Tasting Notes:
The 2015 Tignanello is an intense ruby red in color with purple highlights, with pleasant notes of red fruit and sweet spice on the nose. The palate is fresh and vibrant with supple and balanced tannins. The harmonious finish and aftertaste are long and persistent.
Blend:
80% Sangiovese
15% Cabernet Sauvignon
5% Cabernet Franc
Vintage:
• The climate of the 2015 vintage was extremely typical of the Chianti Classico region throughout the growing phases and seasons.
• A cold and dry winter preceded a damp spring in March and April and dry weather in May and June. In this period, temperatures were regular, guaranteeing exceptional flowering and bud set for the grapes.
• The warm summer had peak temperatures in July along with great temperature swings from daytime heat to evening and nighttime coolness, assuring excellent vine and grape development free of stress.
• The month of August was warm with occasional rainfall, favoring a positive onset to the ripening of the crop.
• Harvest took place between mid-September and early October with dry and breezy weather.
Vineyard History:
• The original Super Tuscan, Tignanello, is produced exclusively from a 140-acre vineyard site at Antinori’s Tignanello Estate.
• The vineyards are southwest facing, with calcareous rocky-marl and limestone soils with tufaceous elements, locally called alberese rocks. They are planted between 1,150 and 1,312 feet above sea level.
• Tignanello was the first Sangiovese to be aged in small oak barrels, the first Italian red wine in modern times to use a non-traditional grape variety, Cabernet, in the blend and among the first Italian red wines made in Chianti
with no white grapes.
• Tignanello was first vinified as a single-vineyard Chianti Classico wine in 1970.
• With the 1971 vintage, the wine was named Tignanello, and in 1975, white grapes were eliminated from the vineyard and the blend.
• Since the 1982 vintage, the vineyard and wine blend has been 80% Sangiovese, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Cabernet Franc.
• Tignanello is only bottled in favorable vintages and thus, was not produced in the 1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1984, 1992 and 2002 vintages.
Vinification
• In the cellars, the grapes are gently de-stemmed and individual berries are selected on the sorting table to ensure that only fully ripe berries go into the fermenting tanks. During the fermentation and maceration, the must is slowly transformed into wine, with a focus on obtaining freshness of aromas, extraction of color, and supple tannins.
• After the wine is separated from its skins, it undergoes complete malolactic fermentation in small oak barrels. The aging took place in French and Hungarian oak barrels and lasted for 12-14 months. During this time the various lots of wine, each fermented separately based on grape variety and vineyard block, remain in barrel. The lots are then tasted barrel by barrel and assembled into the final blend a few months before bottling.
Alcohol: 13.5%