Italiano
A Sassicaia bone to pick
Small-mindedness. There is no other way to describe those who are now praising Wine Spectator for having listed Sassicaia at the top of their list of the world’s best wines, after having criticized me for having done the same thing two months ago.
Forgive me but I have a serious bone to pick. This because I was sharply criticized from many sides, first when Sassicaia 2015 won the Best Italian Wine Award (BIWA), selected by a jury I was a part of, and then when we gave it a100/100 rating in our Essential Guide to Italian Wine 2019. Now that Wine Spectator has confirmed our evaluation, placing it at the top of their annual list of the world’s Top 100 wines, everyone is praising how great it is.
The wine is selling like hot cakes the world over and everyone is talking about it, even on TV. But this was not the case when we said how good it was two months ago, me, Luca Gardini and the rest of the BIWA jury, perhaps because we were all Italians supposedly speaking only or primarily to Italians and so we didn’t count.
Sassicaia 2015 became important news when Wine Spectator recognized it and not when we beat them and everyone else to the punch. And we were even criticized on the web by those who accused us of always selecting “the usual suspects” when awarding prizes. Up until then the fact that Sassicaia 2015 was given stratospheric ratings by DoctorWine from the moment it came out and then by ONAV’s magazine L’Assaggiatore, that it won the BIWA and was selected as the “Best Red wine of the Year” in the Essential Guide was not of interest to many.
But then came the Americans, who from New York City, without ever setting foot in Bolgheri, decided Sassicaia 2015 was that good, two months after we did the same, and that is what was important. Why is this? Small-mindedness?Provincialism? Make no mistake, we are all, me first of all, happy that this recognition went to a great Italian wine and that, I might add, Italy’s also took third place with Chianti Classico Riserva 2015 Castello di Volpaia. For me the latter is excellent but slightly less so than Coltassala, always from Volpaia, which was not on the Wine Spectator list but was recognized in the Essential Guide.
What I am trying to underscore is the naïve surprise of the Italian “media” that seems to just put up with, if not ignore, me and Luca Gardini, to then herald something done the US, something we did two months earlier. It is a bit like celebrating not the person who won a race but who came in second or third because they are more famous.
