Additional Information
| Goes well with | Beef, Duck, Game, Roast Chicken, Roast meats, Roast Turkey |
|---|---|
| Country/Region | Italy, Italy/Tuscany |
| Grape type | Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sangiovese |
| Drinking style | Big, bold, powerful |
Details
What exactly is Solaia? It's a Cabernet-based blend made from the Solaia vineyard (about 20 hectares) on the Marchesi Antinori Tignanello estate in San Casciano Val di Pesa, which also yields Tignanello.
And it is, like many wines, a fortuitous coincidence: 1978 was the first year the Solaia vineyard produced enough grapes to make a wine. However, they thought the vines were too young to produce quality, and therefore vinified the wine separately and kept it separate thereafter. And must have realized fairly soon thereafter that the wine had something going for it, because they vinified the vineyard separately in both 1979 and 1980.
Both vintages caused a stir, and since it was by now obvious that the 1978 vintage wasn't weak they released it too, on the heels of the newer vintages, and since there wasn't much of it demand spiked and so did prices, one of the first -- Piero says -- episodes of wine speculation in Italy.
