94pts
Parker 95pts Suckling
Tenuta
di Biserno continues the Antinori family's winemaking legacy, which dates back
26 generations covering a span of more than 600 years. In 1994, while looking
to expand his Tenuta dell'Ornellaia vineyard, Marchese Lodovico Antinori came
upon the property of Tenuta di Biserno near Bibbona in Tuscany's Alta Maremma.
With more hills and stones than nearby Bolgheri, this land appeared to be
ideally suited to produce a new and different wine. In 2001 Lodovico and his
brother Piero, established this elite wine estate and Lodovico provides the
day-to-day direction for the estate. The Tenuta di Biserno estate is comprised
of approximately 150 acres divided into three vineyards planted to Merlot,
Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Syrah. The entire area is
heavily influenced by its proximity to the coast, but the varieties selected
for each of the 30 parcels that make up the planted acres were carefully
selected based on slope, soil composition, exposure and the influence of sea
breezes. Helena Lindberg is the winemaker, with Michel Rolland in a consulting
winemaker capacity. Ranieri Orsini is the vineyard manager. Currently the wines
are crafted in a well-equipped winery built for exclusive use in a nearby
village, until the new state-of-the-art, gravity-flow winery, which will be
located in the center of the vineyards, is completed. James Suckling noted in
the Wine Spectator in October 2007 - "I find the style of the property's
wines already to be a fascinating combination of Ornellaia's and Sassicaia's,
emphasizing the generosity of the former and the firmness and backbone of the
latter.”