Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi is one of Tuscany’s oldest and most historically significant wine families, with documented winemaking activity stretching back seven centuries and holdings across six major estates covering some of the region’s most important appellations from Chianti Rufina to Brunello di Montalcino and Bolgheri. The Castello di Nipozzano estate in Chianti Rufina, a cooler, higher-altitude sub-zone north-east of Florence, is the family’s historic home property, and its most prestigious single-vineyard expression is Mormoreto, a Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant Super Tuscan IGT produced from a single vineyard at the estate’s highest elevation, where the cooler growing conditions produce a wine of greater aromatic precision and structural restraint than the riper expressions associated with lower-altitude Tuscan Cabernet.

The Mormoreto vineyard is planted at 400 metres above sea level on the hillside above the Nipozzano castle, and the wine is produced primarily from Cabernet Sauvignon with proportions of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and occasionally Petit Verdot. Ageing takes place in French barriques for 22 to 24 months before bottling. The 2018 Tuscan vintage was excellent: following the cool and backward 2017, 2018 delivered wines of outstanding ripeness, concentration and balance, with the elevated position of the Mormoreto vineyard providing the freshness and structural definition that distinguishes great vintages of this wine from years in which the warmth overwhelms the site’s natural precision. The magnum format, allowing slower and more even development than the standard bottle, is well suited to a wine of this structural ambition.

Mormoreto is among the most age-worthy of the Frescobaldi portfolio’s prestige expressions, and the 2018 vintage is widely regarded as one of the finest produced in the wine’s history, with several Italian and international critics awarding outstanding scores at pre-release tastings. The wine occupies a specific and compelling position in the Tuscan fine wine market as a Cabernet-dominant IGT from a historic estate at altitude, distinct in character from the Bolgheri Cabernets of Sassicaia and Ornellaia and the Sangiovese-based wines of Chianti Classico and Brunello, offering a style of Tuscan Cabernet that is leaner, more mineral and more clearly defined by site character than by varietal weight alone.

Deep ruby with an aromatic and precise nose of blackcurrant, cedar, graphite, dried herbs, Mediterranean scrub and the fine mineral lift that altitude and the Nipozzano soils provide. Full-bodied on the palate with excellent tannin structure, good natural acidity and a long, classical Cabernet finish of considerable precision and depth. Best from 2026 through 2045.