Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia 2019

Mario Incisa della Rocchetta planted Cabernet Sauvignon on the Castiglioncello hill in 1944 — decades before French varieties were accepted in Tuscany — and aged the wine in French barriques at a time when the practice was virtually unknown in Italy. The wine remained a private family project until the commercial debut of the 1968 vintage, making Sassicaia the origin point of the entire Super Tuscan movement and the only wine in Italy to hold a single-estate DOC appellation.

The estate's plots — Castiglioncello, Aia Nuova, Cerreta, and others — sit between 100 and 400 m a.s.l. on soils of calcareous marl, gabbro, alberese, and the stony pebble deposits that give the wine its name (sasso = stone). The Tyrrhenian Sea to the west and the Bibbona–Castagneto hill amphitheatre channel cooling summer breezes that preserve acidity and aromatic precision.

The 2019 was fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel at ≤28–29°C using estate-selected indigenous yeasts; malolactic fermentation completed spontaneously in steel. The wine then aged 24 months in French oak barriques (Tronçais, Allier, Jupilles; extra-fine grain, light toast, long seasoning) in a split of approximately 40% new, 40% first-fill, 20% second-fill. The blend is 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc, harvested just before full phenolic ripeness to preserve fragrance and restrain alcohol.

Unlike Bolgheri peers who soften structure with Merlot, Sassicaia holds a Graves-like austerity — graphite and Mediterranean garrigue over cassis, framed by fine-grained tannins and bracing acidity rather than fruit weight. The estate describes 2019 as a near-ideal growing season of great phenolic and acidic balance; drinking window 2026–2052.