Grattamacco Bolgheri Rosso 2024

Grattamacco sits atop a hill overlooking the sea between Castagneto Carducci and Bolgheri, at about 100 meters of elevation. The name comes from “macco,” an Etruscan word for iron, since the land was once worked as Etruscan mines and its soils are rich in minerals. The estate was founded in 1977 by Piermario Meletti Cavallari and his wife Paola, and it was the second wine estate in Bolgheri after Sassicaia. It was also the first to make a Bolgheri Rosso, and it has farmed organically since the 1990s on soils with some of the most significant concentrations of white clay and flysch on the Tuscan coast.
Since 2002 the estate has belonged to Claudio Tipa’s ColleMassari group. The historic vineyards lie on sandstone, clay, and calcareous marl, and a vast surrounding forest
isolates them from neighboring properties, creating a distinct microclimate. Fermentation takes placein truncated cone vats using only indigenous yeasts. The Bolgheri Rosso is built mainly on Cabernet Sauvignon, alongside Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and a portion of Sangiovese, the estate’s link to Tuscan tradition. Bolgheri’s modern story is one of the great reinventions in Italian wine. In the 1940s, Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta planted Cabernet on this stretch of coast, where his stony soils reminded him of Graves. For decades these wines existed outside Italy’s appellation system and were sold as humble table wine, even as their reputations grew into the “Super Tuscan” phenomenon. The Bolgheri DOC eventually recognized red wines in 1994. The climate is maritime and Mediterranean, with sea breezes moderating summer heat, while the Colline Metallifere hills behind the coast shelter the vines and cool the nights.