2001 Solaia

It’s always great to be in London. There is something magical about the city. Its energy and pulse are so inspiring. This vertical of Antinori’s iconic Solaia going back to the inaugural 1978, with all but the very early vintages from magnum, was truly unforgettable. Solaia emerges from a handful of hillside blocks within Antinori’s vast Tignanello property in San Casciano Val di Pesa in the northern part of Chianti Classico. During the 1978 harvest Piero Antinori found he had a bit more Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc than he needed for his groundbreaking Tignanello. Antinori bottled that wine separately. The rest, as they say, is history.

Chronicling the great wines of Italy for our readers has been a passion of mine for many years. Vinous Events take readers off the sidelines and make them participants in historic, once-in-a-lifetime tastings. It was with that spirit we hosted this complete vertical of Antinori's Solaia a few months ago.

Putting together the first-ever complete vertical of Solaia was a huge undertaking. It almost didn't happen at all. The original date for this tasting/dinner was Monday October 29, the day Hurricane Sandy descended on the tri-state area and began wreaking unprecedented havoc. Nearly eight months passed before the vertical finally took place, which only strengthened our resolve to make the evening even better. The passage of time also allowed for the inclusion of the 2010, which is in my view the greatest Solaia ever made. Marchese Piero Antinori and longtime Winemaker Renzo Cotarella presented the wines. Even Antinori had never tasted all 28 vintages together. Eleven Madison Park's Executive Chef Daniel Humm and his team prepared a brilliant menu full of highlights, including the morel and lamb courses both of which were among the most delicious dishes I have ever indulged in at Eleven Madison Park. Wine Director Dustin Wilson and a talented group of sommeliers took care of the wines, a huge undertaking given the large number of vintages. For more perspective, readers might enjoy the videos I shot with Antinori and Cotarella just prior to the dinner.

My recent visit to Antinori's Tignanello property in Chianti Classico provided an object lesson in the challenges of understanding the complexities and nuances of Tuscan terroir, something that can be extrapolated to many other regions within Italy as well. I saw vineyards where the two major terrains in these hills, galestro and alberese, alternated in groups of three to four rows within the very same plot. As a result, vines that were separated by no more than a few meters were at slightly different points in their vegetative cycles, meaning that work in the vineyards must literally proceed on a row by row, and sometimes, plant by plant basis.

Back in the winery, oenologist Renzo Cotarella prepared a comprehensive tasting of Antinori's two flagship wines, Tignanello and Solaia, with vintages going back to 1993, the first vintage he made on his own here. Tignanello is a Sangiovese-based wine with some Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, while its big brother Solaia is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon. The wines are predominantly in French oak although Hungarian and American oak are used as well.

To set the context, we started with the 2007s in their separate component wines, after which we tasted the 2006s in their final blends prior to bottling. Antinori's 2007s are highly promising reds with superb ripeness and rich aromatics. 2007 was a long growing season that culminated with cool nights in the fall. I tasted two Tignanello Sangioveses, both of which were beautiful. The wine from the older vineyard offered greater richness and dark, more balsamic nuances while the wine from the younger vineyard showed a fresher and perhaps slightly more mineral character. The Tignanello Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc were both varietally expressive, with superb richness, well-articulated bouquets and plenty of muscle.

I am convinced the Solaia vineyard is one of the greatest sites in the world for making wine. The same three varieties used in Tignanello take on a whole different voice here with more dramatic, baritone overtones and darker flavor profiles. The Sangiovese was superb and remarkably complete on its own. This sample showed more complexity and freshness than the Sangiovese planted in the Tignanello vineyard. The Cabernet Sauvignon was sweet, layered and intensely perfumed, while the Cabernet Franc showcased notable heft and structure.

Both the 2006 Solaia and Tignanello were impressive as well. This is a decidedly ripe vintage which Cotarella compares to 1997. The 2006 Tignanello (from tank) was packed with jammy, super-ripe fruit and revealed an especially large-scaled, sweeping personality with tons of harmony. The 2006 Solaia (from barrel) was similarly long, sweet and richly-textured, but with the additional level of sheer density and muscle that is such a big part of the wine's character.

The wines from bottle were equally impressive. While most of the wines from important vintages lived up to expectations, I was pleasantly surprised by the extremely positive evolution of the wines from smaller vintages, which proves yet again that quality-minded estates will almost always make a respectable wine, even in lesser years. One of the biggest changes at Antinori in recent years has been a major upgrade in the way the wines are handled in the cellar. 2004 was the first vintage in which the lots for Tignanello and Solaia were aged separately, with the final blend taking place at the end of the aging period, whereas previously the blend had been assembled just after the completion of malolactic fermentation. Given that wines develop and age in ways that sometimes surprise even the most experienced winemakers, waiting until the wines have had a chance to spend some time in barrel leaves the producer with much more certainty as to the quality and consistency of the final wine. In difficult vintages such as 2005 the ability to exclude barrels that have not developed as expected from the final blend can have a profound impact on quality.