2020 Bibi Graetz Colore

The Colore is the flagship and top model Bibi Graetz and is actually a single vineyard wine as more than 90% of the grapes come from old vines (these are majestic plants from 80 to 135 years old) at a high altitude in the Lamole where Bibi has five hectares. farms. The addition of Colorino to this Sangiovese-based wine has been reduced to just 5% in this 2018 vintage: "Like a touch of lipstick, it gives the extra touch," says Bibi. The Colore is a wine with structure and backbone with intense red berries, red cherry, ferruginous earth, crushed flowers and some of the fragrant spices. What an intense aromas of cherries and raspberries which change in the glass with time into flowers, roses and orange peel. This is really full and powerful with layers of ripe tannins.with a beautiful length and intensity.

The Colore is a wine made with traditional Tuscan grapes sourced from some of the region's oldest and rarest vineyards. The Sangiovese represent the structure and power of the wine and the Colorino grape gives velvety tannins. Only the best few barrels of the entire production become Colore. The grapes used for Colore come mainly from the Lamole vineyard (90%), with a little from Vincigliata located in Siena. Each vineyard has been harvested up to 8 times and the grapes are hand-harvested one at a time at the correct ripeness point. After the first selection in the vineyard, a second selection takes place at the winery before de-stalking. The berries were gently pressed at this stage and placed in open-topped barriques, with utmost care being taken to keep each lot separate. The fermentation is carried out by indigenous natural yeasts (i.e. the yeasts on the grape) with 6 to 8 manual pushdowns per day, without temperature control for 2 weeks with 1 additional week of maceration on the skins. After fermentation, the wine is moved to new barriques, where malolactic fermentation takes place. The wine ages for 3 years before it becomes available.

Give the Bibi Graetz Colore Sagiovese time to hatch and open fully and our advice is not to open until around 2023, although it would be a lot of fun to try development with a Coravin . The Colore 2020 is extremely pure. Red and black cherry, strawberry, orange and tangerine. Clear mineral too. Very deep, not heavy at all. Energetic, cleansing tannin structure. Still subdued at the moment, but very promising. The very long finish betrays the long future.