Ornellaia
Bolgheri Superiore
Bolgheri
2016

The producer

Founded in the early 1980s by Lodovico Antinori, nephew of Sassicaia’s Mario Incisa della Roccheta. The first vintage to be released was the 1985. Initially favouring more Merlot (and to a lesser extent Cabernet Franc) it was a charmingly hedonistic and seductive wine, with a unique aromatic intensity, and which easily built its own reputation out of the shadow of Sassicaia.

Today the blend is Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc with a soupcon of Petit Verdot, and aged for around 24 months in mainly new French oak barriques. In 2002, Lodovico Antinori sold the estate to Robert Mondavi, who later sold a share to Frescobaldi, who today has full ownership of the property along also with sister property Masseto. Frecobaldi has been fine custodians and the wine’s reputation has only grown over the past twenty years.

The wine

The blend varies with fruit ripeness and vintage conditions but is usually comprised of at least two thirds Cabernet Sauvignon, with around one third of Merlot, and soupcons of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Fermentation takes place in stainless steel and concrete tanks and is followed by maceration for about 15 days and finally ageing for around 24 months in around 70% new French oak barriques. After bottling the wine ages for a further 12 months before release. Aromatically rich and with a full and vibrant body with density and elegance, Ornellaia is a wine of enormous critical acclaim.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.