2021 Grattamacco Bolgheri Superiore L’Alberello

Its Origins

Grattamacco, founded in 1977 by Piermario Meletti Cavallari, who has since sold the estate to Colle Massari, sits at the end of a long, winding drive in Bolgheri on the Tuscan coast (home of Sassicia). It's a land with a very unusual microclimate, a windy plain 100m above sea level, where the estate gets 300 sunny days a year and a steady breeze. The sun and the wind work together to help their organically grown grapes--Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Sangiovese, Petit Verdot and Vermentino--ripen without rot. Add this natural propitiousness to the skills of enologist Maurizio Castelli and winemaker Luca Maronne, and you can see how Grattamacco invariably produces wines that please both enthusiasts and connoisseurs. For example, this pair's tender loving care extends to the point of inventing Rube Goldberg-looking machinery that gently tips the sorted grapes into the maceration vats to keep their skins from bruising and thus releasing harsh tannins. Grattamacco holds unshakeable faith in the terroir of Toscano, particularly as it is expressed in the region’s most emblematic grape, Sangiovese, and the estate shows this commitment in their organic viticulture and traditional vinification practices that include using gravity, natural temperature and humidity in vinifying and refining their wines.