2023 Masseto Tuscany 750 ml

Tuscany’s Masseto hill is one of the planet’s most iconic terroirs.

From it comes one of the world’s most extraordinary wines—one that deserves a place in any world-class wine collection. Masseto is to Tuscany what Screaming Eagle is to Napa or Petrus to Pomerol.

The 2023 is the exact kind of wine that gave Masseto its reputation as one of the world’s very greatest wines. It is elegance incarnate, with a soaring bouquet of black plum, ripe blackberry, and cassis intertwined with violets, graphite, and warm spice. The palate shows concentrated layers of dark fruit gliding over finely sculpted tannins, energized by vibrant acidity that keeps the wine fresh and precise through a profound finish.

Lodovico Antinori comes from Tuscan winemaking royalty, and in founding Ornellaia, his aim was to compete with the wine that put Super Tuscans on the map: his own cousin’s Sassicaia. So he made Ornellaia a Bordeaux-style blend that, like Sassicaia, would be dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon.

But Tenuta dell’Ornellaia had one anomalous 17-acre section: a hilltop that legendary consultant André Tchelistcheff knew was not ideal for Cabernet. However, it was rich in the type of blue clay found at Château Petrus—the kind known for producing world-class Merlot.

Tchelistcheff recommended planting Merlot. Antinori was ambivalent, since the grape was all but unheard of in Tuscany. Finally, in 1984, he heeded Tchelistcheff’s advice and planted the Masseto hill purely to Merlot.

The style that made Masseto famous—opulence held in check by freshness and minerality—took shape under longtime consultant Michel Rolland, and the estate carries it forward today with an even finer hand. Now a 100% Merlot that stands on par with the great First Growths, it is a cellar-defining masterpiece in every year.

Four decades on, Masseto stands as perhaps the most sought-after Merlot in the world. This wine has eclipsed the Cabernet-dominant Super Tuscans to become one of the most celebrated bottlings on the globe, bar none. It is a perennial head-turner at the table. You’ll thank yourself.