Sassicaia

By 1996 Sassicaia had the rarest prize in Italian wine, an appellation of its own. The Bolgheri DOC's Sassicaia sub-zone, a single-estate zone created in 1994, is the one this vintage wears, and the estate's own sheets carry the DOC heading from the 1993. The blend is Cabernet Sauvignon with Cabernet Franc, in what the trade lists as the usual 85/15 split; the estate itself names the two grapes without percentages.

The estate remembers 1996 as a year that was not particularly favourable in Italy, with the Tuscan coast among the exceptions. A mild winter with normal rain left a good water supply and spring came somewhat early, mild and sunny. A sudden drop in temperature at the end of April thinned the crop naturally, then late summer turned cooler, with occasional rain that stretched the ripening and brought good day-night swings. Picking ran from 16 September to about mid October, with high sugars and good polyphenols.

In the cellar nothing was hurried. The wine fermented in stainless steel at around 30 C with about two weeks on the skins, pump-overs and delestages, and went through malolactic in steel. On 22 October it went into barriques, half new and half second passage, and stayed there about 22 months. It was then lightly fined with egg white, bottled without filtration and rested six months in glass before release. Farr Vintners quotes Wine Spectator's figure of 13,000 cases. Giacomo Tachis, the man who had shaped the wine since the first commercial vintage, was still the consulting enologist.