On Italy’s Tuscan Coast, overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea near the small village of Bolgheri, sits a magical hillside.

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The wine made here was never meant to exist. The potential of the unused slope was finally seen in the 1980’s when, against all odds, advice and local tradition, the first vines were planted. Over the next three decades the vineyard has revealed many secrets, but still more remain to be uncovered. “At Masseto, we try to do as little as possible to the wines. Our goal is simply to capture the essence of nature and take it to the highest level.This is about an amazing, very challenging, vineyard and wine made with great simplicity. We have tanks. We have barrels. We have gravity flow. And we have people who care about the wine. That’s it. That’s our philosophy” - “Winemaking at Masseto is at the same time an adventure and a continuous discovery. A place where intuition prevails, where no one could be sure that the fragile Merlot could succeed, even if the presence of blue clay from the Pliocene gave a hint. An experiment with such a striking result that we quickly realized that it had to be a wine on its own, so strong was its unmistakable character from the very first harvest back in 1986.

A rare combination of lush ripeness and lavish concentration which somehow manages to preserve its complexity and freshness. Making Masseto is a balancing act, one feels like a tightrope dancer always on the edge of a precipice. The clayish soils in themselves represent all the contradictions. A capacity to store great amounts of water, and to release it very gently. A soil that is cold and wet in a rainy year but gets hard as a rock during a dry summer, creating a shear physical barrier to the roots that struggle to go deep down into the subsoil. A soil in which, with a low planting density, a level of vigor is achieved that would normally be expected from a high-density vineyard. The vines of Masseto seem to be continuously struggling with the elements, frequently at the limit of collapse but somehow always able to resist and develop fruit of incredible concentration and flavor” Axel Heinz, Estate Director. Masseto 2008 is the expression of a warm vintage, most of it having been harvested in the first half of September. With great concentration, its colour is particularly deep and young. The nose is characterized by rich and fully ripe fruit yet without any traces of over ripeness, focused and intense with spicy and mineral notes. On the palate the wine is remarkably dense, concentrated and opulent, with a very pure expression of fruit. The tannins are present and firm giving the wine focus and precision to balance the wine’s opulent richness.

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It is undoubtedly one of the great expressions of Masseto with a long ageing potential - A great Wine !