Professional Ratings

• 95 Jeb Dunnuck
  From a cooler, more challenging vintage, the 2014 Ornellaia is nevertheless a beautiful wine. Based on 34% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 20% Petit Verdot, and the rest Cabernet Franc brought up in 70% new oak, it has classy cassis and black cherry fruits as well as notes of saddle leather, dried flowers, and spicy oak. While it doesn't have the wealth of material found in the 2015 and 2016, it has solid mid-palate depth, beautiful balance, and a great finish. It's a classy, seamless Ornellaia to enjoy over the coming 15+ years or more.
• 95 James Suckling
  Very floral and fresh with dark berry, lemon rind and hints of cloves and spice. Medium to full body, firm and silky tannins and a pretty finish of fruit, smoke, toasted oak and more spice. Better in 2019. Outstanding for the vintage.
• 95 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
  Tasted as a preview sample, the 2014 Bolgheri Superiore Ornellaia shows a level of sophistication and generosity that, frankly speaking, I did not expect from this vintage. This wine far exceeds my expectations and merits special attention. This vintage of Ornellaia offers unique assets that you don't often see in past editions. There's a level of sharpness and brightness that is linked to the wine's balanced acidity and its overall prominence. That freshness is more immediate against the streamlined nature of the background fruit and overall extraction. Rather than presenting itself as a horizontal wine (with so much complexity that hits you at once), this vintage reveals a delicately vertical approach in which each unique perfume is presented in slow succession. The good news is that the wine will definitely flesh out before its commercial release next spring.
  Barrel Sample: 93-95 Points
• 91 Decanter
  This was one of the most challenging vintages ever in Tuscany, with no exception in Bolgheri. The wine doesn’t lack its characteristic cassis fruit but it shows a leathery, slightly gamey forest-floor complexity of a more immediate style for drinking. Plum and clove flavours are sustained by grainy tannins with a slightly green finish, accompanied by balancing acidity and relatively low alcohol at 13.5%.
• 91 Wine Enthusiast
  Toast, underbrush, tobacco leaf and cassis aromas lead the nose. Reflecting the cool wet vintage, the palate is austere and lighter bodied than usual but still elegant, offering raw cherry, pomegranate, licorice and ground pepper alongside tight close-grained tannins. Give the tannins several more years to unwind.
• 90 Wine Spectator
  Starts out with aromas of black currant and cherry, followed by flavors of herb, tobacco, iron and spice. Turns dense and tannic in the end. Elegant and complex overall, but this needs to resolve the tannins and integrate the oak. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. Best from 2018 through 2025.