1971 Tignanello

I tasted bottle number 73,974 of the 1971 Tignanello in September 2015. The 188 remaining bottles of that vintage in Antinori’s cellars were topped-off (with wine from the same vintage) and given new corks on that occasion. This was one of those bottles. The wine opens to a medium garnet appearance with amber and honey-colored hues. This is a mature wine with a bouquet that reveals spice, truffle, moist earth, resin and tar. There are subtle accents of dried fruit in there as well. The tannins are extra silky and refined. Some 45 years after the harvest the wine is holding up exceptionally well although it is definitely past its drinking prime. The emotional payoff for trying this revolutionary Tuscan red is impossible to measure. If you could score that, it would be off the charts. But the actual state of the wine today merits a more modest score. It's impossible to say what the future drinking window will look like. If I owned a bottle, I definitely would not be drinking it.