Le Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia’s Development
We believe Le Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia occupies a unique position in the Italian wine landscape. Along with several leading estates in Bordeaux, it is a “second wine” that given the advances in viticulture over the last two decades and the commitment to rigour and precision that this caliber of estates carry out, has become a spectacular wine in its own right. Le Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia is today arguably as complex and refined as the Ornellaia first wine from the 1980s and 1990s.
While some second wines today are based around certain plots, the estate likes to say that every single grape on the estate has the potential to be included in Ornellaia. The estate has 70 vineyard workers full time, an almost unbelievable number, affording intimate knowledge and interaction on a vine by vine basis. What comes to bear most years is that Le Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia is composed primarily from the Ornellaia’s younger vineyard sites, with Merlot in a dominant role in contrast to the Cabernet Sauvignon of Ornellaia. This results in a wine with that combines generosity and depth of flavor with an engaging and vibrant personality, more approachable, yet delivering the quality experience of Ornellaia.
And having a little fun with the second wine comparison, see a little chart below of the 10 consecutive vintages (from 2005-2014) as reviewed in the Wine Advocate. The estate is rightly proud that their climate of Bolgheri offers consistency of outstanding quality virtually year.
The 2015 Vintage
64% MERLOT
17% CABERNET SAUVIGNON
10% CABERNET FRANC
9% PETIT VERDOT
After an unusual year in 2014, 2015 proved to be a very normal wine-making year, almost textbook. After a normal winter, wet and mild but with some days below 0°, germination arrived on time during the first few days of April. Spring was characterized, by dry and sunny weather, ideal conditions for normal vegetative growth that led to quick and full flowering at the end of May. From June water stress steadily arrived. July will be remembered as particularly scorching hot and dry, with temperature highs consistently above 85°F on every single day of the month. The heat wave, together with the lack of rain gave rise to fearing that ripening would be blocked and that early harvest would be necessary. Fortunately the rain arrived around 10th August with heavy rainfall that unblocked the ripening process, bringing with it some much fresher weather during the final phase of ripening. This cooler but sunny weather lasted for the entire harvesting period, allowing us to harvest very slowly, waiting to make sure that every vineyard had arrived at the perfect point in the maturing phase, uniting a fresh and lively aromatic quality with a perfect phenolic maturity with plenty of tannins yet still silky and soft. Beginning on the 29th August with the Merlot, the harvest came to an end on 12th October with the last Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot.
94 Points: “A big and flavorful red”
James Suckling – “Plenty of blackberry and rust with tile and stone undertones. Full body, tannic and structured. A big and flavorful red.”
93 Points: “This is a stunning and exuberant wine”
The Wine Advocate – “This is a stunning and exuberant wine that drinks with beautiful intensity and personality. The 2015 Bolgheri Rosso Le Serre Nuove dell’Ornellaia is made with fruit from the estate’s young vines. Fruit from the older vines is instead directed to the top-shelf expressions. If this wine is any indication of what we can expect from the next vintage of Ornellaia to hit the market, we are in for a very special treat. This is a complete and richly concentrated expression that drinks with seamless intensity. It pits power against elegance with confidence and grace.”
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