Ornellaia Vendemnia d'Artista honors the unique character of every new vintage from Ornellaia. Every year since May 2009, the release of Ornellaia 2006, a modern artist creates a work of art and a series of limited edition labels, inspired by the word chosen by the winemaker to describe the character of the new vintage.

Ornellaia, one of the Italian 'premiers crus' is a remarkable cuvee made from vineyards grown on the exceptional terroirs of the estate in the municipality of Castagneto Carducci. With an extremely selective production, Ornellaia embodies a unique quality and style and is known as one of the best wines of Italy. The 2016 La Tensione Ornellaia is a blend of 51% cabernet sauvignon, 27% merlot, 18% cabernet franc and 4% petit verdot

2016 once again represents a hugely successful vintage that emphasizes all the virtues of the climate of the Bolgheri region: high sun hours, without excessive heat, a dry summer in which the grapes reached perfect maturity and concentration, and just enough rain to prevent too much stress to prevent. All these elements together create a wine that is richly ripe and at the same time crisp, opposite properties that give a sense of depth that we like to describe as "tension ."
Axel Heinz - Estate Director and Oenologist

What seems to be the norm, the winter of 2016 was abnormally warm with heavy rain in February. The buds ran out in the last week of March. Due to the abundance of water in the soil and the warm weather in April, the vegetative vine grew rapidly. Temperatures normalized towards May, causing slowing down of growth, with flowering in the last week of May when the weather was dry and sunny, perfect for good fruit set.
Summer was within the norm with little rain and therefore a favorable water stress at the end of the ripening phase. The usual storms in August did not occur, so that the water stress continued until the first part of the harvest. Fortunately, the night temperatures dropped significantly, allowing the vines to recover from the hot temperatures during the day. Maturing progressed steadily, resulting in an excellent phenolic potential and a good balance in sugar and acidity. The harvest started early on August 24, with the young merlot sticks. In mid-September a number of showers ensured that the harvest could be carried out in almost perfect conditions, sunny with moderate temperatures and sufficient water in the soil to prevent the vines from closing. The harvest was completed on 12 October with the last cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot.

The hand-picked clusters were transported in 15 kg boxes and then hand-selected on a double sorting table, before and after stalking, and finally gently crushed. Optical sorting was introduced in 2016 to supplement the manual selection, to further increase the quality of the selection.
Each grape variety and every block of the vineyards is separately vinified, with a fermentation in stainless steel and concrete tanks at temperatures between 26-30 ° C for two weeks, followed by 10-15 maceration on the skins. Oak barrels were used for malolactic fermentation, 70% new and 30% used once before. The wine matured for 20 months in barriques in the temperature-controlled cellars of Ornellaia. After the first 12 months of ripening, the wine is assembled and then aged for another 8 months in barrique. After bottling, this vintage matured for another 12 months in the bottle before the release.

The Bolgheri Superiore Ornellaia is a blend of 53% cabernet sauvignon | 23% merlot | 17% cabernet franc | 7% petit verdot. The 2015 will be a vintage that can stay in the basement for a very long time (if this is desired :-). The bouquet is very developed with beautiful notes of dark fruit, tobacco and spices. Those perfumes are simply beautiful. The mouthfeel is intense with tannins that are still young but already silky soft.

Ornellaia Vendemnia d'Artista honors the unique character of every new vintage from Ornellaia. Every year since May 2009, the release of Ornellaia 2006, a modern artist creates a work of art and a series of limited edition labels, inspired by the word chosen by the winemaker to describe the character of the new vintage.
The American artist Shirin Neshat is known for her "disruptive" and poetic visual arts, photography, films and video. For the 11th Vendemnia d'Artista she was inspired by the Persian poet Omar Khayyam from the 11th century who wrote "I cannot exist without pure wine". Omar has written several Persian poems about the connection between wine and spirituality.

98 points - James Suckling 98 points - Wine Spectator and in beautiful magnum in OWC of 1.5 liters