80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet franc

Wine & Spirits: 96, Decanter: 95

Wine & Spirits: Great terroirs often prove themselves in the most extreme vintages, as Sassicaia has done in the violent heat of 2003. The vineyard produced a supple, subtle and elegant wine. To describe the fruit character one might resort to analogies with black currant and smoky black tea, but it's more a textural experience for now, a mass of pleasure, hard to grasp. Its oak treatment delivers the kind of heady richness found in young Latour; its soil character provides a completely different context, though no less grand. Probably best starting at ten to fifteen years of age, this is balanced to develop for years after that.