Sassicaia 2000 150cl

Shows its class. Loaded with fruit. Rich yet balanced, with lots of jammy and plummy character. Full-bodied, with round tannins and a silky finish. Exotic. Sass made excellent wine again in a less than easy year. Best after 2006. 16,600 cases made. JS

Its hard not to wonder what exactly is going on at this famous estate of the Tuscan coast, the producer of Italys first international level Cabernet, and the 2000 Sassicaia is not going to resolve the perplexities. A reasonably fresh but not particularly concentrated ruby in color, its nose is rather evolved, with aromas which seem considerably older than its birth certificate. Medium-bodied and reasonably energetic, it is rather lean on the mid-palate, dry and somewhat tough on the finish. That the 2000 vintage was not a resounding success is anything but surprising, but the last really distinguished Sassicaia was the 1988, which already seems like a blast from the past, a nostalgia trip with little relevance to the present. Whats the problem here? Its anyones guess, but acreage has more than doubled since 1988, and all the wine goes into one mega-cuvee, old vines and young vines, vineyards which have historically given the estates best wine and others with no track record whatsoever. This may be a revolutionary approach, but, if its correct, everyone in Bordeaux is crazy, something I have some difficulty in accepting.