2009 SOLAIA ANTINORI - 6x75cl

Tasting Notes

• 

  Antonio Galloni, Jun 2012,
  Score: 96+

  The 2009 Solaia is one of the clear standouts of the vintage. Freshly cut flowers, raspberries, spices, mint and licorice burst from the glass as this fabulous, viscerally thrilling wine shows off its pure class. Today the oak is a bit prominent, but that won’t be an issue by the time the wine is ready to drink. In one of my blind tastings, the 2009 Solaia was flat-out great. There is no shortage of pedigree here. The 2009 has calmed down a little from its youth, when it was a much more exuberant wine, and has now begun to close down in bottle. Solaia is 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Sangiovese and 5% Cabernet Franc from a single parcel within the Antinori family’s Tignanello vineyard. Anticipated maturity: 2019-2029. Longtime winemaker Renzo Cotarella has done a fabulous job with the flagships Tignanello and Solaia in 2009. In my blind tastings the pedigree of those two wines in particular came through with notable eloquence. The 2010 Tignanello and Solaia are both thrilling at this stage. They could very well turn out even better than the 2009s. Readers may want to look at my short video on the 2010s from Antinori on our website. 96+/100 Drink: 2019 - 2029

Producer

Piero Antinori

The Antinori family has been making wine for over six hundred years, since Giovanni di Piero Antinori became part of the Arte Fiorentina dei Vinattieri in 1385 - they are possibly the oldest wine producers in the world. Throughout its long history, spanning 26 generations, the family has always personally managed the business making innovative choices, but always with unwavering respect for tradition and the land. Expanding all the while, this family's interests span several estates allowing them to offer wines from the best regions of tuscany. Their influence helped efect many changes that affected the quality of the whole region's wines. For example, in response to 15 years of difficult evolution, in which Piero plays a leading role, the Italian government overrules the old DOC regulations and introduces the DOCG del Chianti Classico. This new regulation is due to the huge improvements in the quality of Chianti: not only the reduction in the requirement of white grapes, and the authorisation of 10% of non-native grape varieties, but also in the reduction of production yields and (even more importantly, according to the Antinoris' concept of quality) yields per vine.