Winemaker Notes
Deep ruby red color. The nose reveals hints of ripe red fruits with spicy notes of licorice and cocoa. On the palate is full, ample, with smooth and silky tannins.
Blend: 95% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Merlot
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A lush version, this red delivers ripe black cherry, blackberry, plum and toasty oak flavors. The solid structure is nicely integrated, wrapped in the fleshy texture, while the fruit and spice notes play out on the long finish. Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Drink now through 2028.
With generous fruit and supple tannins, Merlot is made in a range of styles from everyday-drinking to world-renowned and age-worthy. Merlot is the dominant variety in the wines from Bordeaux’s Right Bank regions of St. Emilion and Pomerol, where it is often blended with Cabernet Franc to spectacular result. Merlot also frequently shines on its own, particularly in California’s Napa Valley. Somm Secret—As much as Miles derided the variety in the 2004 film, Sideways, his prized 1961 Château Cheval Blanc is actually a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
An outstanding wine region made famous by Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta, who planted Cabernet Sauvignon vines for his own consumption in 1940s on his San Guido estate, and called the resulting wine, Sassicaia. Today the region’s Tuscan reds are based on Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, which can be made as single varietal wines or blends. The local Sangiovese can make up no more than 50% of the blends. Today Sassicaia has its own DOC designation within the Bogheri DOC appellation.