Where is sassicaia made

As an agronomist, Mario Incisa helped the property thrive with fruit, vegetables and other agricultural products including incredible tulips that even turned the heads of the Dutch. Eventually, it was the turn of grapes. Now, growing up in a noble family, Mario Incisa had tasted a lot of wine from Bordeaux, which he loved. It was therefore only a matter of time before he turned his attentions to winemaking.

This was not the wine Mario Incisa wanted to make; he wanted to create a fine Bordeaux — only at home, in Tuscany and to hell with what teh rules said in the D. He set about studying what made the wines of Bordeaux so good.

Was it the grapes? The soil? The climate? Or was it something else entirely? Back in Italy after studying Bordeaux in depth, he realised that the position of his vineyards needed to be more inland, slightly higher up and on stony soil, like much of the left bank of Bordeaux.

He found the perfect spot in the hills of Castiglioncello di Bolgheri: a family lookout, surrounded by forest and with a stunning view over area. He planted his first vines here at m above sea level, facing east and 15km away from the sandy soils by the Tyrrhenian sea. The first vintage of Sassicaia was officially bottled in , but it was not much like how it tastes today. Mario Incisa experimented for a few more years before deciding he needed help from a proper oenologist, so he looked to their cousins, the Antinori family, and spoke to their oenologist Giacomo Tachis.

The rest happened impressively quickly. Giacomo continued to work with Sassicaia, completing his final vintage in He died in and will forever be known as the man who kick started the Italian wine renaissance. Sassicaia is still their flagship wine, but the family wanted to produce something to that could be drunk while they waited for it to mature. The name of this wine is today a celeb, but how many of you know its story? The main character of this story is Mario Incisa della Rocchetta , a man with noble origins from Piedmont, who decided to move in Bolgheri Tuscany in the second post-war period to marry Clarice, who brought as marriage settlement hectares of land and about 10 small farms.

In Bolgheri the dream of Mario Incisa della Rocchetta became true. He was very fond of horses and wines, especially French wines. So he decided to use is knowledge in vine-growing and agricolture to create a masterpiece wine: Sassicaia.

The "Tenuta San Guido" was born as a prestigious horse farm the celeb horse Ribot spent a time there. Around , Mario Incisa della Rocchetta, a man of a singular vision, understood the vocation of this land of Bolgheri to produce a great wine, able to compete with the rich and structured french red wine of Bordeaux. He noticed a similarity with the pebbly soil of Bolgheri, and the Graves in Bordeaux, where cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc gave great results.

So he decided to make this experiment: he planted a few of cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc vines to produce an Italian wine using the Bordeaux cut.

In he bottled the first bottles of Sassicaia, used at the beginning only as the wine of the family not commercialised. Sassicaia is born as a table wine. The Marchese made a non-traditional wine from these non-traditional grapes planted on a non-traditional site. The wine, Sassicaia, which Incisa made for his family and friends, was aged in non-traditional French barriques — small French oak barrels — not the classic old Slavonian oak casks preferred by Tuscan producers.

The winemaker since is Graziana Grassini, one of the most important winemakers in all of Italy. Teunta San Guido is still owned by the noble Incisa della Rocchetta family. Learn more about the wines of Italy with our Italian wine programs and workshops.