This lot is comprised of 3 bottle(s) of 2017 Masseto Toscana - 750ml. Estimate for this lot is between $2100 - $3000 with a reserve of $1500. The wine in this lot belongs to collection 11856.
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Driven by his passion for Italian wines sparked during a post-college trip to Italy, the collector began building his cellar in 2005, with an affection for Sassicaia. The majority of the collection was acquired directly through the SAQ in Québec—where he faithfully queued in the cold on release days and traveled across the city to secure his allocations—supplemented by Canadian wines purchased straight from the vineyards. Housed in a compact cellar, the bottles were largely preserved in their original wooden cases, with loose bottles periodically rotated to maintain cork integrity. As his collecting expanded alongside exceptional vintages, he established a personal tradition of opening a bottle from the previous year’s purchase whenever new releases arrived home.
2017 Masseto Toscana from this lot has the following scores - James Suckling 98 points, Vinous 97 points, The Wine Advocate 97 points, Falstaff Magazine 97 points, Decanter 97 points, Jeb Dunnuck 96 points. This is the tasting note for 2017 Masseto Toscana from Robert Parker - The Masseto 2017 Masseto puts on another exhilarating, knock-out performance for the third year in a row. The Masseto vineyard is a triangular-shaped plot tucked in at the back of the same property that houses the Ornellaia vineyards and winery. This special site is located at the base of the mountains that rise gently from the Tyrrhenian Sea, with the picturesque silhouette of the Castiglioncello castle at the top. The vines are planted at an altitude of 80 to 100 meters above sea level in blue clay soils that are unique to Bolgheri. That ideal position opens the vineyards to soft breezes, proximity to the sea, long daylight hours and cool diurnal shifts from the protective wall of low mountains at the back. It's a little garden of Merlot Eden. The center of the vineyard now is home to the new Masseto winery and an adjacent tasting room built into a pre-existing farmhouse. This wine was made in the old winery (the existing Ornellaia winery). Fermentation kicks off in a combination of steel and oak tanks before the wine is racked over to barrique, where it rests for two years. The wine then goes into bottle for 12 months before its release. Like most vintages of Masseto tasted this early in the game, the oak is omnipresent, and it grounds the wine in terms of texture and structure. It is powerful, but that's always the case with Masseto (this vintage records a 15.5% alcohol content). I tasted this wine next to the decidedly more playful Massetino, and the Masseto moves over the palate with substantial fruit weight and concentration gained over the course of this hot and dry growing season (which produced smaller, richer and more compact berries). Perhaps, what this vintage lacks is that profound varietal character that we saw in recent vintages like 2016 and 2015. If concerned that the hot vintage would draw out too many ripe fruit tones, the oak serves to soften some of the more volatile components of the fruit. Those distinctive notes of macchia mediterranea (wild bush) that I always associate with Masseto are less present in this vintage. You feel the oak tannins on the finish with toast and vanilla that will certainly shed as the wine ages. In fact, I went back to taste the wine 12 hours later, and they had already softened considerably.
