Masseto to launch second wine, Massetino

Almost 35 years after the first release of the now iconic Super Tuscan wine Masseto, producer Tenuta dell’Ornellaia is poised to launch a second wine called “Massetino”. For decades the Masseto has been regarded as one of the top expressions of Merlot made anywhere in the world thanks to its remarkable aromatic profile and refined structure.

Both wines are crafted from grapes grown on the 6.6 hectare Masseto vineyard which was identified by André Tchelistcheff, Ornellaia’s founding consultant, as being exceptional terroir for growing Merlot. Although the Antinori family where initially sceptical about producing a wine that was so different from Ornellaia’s Bordeaux blend house style, Masseto quickly established its own identity as a pioneering example of Tuscan Merlot.

Today the wine is known as “The Italian Petrus” and frequently receives 100-point scores from the world’s top wine critics including Monica Larner of Wine Advocate and James Suckling. It is against the backdrop of this sensational success that Tenuta dell’Ornellaia is set to release the very first bottlings of Massetino to the market this October from the hot and dry 2017 vintage.

The conditions of this vintage proved opportune for a new wine due to the lower volumes of Masseto produced that year, and as a result only very limited quantities of Massetino have been made with consultation from the renowned flying winemaker, Michel Rolland. The wine will be initially released to a small number of accounts based in Italy and the USA with a wider expansion planned pending increased production quantities in the future.

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