Super Tuscan

​“Putting the Super in Super Tuscan” was the second session I attended at SommCom in a very, very cold room.  It was about 90 F outside and must have been barely 60 F inside.  Not sure why, but hotel conference rooms are always this way.  Guess they are intent on bringing on global warming….
Anyway, great title for a session if, indeed, one knows what a Super Tuscan wine entails.  I was under the impression that to be a Super Tuscan some of the grapes would have to be Sangiovese.  I was wrong.  According to Wikipedia the first Super Tuscan wines were made from French grape varieties!  Well, I was only a little it wrong.  The first successful Super Tuscan, one that caused a major change in Italian wine regulations, was a blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. 
Released by Marchese Piero Antinori in 1978, Tignanello, as it was called, was a great hit with the public.  At the time of its released, Italian wine laws were based on the French AOC model.  Groups of wineries in a specific region could get together and agree on a set of criteria for specific wines.  If the government approved, they could label their wines ‘Denominazioni di Origine Controllata” (DOC).  If they went a step further they could add ‘e Garantita’ to the name, shortened to DOCG.  The wines then became controlled and guaranteed by the Italian government.  Tignanello did not meet the DOC or DOCG criteria so was considered a table wine.  Seeing his success, other Italian wine makers released a wide variety of very successful of non-DOC wines.  The demand was such that the Italian government in 1992 added an additional designation, IGT, between table wines and DOC wines into which these Super Tuscans could be put.  Some regulation, but much looser than DOC level. 
As it turns out, Piero’s uncle was the first to start selling “Super Tuscan” wine in 1973 using only French grape varieties from Bordeaux grown in Bolgheri.  The presentation at SommCom reviewed much of this history then introduced us to some of these wines.  I took it as my task to find the Super that they claimed they had put into the wine to make it a Super Tuscan before I froze to death….

The first wine we tasted, in the lower left on the picture above, is from Sassicaia where the first Super Tuscans were made. It has attained the DOC level.  The rest are all IGT level wines.  It is a basic Bordeaux blend, not particularly inspiring or unique given that Bordeaux blends are by far the most popular wines in the world.

​The rest of the first row were similar, as was the one behind it.  But the fifth wine (shown above) tasted very different, much like a Syrah.  Sure enough, it is a Syrah blend, and a good one at that.  Had I found the Super?  Or is the Super what was not in any of the wines, and we were tasting what the Super Tuscans were like without the Super?  After all, the first Super Tuscan to make it big was a blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon.  Or is the Super in Super Tuscan that the Super Tuscan is made from whatever grapes the winemaker wants to use?