack, but then we had a nice long growing season, followed by a nice-paced harvest, these vintages do happen now and again, so it really is a classic.” The rain earlier on in the season helped mitigate July’s high temperatures as did ventilation and canopy protection measures. Rain from the west in August helped slow technical ripening to the benfit of phelonic development.

In a word this wine is ‘stunning’. Dark ruby red; the aromas are seductive and hugely complex. Certainly you can detect many layers with dark fruit, flower petals, fresh Mediterranean herbs and spices taking turns to shine. The wine starts fresh, elegant, floral and then has darker more savoury notes as the wine spends time in the glass. In the mouth it is fresh, elegant, incredibly smooth and fluid, perfect ripeness with the underlying structure and pixilated tannins starting to take hold, almost imperceptibly, the finish is long and chalky. I can’t remember the last vintage that was so immediately approachable with everything in perfect balance and harmony. Amazing! The blend is 87% Cabernet Sauvignon & 13% Cabernet Franc, ageing took place for 24 months in barriques (40% new) before another 3-6 months in bottle.

The boys over in Wine Spectatorland have already given this yougstein of a Tuscan Coastal Cabernet Sauvignon  the perfect  100 point score. Everyone to their own eh! The same happened in 2016, I always preferred, to date, their 2015 but then again who am I? The moment the wine ´expert´ over there start comparing the famous 1985 Sassicaia to anything then after that gains 100/100 seems totally bonkers to me. Those 1985 Super Tuscans also included back then where the Solaia, Ornellaia and Tignanello. Ground breaking wines, it was a totally new programme and quite simply knocked everyone’s sox off. Still does if you can find a bottle or two. Today, things have changed. It’s all a bit more commercial and of course the wine is still crackingly good but the difference between making & bottling Sassicaia back then was to fill two to 3.000 bottles (vintage depending). Today they manage to bottle a massive 280.000 bottles for this 2023 vintage.

Next month, March 2026, I am doing a Sassicaia retropsective, of 10 vintages to see what happened during this decade. We will taste the 2014 Sassicaia all the way to 2023 Sassicaia. Nibbles in between and I promise to keep you posted with the news….as of today there are 10 places at the table (two have gone, so we are twelve pax and a pourer in total). 

Reservations: william@worldwineconsultants.com

Welcome Sassicaia Freaks!

‘2023 Sassicaia is truly exceptional’ writes Monica Larner ‘Like the legendary 1985, 2023 was a difficult and stressful vintage shaped by a cold winter, yet it stands as proof that great pressure can indeed give birth to diamonds.’ Sassicaia is one of Italy’s greatest wines, the category-defining Super Tuscan with its own personal appellation (Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC). The 1985 vintage of Sassicaia became the first Italian wine ever to score 100 points in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, and from similarly challenging conditions the 2023 vintage has now repeated the 100 point trick. (her words not mine)

 As you may know already but I will remind you here, that before it was famous for wine, the Tenuta San Guido estate was famous for purebred horses. Italian and international champion racehorses hailed from the stud farm that still thrives to this day. The first Cabernet vines were planted at Tenuta San Guido in the 1940s, when the Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta spotted the similarities in terroir between Bolgheri and the Graves in Bordeaux. The first commercial release of Sassicaia (1968 vintage) saw it take the wine world by storm. In 2023, a vintage that looked tricky on paper with frost and spring rains was entirely redeemed by a parched summer and of course not to mention the brilliant good work of a top vineyard team. As Monica Larner notes in her report,  2023 Sassicaia is ‘a magnificent wine that excels in intensity, focus and balance.’ 

We will be receiving the 2023 vintage allocation at London City Bond VT (Eaton Park) in the Spring/Summer of 2026:

2023 Sassicaia Tenuta San Guido, Bolgheri, DOC
– Bottles @ GBP250bt
– Magnums @ GBP750mg
– Double Magnum @ GBP1.850dbl/mg

1985 Sassicaia Tenuta San Guido, Bolgheri (before DOC)
– 1 bottle @ £3.750bt (in stock today*)

Orders: william@worldwineconsultants.com

”Los Nibbles”