Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia 2019
1969 witnessed the debut of Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia, a wine that at the time, broke away from the standard way of making Tuscan Wine and garnered international acclaim. The name "Sassicaia" meaning "place of many stones," reflects the stony soil which it comes from, reminiscent of the Médoc region in France. Since its inception Sassicaia has become recognised as one of the world's finest Cabernet Sauvignon wines. Notably, Tenuta San Guido made history by being the first single wine to be granted its own Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) status. The wines of Tenuta San Guido are celebrated for their intense notes of cassis, coupled with a cedary elegance, and are renowned for their extraordinary power and length. This combination of factors has solidified Tenuta San Guido's position as a pinnacle of quality and prestige in the world of fine wine. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc the wine was placed in French oak barriques and a small part in American oak, where it was aged for a period between 20 and 25 months.
"The bouquet is up front and very expressive from the get-go. It offers a generous display of crunchy, dark cherry that hints at the extra concentration and fruit weight obtained in the 2019 growing season. This vintage will be remembered for the crisp richness of the fruit and its important textural imprint. It also shows fine elegance, bordering on the ethereal, with berry aromas, tarry earth and brushes of balsam herb or grilled rosemary. Sassicaia always shows an almost-glossy finely knit quality to the polished mouthfeel, and I find it again here next to fresh acidity and firm tannins. Mouthfeel in 2019 is the wine's strongest suit. The 2019 is one of the prettiest and most balanced editions of Sassicaia we've seen this past decade, along with the back-to-back duo of 2016 and 2015. The 2019 marries the precision of the 2016 with the rich fruit weight of the 2015. - Drink 2025 - 2055" - Monica Larner, Wine Advocate (January 2022)
