Peter Maude Fine Wines
2019, Bibi Graetz, Testamatta, TUSCANY
20 year anniversary vintage at this brilliant 58ha estate, and it's hard not to love the complexity and the sense of controlled power. Raspberry, black cherry, butterscotch, truffle, scorched earth and slate, cleverly put together with clear confidence. So much happens after the wine has left your mouth - it has a whole second act where much of the nuance appears. It's the detail that sets Testamatta apart - with the team going through the vineyard up to 8 times to ensure picking when ripe - from estate-owned plots across Tuscany where the vines range from 5 years old up to 80 years old from 400m to 600m altitude. Natural yeasts, six manual punch downs per day, 10 days maceration maximum and barrel ageing with no new oak. 96 Jane Anson, Decanter Magazine.
Very attractive combination of dried fruit and spices with black cherries and plums. Aromas of flowers and sandalwood, too. Full-bodied and very refined, yet intense, with plush, velvety tannins that are wonderfully integrated and intertwined with the fruit. Ripe centre palate. Tight at the end, suggesting the need for some serious bottle age. Very structured. Try after 2025. 97 James Suckling.
A pure expression of Sangiovese, the Bibi Graetz 2019 Testamatta is a wine in constant evolution. Bibi has added 17 more hectares of vineyard to the program, with 12 hectares in Fiesole (north of Florence) and 5 hectares in San Donato in Colle (south of Florence) with 70-year-old vines. The base of the wine sees fruit from old vines planted in the 1950s in the cool-climate Lamole subzone of Chianti Classico. These new terroirs bring a lot more aromatic nuance and complexity to the wine with perfumed blue flower, candied orange peel, wet earth and plumy black fruit. White Alberese soils add a strong chalky mineral signature to the finish of this elegantly streamlined and linear Tuscan red. 94 Monica Larner, Wine Advocate.