Winemaker Notes
Blend: 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A dense, layered red with asphalt, berry and clove character. Figs too. Full body, chewy tannins and a juicy finish. Needs time to soften. Better in 2017.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Forever the superstar, the 2011 Bolgheri Superiore Guado al Tasso is a delicious wine that never holds back in terms of intensity and seamless integration. Every detail has been finessed. The blend is 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot. Each vineyard parcel is fermented separately to maintain varietal identity. The wine's appearance is dark and luscious with thick extraction and a vibrant dark garnet hue. Generous aromas of dark fruit, tobacco and chocolate lift steadily from the glass. The mouthfeel is soft and yielding with a great sense of tannic persistency that holds up the finish, which can be counted in many long minutes. Give this wine five years or more to fully evolve.
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Wine & Spirits
The 2011 Guado al Tasso is remarkably approachable for such a structured wine. Powerful yet refined tannins weave through flavors of blackberry, plum, black pepper, fennel and tobacco, providing structure without impeding flavor. The wine aged for 18 months in French oak barrels, including six months after blending. Silky and juicy, the flavors unfold in overlapping layers, spiraling upward with impressive energy and drive. Still fresh on the third day of tasting, this has a long life ahead even as it offers immense pleasure now.
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Wine Spectator
Inky in both color and flavor, with black currant and blackberry notes, this is pure and focused, with well-integrated tannins and a saturated finish echoing the fruit. Best from 2016 through 2024.
The Guado al Tasso Estate is located in the prestigious Bolgheri DOC, part of the Tuscan coastal area of Maremma, known for its untamed landscape and unspoiled beauty. Just 60 miles southwest of Florence, it sits on a magnificent plain in the heart of the Bolgheri amphitheater, a natural phenomenon created by hills that embrace the sea and produce a mild and temperate microclimate. Blessed with ample sunshine and constant breezes that take the edge off the summer heat and winter cold, Guado al Tasso is the ideal environment for cultivating healthy vine growth and proper ripening of the estate’s grapes. Inherited from Carlotta della Gherardesca, and revolutionized by Niccoló Antinori, the mother and father of Piero Antinori, Guado al Tasso is a reference point property in the life and history of the family. Here the challenge is to create wines of absolute excellence, always representative of the Bolgheri history, culture, and winemaking traditions.
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.