One of my long-term goals was to build a legacy wine collection. I would love to build a wine cellar under the stairs in my basement one day. There are the everyday bottles you have, but I wanted to have special bottles for big life events. I first started thinking about this when I learned that certain wines are better with age. I started prioritizing the bottles I drank by the ones that needed to be drunk within the year, and the ones that could age for five or more years. This got me thinking about getting special bottles for anniversaries, milestones, birthdays, business successes, etc. One of these bottles I would like to keep on hand is Tignanello.
I first heard about Tignanello from Meghan Markle. Her blog was named “The Tig” after a bottle of Tignanello. In her original post, she talks about her first sip of Tignanello:
“So there I am, with very minimal wine knowledge and I take a sip of this wine. It wasn’t just red or white – suddenly I understood what people meant by the body, legs, structure of wine. It was an ah-ha moment at its finest. For me, it became a “Tig” moment – a moment of getting it.”
Produced by the house of Antinori (wine producers since 1385), Tignanello first came about in 1971 and was the first red wine produced in the area without white grapes. It’s known as a Super Tuscan and is a blend of Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Cabernet Franc grapes. It runs around $150-160 per bottle depending on the vintage.
Some fun facts about Tignanello include:
- Tignanello was the first Sangiovese to be aged in barriques, the first contemporary red wine blended with untraditional varieties (specifically Cabernet) and one of the first red wines in the Chianti Classico region that didn’t use white grapes.
- The current composition is 80% Sangiovese, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Cabernet Franc and the gradation of 13.50%.
- This relationship between the grapes has been so since 1995 with the exception of the period 2001-2006 in which the Sangiovese rose to 85% at the expense of Cabernet Sauvignon which was decreased to 10%.
- The label was designed by Silvio Coppola in 1974 for the release of Tignanello 1971. Silvio Coppola was an important Italian graphic and interior designer who was famous for his minimalist lighting fixtures and austere furniture but also for book cover designs for Italian publishing company Feltrinelli.
- The 2021 vintage was an exceptional year, so if you have the opportunity to get that bottle, I recommend it.
- The name “Tignanello” means young shoot, a symbol of life and rebirth in Italy’s Etruscan culture. It is also an homage to 16th-century Italian painter Raffaellino del Colle who painted under this pseudonym when he worked for the Antinori family at their ancestral home in Lombardy, Villa di Castiglione Olona.
- Tignanello is pronounced “teen-ya-nello” the “g” is silent.
- Tignanello is bottled only in favorable vintages, and was not produced in 1972, 1973,1974, 1976, 1984, 1992, and 2002.
Tignanello has a complex nose with notes of ripe plums, blackberries and candied orange peels leading to pleasant hints of dark chocolate, caramel, and licorice. Sweet hints of tobacco complete the impressive bouquet. The palate is rich, sophisticated, intense and is defined by supple vibrant tannins followed by a long persistent finish.
I have a business goal I want to reach this year and my plan is to get a bottle of Tignanello when I hit it. But I think I’m going to need to get two bottles, one to drink, and one to age. Tignanello can age for a long time, and since Cassie was born in 2021, maybe it would be a good one to save for her 21st birthday.
Let me know if you have any other recommendations for my Legacy collection.
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