Masseto 2020

98 points - Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, May 2022

The 2020 Masseto now sees new DNA with a touch of Cabernet Franc added to this celebrated Merlot-based icon wine. This is a vintage of enormous richness and density, and everything about the wine is taken up a notch or two (including the bottle glass weight and the 15% alcohol content). But Axel Heinz and his team are well prepared for the hot vintages like 2020, and changes to farming and canopy management ensure even ripening. This wine is always hard to analyze in its youth. It needs many more years to soften and flesh out. Give it time.

Following a very productive 17 years at Masseto and Ornellaia, Estate Director Axel Heinz announced in March of this year that he was leaving his position. He will join Château Lascombes in Bordeaux as CEO. Axel was born in Germany, raised in France and established a brilliant winemaking career in Italy. "It makes it difficult to know which national soccer team to root for," he once joked with me. Under his time at Masseto and Ornellaia, the two brands grew in respective strength with individual identities. His new releases command some of the highest prices in Italian wine and are sought after by collectors worldwide. Axel oversaw the construction of the new Masseto winery, and he launched a second wine called Massetino (new vintages of both are reviewed here). Axel was quoted in the Italian press as saying, "Italy will stay in my heart forever, but it's time to go back to France."

I visited with Axel Heinz and the newly-appointed Masseto winemaker Gaia Cinnirella in early July to taste a preview sample of the 2020 Masseto and the 2020 Massetino that are hitting the market now.  Massetino was first produced in 2017, and this Merlot-based wine (with a small part Cabernet Franc) is already enjoying big success as the winery's "lower-entry" wine. The flagship remains Masseto (now in its 36th year). The iconic Merlot-based wine also has a small element of Cabernet Franc (from 6% to 7%) in the 2019 and the 2020 vintages. The decision to add the Cabernet Franc is part of a greater discussion on the impact of climate change in coastal Tuscan wines. Whether Cabernet Franc will be added to Masseto in the future will be decided on a vintage-by-vintage basis. The fact remains that Cabernet Franc performs very well in this specific environment. The estate had the opportunity to replant vines on blue clay soils that were previously used for the white wine Poggio alle Gazze dell'Ornellaia. They wanted to try a new variety. The scorching hot 2017 vintage caused further concern about warming summer temperatures, and Estate Director Axel Heinz was generally looking for a new approach with Masseto. Blending in the Cabernet Franc was a natural outcome, and Heinz cites inspiration from Pomerol and Saint-Émilion. After the classic 2019 vintage and the full-bodied 2020 vintage, comes the highly anticipated 2021 vintage. Heinz says, “The dry season concentrated the grapes, which yielded intense wines with great potential. The colors are particularly intense, like the aromas characterized by fully ripened black fruit. In the mouth, we find the unmistakable balance between richness and firmness that distinguishes Masseto. The wines develop a rich and concentrated palate, with dense and velvety tannins, as the result of careful and soft extraction, underpinned by striking acidity that is reminiscent of some of the best vintages, such as 2006, 2010 and 2016.”- Monica Larner