Ornellaia

The 1996 Ornellaia comes from the last stretch of the Antinori years, made under Tibor Gál, the winemaker Lodovico Antinori brought in at the founding, with Michel Rolland consulting, and before Robert Mondavi took his first stake in the estate in 1999. It is a Bolgheri Superiore of 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc by the estate's own vintage sheet, with no Petit Verdot that year.

The sheet describes a cool spring that delayed flowering to the last week of May, a stable summer without excessive heat, rain around mid August that slowed ripening, and a marked warm-up in early September that let the grapes ripen fully. The Merlot was picked by hand between 8 and 12 September, the Cabernets from 29 September to 9 October, with the fruit arriving in excellent condition.

The grapes were destemmed and crushed, then fermented partly in medium-sized wooden vats and partly in stainless steel, at no more than 30 C, with 25 to 32 days on the skins. The wine went into French barriques, 60% new and 40% second passage, where it completed malolactic. Each variety and each parcel was aged apart for 18 months, then blended and given a further period in bottle, twelve months by the English sheet, before release. A few kilometres from Sassicaia, from a cellar that answered the neighbour with more Merlot, more new oak and a longer maceration.