Tuscany, the famous region in Italy, is undoubtedly an infinite source of culture, the object of the most beautiful romances, the dream destination of all the lovers of Italian gastronomy and wines with the aroma of ancient history. The vineyards, which seem to stretch over endless plains, produce some of the most famous wines in the world. But none compare to the star of this story: Sassicaia of Tenuta San Guido.
The brand Tenuta San Guido was founded by the Marquis Mario Incisa Della Rocchetta, a visionary whose genius placed Italian Tuscan wine among the favourites of connoisseurs from all over the world. The Marchese wanted to create a wine like the French Bordeaux. The French wine was by far the aristocracy’s most cherished wine, and he found that the Bolgheri area bared the same climate and land characteristics as Bordeaux in France.
Having in mind the Bordeaux as a point of reference, he experimented with a variety of grapes, so the period between 1921 and 1925 was dedicated to finding the perfect blend. It was in 1940, when he settled with his wife in Tenuta San Guido, that he picked the Cabernet flavour as the winning bouquet. And this is how Sassicaia started to take shape. But why the unusual name? Well, Sassicaia comes from the Italian word “sasso” which means rock. And the terrain of the vineyards in Tuscany, are just as rocky as the land of Bordeaux, the motherland of the wine that sparked Mario’s imagination at first.
But the Marquis’s wine was not designed for outside production yet. And that is because the conservative critics accustomed with lighter versions of the local wines were not enthusiastic about the innovative wine of the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, especially since it needed more time to age and develop. So, from 1948 to 1967 Sassicaia was produced for private consumption and stayed confined to the Tenuta San Guido and its guests. In time, Mario Incisa noticed that the wine became better with ageing, and encouraged by relatives and friends he perfected his style and released the wine commercially in 1968.
From then on it is all history. Classified at first as a table wine (since Tuscan wines were not DOC and DOCG approved) a bottle of the 1972 Sassicaia won a blind-taste event against 30 other Bordeaux wines from all over the world. And that is how Sassicaia became internationally acclaimed. Few wines have such an intricate past. Sassicaia is the wine that revolutionized the conservative tastes of Italian wine connoisseurs and propelled the Made in Italy into the top of the best wines in the world. It was because of Sassicaia that the classification IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica) was introduced, and the novelty was the focus on the region of the grapes, rather than the type of grapes.
David Beckham, The Obamas, Rihanna, LeBron James or Duran Duran, are a few of the many celebrities that prefer the Sassicaia wine. And when you think of the long journey of this great wine, you understand the privilege of tasting it, and its infinite value. Once again, the Made in Italy has been affirmed internationally, this time flowing deliciously from the Sassicaia bottles of the Marquis Mario Incisa Della Rocchetta.
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by Claudia Ciclovan