La Massa Giorgio Primo Toscana 2018

When Antonio Galloni, James Suckling, Falstaff, and Raffaele Vecchione reach a consensus on an amazing 97 POINTS for your 2018 Super-Tuscan (with the folks at Advocate just behind with a 96), you have some cause to strut! This is one of the top Super-Tuscans anywhere – a must-have for your collection!

Giorgio Primo is the best of the best for Giampolo Motto, the visionary behind La Massa since its founding in 1992. This is a weighty, imposing, classically endowed, and extremely lush Super-Tuscan that models itself after First Growth Bordeaux – cabernet dominant, with complementary players of merlot and petit verdot. To do all this, in the very heart of Chianti Classico, requires a bold and worldly perspective – not to mention a penchant for risk. Three decades later, Giampolo has proved to be just the man for the task!

Giampolo left the family’s leather goods business in Naples and ventured to Chianti to learn the art of winemaking. He developed a love for Bordeaux wines and journeyed there to further hone his craft before purchasing the 27 hectares of La Massa in the Conca d’Oro of Panzano in Chianti. The land here had been farmed to vines since the 15th century, and the earliest wines of La Massa brought this property back to prominence almost immediately. But Giampaolo was far from finished. He joined up with an old friend from Bordeaux, the legendary Stephane Derenoncourt (whose consulting resume includes Clos Fourtet, Clos de l'Oratoire, Chateau Pavie-Macquin, Smith Haut Lafitte, Napa’s Rubicon Estate, and more...) beginning in 2008 to take the winemaking to the next level. And that has certainly been the case – with the best wines of the estate’s history coming over the past decade.

This Giorgio Primo 2018 is carefully selected from the estate's best parcels of clay and schist soils sprinkled with limestone remnants of an ancient sea. Ten plots made the cut in 2018, for a final blend of 55% cabernet sauvignon, 40% merlot, and 5% petit verdot. The wine is reared in 50% New French oak barriques – granting a weight and polish to the wine that helps to integrate the structured and mineral edge of the powerful fruit. Initial aromas of deep and rich black currants, blackberries, and roast coffee open to reveal nuanced accents of new saddle leather and pipe tobacco. The mouth is velvety, round, and lacquering – with flavors of more dark berries, plums, cedar, sage, and juniper. A hint of graphite underneath carries the wine into a chocolatey and elegant finish. This is classy, sassy, and just now beginning to showcase its immense potential. Wines of this pedigree typically fetch prices of $150+...and we’re simply thrilled to have any to share...much less at this fantastic price!