Bolgheri is a small village along the Tyrrhenian Sea, one hour South of Pisa, and two hours West of Siena or Montalcino, well worth a visit. It was put on the map in the 19th century by the poet, Giosue Cadducci, but more recently by Sassicaia Wine. Sassicaia wine is  Bordeaux style, “Super Tuscan” composed of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Annual production is now 180,000 bottles. In the 1920’s The Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta wanted to develop a “thoroughbred” wine and experimented with several French varieties, eventually settling on cabernet.  The first vintages were poorly received and from 1948-1967,  Sassicaia remained a private family wine.  It became clear that aging  greatly enhanced the wine and so a commercial vintage was released in 1968, and a 1978 Decanter tasting of great clarets, the 1972 Sassicaia took first place over 33 wines from 11 countries.  In 2013 Sassicaia was granted it’s own DOC.  It is now recognized as one of the finest wines in the world and has led the way for the establishment of many new wineries in the region.

There is a wine shop and restaurant at Sassicaia that you can visit.  You can arrange a tour of the winery, however, due to time constraints, we only briefly visited the wine shop.

This is a map of the wine region of Bolgheri, showing some of the major wine estates in the area and their locations.