Sassicaia, every vintage from 1968 to 2022.
A wine planted for a family's own table, on the wrong coast, from the wrong grape, in a country that did not allow it a name.
In the 1940s Mario Incisa della Rocchetta planted Cabernet Sauvignon at Castiglioncello, on the Tuscan coast at Bolgheri, in gravelly soil that reminded him of Graves. At the time nobody made serious wine there. The result was drunk by the family for two decades and by nobody else.
The first commercial release was the 1968, which appeared in 1971, made with the advice of Giacomo Tachis. Because Cabernet had no place in the Tuscan classification, the most ambitious wine in the region was sold as ordinary table wine, vino da tavola, for the next quarter of a century. The classification caught up in 1994, when Bolgheri Sassicaia was created as a denomination for a single estate, which remains unique in Italy.
This cellar holds one bottle of every vintage produced, from that 1968 to the 2022: fifty-two bottles. No wine was made in 1969 or in 1973.
1968 to 1979: the founding decade
The early bottles are historically important and, at this remove, a matter of individual condition rather than of vintage reputation. Bottles from the 1970s were made in tiny quantities for a wine nobody yet collected, and were stored accordingly by whoever bought them.
The vintage to know in this stretch is the 1978, from a cold, late spring and a long dry autumn, which was a great year across Italy. Here it exists inside the complete run rather than as a separate bottle, and it sits alongside the Monfortino of the same year, which is the other legendary Italian bottle of that harvest.
1980 to 1989: the decade that changed Italy
1985 is the reason people outside Italy know the name. A February freeze was followed by a hot, dry summer, and Bolgheri produced a wine that was reviewed internationally in terms nobody had used about an Italian red before. It remains the most celebrated Italian bottle ever made, and the 1985 is in this cellar.
The same decade contains its opposite. 1984 was cold and wet, and across Italy estates declassified or made nothing at all. Sassicaia was still produced, which is why the 1984 exists at all and why it is one of the harder bottles in the run to find.
The other landmark of the decade is not Sassicaia. 1985 was also the year the first Ornellaia was sold, from the neighbouring estate founded by Lodovico Antinori. Four bottles of that first vintage are here.
1990 to 2009: consolidation
The denomination arrived in 1994 and the wine stopped being a table wine on paper. Quality through the period is consistent, and the standouts are the years that were strong across Tuscany: 1990, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2004 and 2006.
2002 is the gap in most Italian verticals of the period. Hail on 14 September wrecked the harvest across the Langhe, and much of the centre and north of Italy had a disastrous year. Where an estate made nothing, the absence is the record.
2010 to 2022: the modern run
2016 is the outstanding modern vintage, warm by day and cold by night with no disease pressure and a long dry harvest, and it was exceptional from Barolo to Bolgheri. 2015 is riper and more generous; 2019 is cooler and more precise; 2021 is classical after an April frost cut the crop.
2017 was a drought year with very small berries, and 2022 was hot and very dry, with concentration that came from water stress rather than from ripeness. In a vertical these are the interesting bottles rather than the great ones, which is part of why a complete run tells you more than a shelf of trophy years.
Why the complete run is a different object
Fifty-two bottles, one per vintage, assembled one at a time over four decades. It is not a purchase that can be reproduced by deciding to make it: the early vintages appear individually and rarely, and the condition of each has to be acceptable on its own. A buyer starting today would spend years and would still be missing the 1970s.
That is the argument for verticals generally, and it is set out in the note on complete verticals. The Sassicaia run is the clearest example of it in this cellar, and it is offered as one thing.
How many vintages of Sassicaia are there?
Fifty-two commercial vintages from 1968 to 2022. No wine was made in 1969 or 1973.
What was the first vintage of Sassicaia?
The 1968, released in 1971. Earlier vintages were made from the 1940s onwards but were consumed by the family and never sold.
Why is Sassicaia 1985 so famous?
A February freeze followed by a hot, dry summer produced a wine that was reviewed internationally in terms never previously applied to an Italian red. It is generally regarded as the most celebrated Italian bottle ever made.
Why was Sassicaia sold as a table wine?
Cabernet Sauvignon had no place in the Tuscan classification of the time, so the wine was classified as vino da tavola until the Bolgheri Sassicaia denomination was created in 1994 for the single estate.