VITAE Honours Tenuta Bossi

On 3 November, at the Magna Pars Event Space in Milan, Vitae, the guide published directly by the Associazione Italiana Sommelier, was presented.

On that occasion our Vinsanto Chianti Rufina Riserva DOC, CARDINAL DE RETZ 2003, was honoured with 4 vines (which, as the guide explains, means a score of over 90 points, marking a wine of excellent style, profile and taste).

This distinction was earned because, to this day, the Vin Santo of Tenuta Bossi is made exactly as tradition requires: 100% Trebbiano grapes, dried in the loft for 3 months, then, after Christmas, gently pressed, fermented and aged in oak casks of 50/100 litres.

The Gondi have been making Vin Santo for a very long time — so much so that the French writer and statesman Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, in one of his most important works, "Du Voyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italie", recalls how he was received at Palazzo Gondi in the summer of 1580, after attending a festival in Piazza della Signoria. The writer was delighted by the hospitality of the Gondi family and by the wines produced on their estates. For this reason a member of the Gondi family living in Lyon sent him the "trés bon vins, comme du Trebisan", a wine made from Trebbiano. That wine is today's Vin Santo.

The Vin Santo Cardinale de Retz stands out for its colour, nose and palate.

Colour: deep amber, with tawny reflections. Nose: great aromatic intensity, with remarkable complexity and breadth. Soft notes of walnut, dried fig, caramel, candied fruit, dehydrated white fruit (apricot), date palm and chestnut honey close on a sweet, faintly ethereal spice. Palate: sweet, soft and round, with both elegance and strength. An intriguing balance on a structure entirely governed by an elegant touch of alcohol, underpinned by freshness. The finish is long, echoing all the notes found on the nose.

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