Tenuta Masseto

Tenuta Masseto represents a branch of the famous Tenuta dell'Ornellaia and produces the famous Masseto wine. The story began in 1981 when the Marquis Lodovico Antinori, cousin of Piero Antinori, founded the latter in the heart of the Bolgheri area. With the first harvest of 1985, what would become an icon among SuperTuscan wines was born, namely Ornellaia. And coincidentally, the first "prototype" of Masseto, as a wine, dates back to the following year, 1986 (always at Tenuta dell'Ornellaia) when with the first fruits of the new vineyard planted on the Masseto hill, around 800 bottles, simply taking the name “Merlot” (the only grape used for this wine). At the following harvest, it is renamed Masseto, taking its name from the hill of the same name on which the Merlot vineyards are planted and from the so-called "boulders" of blue clay present underground. In that period, the world-famous oenologist Michel Rolland was called and began to take care of the technical part of the cellar. At the beginning of 2000, Tenuta dell'Ornellaia passed to Robert Mondavi, the great Californian producer, and was subsequently acquired by the Marchesi de' Frescobaldi. A few years ago the separation of the winery that produces only Masseto was made official, naming it Tenuta Masseto and in 2019 the inauguration of the new production site was recorded, which was followed by the birth of the "Massetino", the "second vin" of the Estate which in the autumn of the same year it made its official entry into the international wine Olympus. Massetto is unquestionably one of the 2-3 most expensive and valuable Italian wines, considered an oenological masterpiece, so much so that it is sold in the largest auction houses in the world and sought after by collectors all over the world.