super tuscan?

What is a super Tuscan wine?

The quickest answer that I can give that is also correct is: A wine that is made in tuscany that doesn’t conform to the DOC or DOCG rules for Chianti or Chianti Classico. To go into more detail about the wines that make up the broader Super Tuscan style you have to know the history of Chianti. Until 1996 Chianti had to have at least 5-10% of white grapes in the wine. Currently Chianti and Chianti Classico must be at least 80% Sangiovese and up to 20% allowed red grapes. Any wine made in the Chianti region that doesn’t meet the grape composition that makes up the definition of Chianti can be a super tuscan.

In the contemporary marketplace super tuscan has two meanings: one, the revered producers that played a role in changing the rules surrounding Chianti in the eighties and nineties bringing the wine into the modern era; and, two, any wine produced in the IGT toscana.

Sassicia is an example of a classic wine first produced in 1968 with a blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Cabernet Franc, which is a classic left bank bordeaux blend. These wines showed that tuscany was capable of growing world class international variety wines. In 1996 famed barolo producer Angelo Gaja bought a property in bolgheri, tuscany: Ca’Marcanda and began producing a 50% merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc blend, representing a right bank bordeaux blend. Antinori Made Tignanello which was Sangiovese, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc aged in french barriques for a year.


The modern wines produced in the IGT Toscana  usually show dark color in glass, aromatics with fruit and acid. The more sangiovese it has the more ruby it should be in its youth. Lots of successful premium and super-premium bottles go for darker more purple color but retaining the structure of sangiovese, the blend determines if the wine has cherry or dark fruit flavor. The marketplace has made wines in all of the major price points and moving through various tiers of luxury bottles.

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