Our Provenance Guarantee
Purchase with confidence. All of our wines are selectively sourced and thoroughly inspected for authenticity and signs of poor storage. Accepted bottles are preserved in our climate-controlled cellar until they reach your doorstep. We have no storefront and no walk-in traffic, so nothing is moved or handled between inspection and shipping.
The bottle you see photographed is the bottle you receive (or fundamentally identical when multiple bottles are listed), and our commitment to you is that it arrives as represented. If it doesn’t, we want to hear from you.
Ratings & Tasting Notes:
98 points — Jane Anson, September 2023
Rich plum in colour, with heady, fruit-filled aromatics that take you straight to the heart of the action. The estate’s classic balsamic notes alongside orange zest, fennel, damson and black cherry. Juice runs through a muscular frame, the tannins plentiful but supple, with freshly cut herbs drawing out the flavours throughout. Anson noted this was Axel Heinz’s final full vintage at the property, and called it “a stormer.”
98 points — James Suckling, August 2023
Alluring aromas of lead pencil and currant with crushed stone and iodine. Full-bodied, with tight, focused, hemmed-in tannins, very fresh and energetic, showing wonderful length and intensity for the vintage. Needs four or five years to come together; better from 2028 onwards.
98 points — The Wine Independent, September 2023
96 points — Decanter, February 2023
Fine-grained and beautifully textured, its integrated tannins supporting a concentration of black fruits lightened by red berries. Fragrant with black cherry, liquorice, dark chocolate, cedar and damp earth, threaded with menthol and balsamic freshness, and finishing on stony, saline and chocolatey notes. Tight and moreish, its ripeness combined with freshness telling the story of an earlier-ripening year. The reviewer found complexity still to come with time.
96 points — Jeb Dunnuck
Full-bodied and flush with herbs, menthol, blackberry and cedar, filling the mouth with rounded plum and black cherry fruit and toast, carried on supple, velvety tannins. Drink 2026 to 2046.
96 points — Vinous
96 points — Wine Spectator
95 points — Wine Advocate
Cult Wines International Notes:
Ornellaia sits in the foothills near Bolgheri, a few kilometres from the Mediterranean, where sea breezes cool the vineyards in summer and the hills shelter them from cold northern winds in winter. The soils are unusually varied for a single estate, marine, alluvial and volcanic in origin, and the wine has always been built as a blend that reads that terroir rather than any one grape. Founded in 1981 by Lodovico Antinori and later part-owned by Robert Mondavi, the estate has belonged to the Frescobaldi family since 2005, a Tuscan winemaking dynasty with seven centuries behind it. Since 2006 Ornellaia has invited a contemporary artist each year to interpret the vintage’s character for its Vendemmia d’Artista project. For 2020 that artist was Joseph Kosuth, and the name given to the year was La Proporzione, proportion, chosen by estate director Axel Heinz.
The name is the vintage note. After a Cabernet-heavy 2019 and a Merlot-led 2018, the 2020 returns to Ornellaia’s classic balance: half Cabernet Sauvignon, a third Merlot, the rest Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Harvest ran long, from late August into early October. The wine spent eighteen months in French oak, seventy percent of its new, blended after twelve months and returned to barrel for six more, then a further year in bottle. Deep ruby, with black cherry, currant, liquorice, dark chocolate, cedar and damp earth, cut by menthol and balsamic freshness and a stony, saline finish. Best from 2028.
Bottle Size:
750 mL
Storage History:
Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.
Condition:
Please note: The bottle shown is the exact bottle being sold.
Outstanding condition.
