Sassicaia 1972-1974-1976 at Arden Fine Wines in London.
When winemaker Giacomo Tachis arrived at Tenuta San Guido – the Tuscan estate from which Sassicaia emerged – in 1971, he found the 1968 vintage still in barrel.
The 1972, 1974, and 1976 vintages at Arden Fine Wines come from a period when Tachis was trying to find the best recipe for Sassicaia – how many days for the fermentation? How many new oak barrels? How long to age the wine in the barrels?
The 1972 Sassicaia was aged in oak barrels for 18 months, with about 10% of the wine spending time in brand new French Tronçais oak barrels, the rest in the “traditional” (and previously used) Slavonian oak barrels.
It was a pivotal vintage for Sassicaia, marking the start of its international acclaim when it won first place in a 1978 magazine tasting for “great clarets” (sic).
The label of the bottle that came to Arden Fine Wines recently is not the usual and well-established Sassicaia label. But labelling for this relatively new commercial operation was not necessarily consistent at this time.
There was no Sassicaia in 1973 but for 1974 Tachis upped the amount of wine in new barrels to 50%+.
New barrels were not used for the 1976, but the fermentation was pushed to 10 days from the 1974’s seven.
Before Tachis arrived it was 20+ days!
In the mid-1970s, Sassicaia went from being a rustic wine that was chewed rather than drunk – very hard and tannic from all that maceration and ageing – to a more polished, classic wine of elegance rather than power.
The “Dolce Stil Novo” (“sweet new style”) – to quote an ancient Tuscan poet – of Sassicaia was established.
Sassicaia 1972-1974-1976 at Arden Fine Wines in London.