2020 Tenuta San Guido Le Difese

In the 1920s, as a student in Pisa, Marquis Mario Incisa della Rocchetta already dreamed of creating a 'noble' wine. Like most Italian aristocrats of the time, he had a pronounced fondness for fine Bordeaux wines. After taking up residence in their estate in Tenuta San Guido on the Mediterranean coast with his wife, Clarice, he experimented with different French grape varieties. His conclusion was straightforward: 'the bouquet I was looking for', I found in the Cabernet. A wine with Cabernet Sauvignon as the main component marked a radical reversal of the traditional Tuscan and Piedmontese Sangiovese and Nebbiolo varieties. No one had ever considered making a wine according to the Bordeaux approach on Italian soil, and certainly not in an area that has (until now) had no foothold in the wine universe.

Apart from the bouquet of the Cabernet Sauvignon, the decision to plant the vine variety at Tenuta San Guido was influenced by the strong similarities between the Tuscan village and the Graves region of Bordeaux. 'Graves' is the French word for 'gravel'. Sassicaia, meaning 'stone-strewn ground' in Tuscan dialect, thus owes its name to the soil conditions of Tenuta San Guido. Every year a small number of caskets were kept in the cellars of Castiglioncello. The Marquis discovered that as the years passed, the quality of the wine improved rapidly. As is often the case with wines of great provenance, what was initially considered a defect turns out to be one of the great qualities with the passage of time. Soon his friends and relatives urged him to persevere in his passion and perfect this revolutionary style of winemaking. In 1965 he planted two additional vineyards with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.

Today Sassicaia is known as one of the most prominent red wines in all of Italy. Together with Ornellaia from Tenuta dell'Ornellaia, it is the most sought after wine in Tuscany! A salient detail is the fact that some of the vineyards of Tenuta dell'Ornellaia come from Tenuta San Guido. Tenuta dell'Ornellaia, once founded by Ludovico Antinori (the brother of Piero Antinori and both cousin of Mario Incisa della Rocchetta), bought its first vineyards from the Marquis (!) Now world famous, Tenuta San Guido is now part of the group 'Primum Familiae Vini', which stands for 'the best wine families'. Other members include Bodegas y Viñedos Vega-Sicilia, Antinori, Château Mouton-Rothschild and Perrin & Fils of Château de Beaucastel.

Tenuta San Guido's Le Difese is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese. The vineyards of Le Difese are located in the Maremma, near between Cecina and Bolgheri, near the Mediterranean Sea. Tehuta San Guido has made the town of Bolgheri so famous. The grapes are picked by hand and carefully sorted. After the harvest, the first fermentation takes place in stainless steel vats, with the grape skins remaining in the must. The wine is aged in these stainless steel vats for a period of 12 months. The wine then matures further in French and American oak barriques for a period of 12 months, before being bottled. The wine has a beautiful garnet-red color and is medium bodied. The Le Difese has nice notes of blueberries and blackberry followed by cherries and cranberry. The Le Difese (Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese) is a smooth and modern wine with beautiful fruit scents of blueberries and cherries supported by Mediterranean herbs. This medium bodied wine has a good balance between fruit and acidity and is silky smooth with a long aftertaste/sense of freshness which keeps the wine lively in the mouth and is gastronomically a great wine with pasta dishes or a good (homemade) pizza.