Winemaker Notes
Outstanding served with roasted or grilled red meat, lamb, polenta, mushroom risotto and semi-hard cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is polished and beautiful with flower, dark fruit and stone character. Full body, integrated tannins and a refined and persistent finish. Some black truffle character in the aftertaste. Classy wine. Cabernet and sangiovese. Better in 2015.
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Wine Spectator
This balanced, harmonious red delivers black cherry and blackberry flavors, along with earth, leather and tobacco accents. Firm and taut, yet fresh, with a hint of mineral. Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. Drink now through 2025.
Disenchanted with Italian winemaking laws in the 1970s, a few rebellious Tuscan winemakers decided to get creative. Instead of following tradition, to bottle Sangiovese by itself, they started blending it with international varieties, namely Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah in differing proportions and with amazing success. However, some Tuscan Blends don’t even include Sangiovese. Somm Secret—The suffix –aia in Italian modifies a word in much the same way –y acts in English. For example, a place with many stones (sassi) becomes Sassicaia. While not all Super Tuscan producer names end in –aia, they all share a certain coy nomenclature.
With recorded history of red wine production since the Middle Ages, Carmignano is a small, ancient, central Italian subregion ten miles northwest of Florence. Carmignano grows Sangiovese with great success in low-lying hills of 160 to 650 feet above sea level.
It is the only Tuscan DOC that required the inclusion of (up to 20%) Cabernet Sauvignon in its Sangiovese-based wines years before it became popular in the Super Tuscan blends.