2018 TIGNANELLO ANTINORI - 6x75cl

Tasting Notes

• 

  Antonio Galloni, September 2021,
  Score: 97

  The 2018 Tignanello is every bit as impressive as it was when I last tasted it earlier in the year. Blood orange, spice, black cherry and mocha lend an alluring exotic character to a Tignanello that sizzles with tension and energy. Silky, creamy contours play off classically mid-weight structure. Beguiling and beautifully layered in the glass, the 2018 is a total knock-out. Drink 2028 - 2043

• 

  James Suckling, April 2021,
  Score: 96

  This is so aromatic with flowers, such as cherry blossoms and roses, together with currants and blackberries. A medium-bodied Tignanello with very fine tannins and depth. Racy and very, very long finish. Pure and refined. Lots of blue fruit. Tight at the end, but showing a sophisticated and reserved style. Very refined. Drinkable now, but will age nicely.

• 

  Decanter, November 2021,
  Score: 96

  Today producing 300,000 bottles annually, Tignanello was refined and refined through the years: blended with Cabernet Sauvignon since 1975, aged using less obvious oak management since 2000, handled in a more gentle way since 2010 using conical oak vessels... The classic 2018 vintage enhances, if possible, its restrained style. Tignanello is almost never fruity and this vintage shines for clove and black pepper aromas with blueberry yoghurt. Full, firm and velvety with great mid-palate weight and extraction, it shows long acidity which carries the exotic finish of spice and cocoa. A classic with a long life ahead. Drink 2021 - 2045

• 

  ML, May 2021,
  Score: 98

  This wine brought to mind precise imagery of tailcoats, striped dress pants, wingtip collar shirts and other gentlemen's fashion choices from the Roaring Twenties. Sporting a retro but classic personality, the Marchesi Antinori 2018 Tignanello is quite the dapper and jovial wine that hits the market just as much of the world is emerging from a dark chapter of lockdowns and coronavirus curfews. I love the optimism that springs bright with such clarity and detail from within this blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The 2016 vintage was a benchmark for sure, but I prefer the 2018, thanks to that tinge of nostalgia or emotion that is so deftly rendered in this cool, long growing season. The 2018 vintage offers a deconstructed Tignanello upon first inspection because you can clearly make out the varietal typicity of the grapes, especially the green spice and white pepper of the two Cabernets, along with aromas of crushed limestone that recall the white rocks carefully placed in the vineyards to protect the rows. The wine's fruit weight is contained and polished, and there are no exaggerations, excesses or loose ends. The results are calculated and exacting, especially if you consider the tannic management (with aging in both new and used Hungarian and French oak for up to 16 months) and the quality of the elegant mouthfeel. With time in the glass, those deconstructed elements converge to create unity and balance. The Tignanello vineyard is 57 hectares and sits at a breezy 390 meters above sea level with alberese and galestro soils. Those elevations proved important for shedding excess humidity at the end of this 2018 growing season. Production for this excellent wine is an impressive 345,000 bottles. Drink 2023 - 2045

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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.