Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A white from the island of Giglio that shows so much depth and layers reminding me of top Burgundy. Full to medium body, polished and very long. Shows a class and uniqueness that only that island can deliver.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I adore this wine. Showing a light and brilliant golden-straw color with faint amber highlights, the 2015 Bugia is a strongly mineral-driven expression from the Giglio island off the Tuscan Coast. The spirit of this wine is greatly guided by marine sensations of powdered oyster shell, salt and white stone. There are distant hints of stone fruit and honeysuckle that add just enough sweetness to help this wine from being too dry and hollow. Bugia offers a dab of creaminess to ensure a lasting impression in the mouth. This is pure Ansonica from sandy soils overlooking the blue waters of the Mediterranean. It is aged in stainless steel with 10% in French oak. I would love to taste it again in five years.
Rating: 92+
There are hundreds of white grape varieties grown throughout the world. Some are indigenous specialties capable of producing excellent single varietal wines. Each has its own distinct viticultural characteristics, as well as aroma and flavor profiles.
One of the most iconic Italian regions for wine, scenery and history, Tuscany is the world’s most important outpost for the Sangiovese grape. Tuscan wine ranges in style from fruity and simple to complex and age-worthy, Sangiovese makes up a significant percentage of plantings here, with the white Trebbiano Toscano coming in second.
Within Tuscany, many esteemed wines have their own respective sub-zones, including Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. The climate is Mediterranean and the topography consists mostly of picturesque rolling hills, scattered with vineyards.
Sangiovese at its simplest produces straightforward pizza-friendly Tuscan wines with bright and juicy red fruit, but at its best it shows remarkable complexity and ageability. Top-quality Sangiovese-based wines can be expressive of a range of characteristics such as sour cherry, balsamic, dried herbs, leather, fresh earth, dried flowers, anise and tobacco. Brunello, an exceptionally bold Tuscan wine, expresses well the particularities of vintage variations and is thus popular among collectors. Chianti is associated with tangy and food-friendly dry wines at various price points. A more recent phenomenon as of the 1970s is the “Super Tuscan”—a red wine made from international grape varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Syrah, with or without Sangiovese. These are common in Tuscany’s coastal regions like Bolgheri, Val di Cornia, Carmignano and the island of Elba.