Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot opens with aromas of Mediterranean brush, black-skinned berry and tobacco. The concentrated palate offers blackberry jam, licorice and mocha alongside fine-grained tannins. Drink 2022–2030.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Bolgheri Superiore boasts more precision than the 2015, which was a hot vintage noted for being ripe and soft. This one is much more linear and focused. It is sharper and better, and came out as the winner in this group of samples from Campo alle Comete (tasted over the course of two tasting sessions six months apart). You get a lot of dark fruit intensity here with ripe and balanced flavors that span the aromatic continuum from black fruit to spice. My second tasting of the wine showed how much it has fleshed out and taken on volume over the course of those months. The blend is 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot. Some 14,000 bottles were made. This is the first vintage made entirely by Campo alle Comete's new owners.
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Wine Spectator
A broad, ripe style, exhibiting plum, blackberry, tar, wild herb and tobacco flavors. Exuberant, with everything in the right proportions, ending with a long aftertaste of fruit, earth and spice. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Best from 2022 through 2038.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
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.