2002 ornellaia, bolgheri

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Bottle size (ML)

Why We're Buying

Ornellaia Bolgheri belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of Italian wines. It’s one of the original Super Tuscans, a style that transformed Italian wine into the powerhouse it is today. Ornellaia is picked during ideal conditions and uses only the finest fruit to ensure immaculate year-over-year quality. Today, the Bordeaux-style red blend easily commands a $300 price tag.

Critics Scores

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The 2002 Ornellaia (65 Cabernet Sauvignon, 30 Merlot and 5 Petit Verdot) is an astoundingly good wine considering the vintage. A vibrant dark ruby/violet, it offers suggestions of herbs, tobacco, earthiness and dark red fruit with excellent length and notable structure. Although it doesn’t have the concentration or length of the best vintages, it displays terrific overall balance and is undoubtedly a huge overachiever for which General Manager/Agronomist Leonardo Raspini and his entire team deserve much credit. Anticipated maturity: 2008-2017. (AG)

Vinous

The 2002 Ornellaia (magnum) is a modern-day equivalent of the 1994, which is to say a very pretty wine where all of the elements are beautifully-balanced within the context of small vintage. Still, the wine’s sheer concentration and sense of harmony are truly remarkable, especially considering the cool, rainy conditions that affected Tuscany that year. In the magnum format, the 2002 Ornellaia is particularly impressive. There can be little doubt that much of this wine’s success, as well as that of the other lesser vintages that followed in this flight (2003 and 2005) can be attributed to the stringent selection of fruit and wine that the estate introduced in the late 1990s. In 2002 Ornellaia is 65 Cabernet Sauvignon, 30 Merlot and 5 Cabernet Franc. The component wines spent six months in French oak, 70 new. The final blend was assembled and the wine was racked back into barrique for a further six months of aging prior to being bottled. (AG)