Ornellaia & Masseto: 1995-2010 From Magnum
BY ANTONIO GALLONI |
David Bouley’s Test Kitchen was the setting for this remarkable retrospective featuring Ornellaia and Masseto across eight iconic vintages. All of the wines were served from magnum for what turned out to be a truly unforgettable evening. Winemaker Axel Heinz was on hand to share his insights over the course of dinner.
The striking dining room at the Test Kitchen
At Vinous, we aim to host events that deliver educational value, are of historic significance, and that, of course, are also fun. We don’t do many events, but we have hosted some pretty special evenings over the years, including complete verticals of Solaia and Masseto along with the Monfortino magnum vertical we put on in London a few years ago. Some years had passed since our last Masseto vertical, so I thought it might be time to revisit some of the wines.
Ornellaia and Masseto are both produced at Tenuta dell’Ornellaia in Tuscany’s Maremma. For more on the estate’s history, readers might like to revisit this article from a few years back. Ornellaia is a Bordeaux-inspired Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend, while Masseto is 100% Merlot made from a few select blocks on the large, sprawling property. In recent years, the estate has worked towards the goal of establishing Ornellaia and Masseto as two separate wineries. For that reason, Ornellaia and Masseto are very rarely shown together.
So, that is exactly what I thought would be interesting: a side-by-side comparison of Ornellaia and Masseto across a number of reference-point vintages. And to make the evening more special, why not taste the wines out of magnum? In order to ensure perfect provenance, all of the wines were purchased directly from the estate. Most of the Ornellaias came from the winery’s Archivio Storico program.
