Tignanello is the name that was given in the 1970s to a new wine produced by the ancient house of

Antinori Marchesi Antinori Srl is an Italian wine company that can trace its history back to 1385. They are one of the biggest wine companies in Italy, and their innovations played a large part in the " Super-Tuscan" revolution of the 1970s. Antinori is ...

(wine producers since 1385) and takes its name from the Tenuta di Tignanello production area in the town of

San Casciano in Val di Pesa San Casciano in Val di Pesa is a '' comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about southwest of Florence. San Casciano in Val di Pesa borders the following municipalities; Greve in C ...

. Made in 1971, Tignanello was one of the first red wines produced in the area without white grapes, and with the cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc grape varieties. Tignanello is regarded as an innovative pioneer of the modern Italian top wines, the so-called Super Tuscans, and has decisively shaped Italian

viticulture Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ran ...

Background

Tignanello has won international awards and has been included several times in the international top ten of the magazine ''

Wine Spectator ''Wine Spectator'' is an American lifestyle magazine that focuses on wine and wine culture, and gives out ratings to certain types of wine. It publishes 15 issues per year with content that includes news, articles, profiles, and general entertai ...

''. The wine was produced for the first time in 1970 by Piero Antinori. It had the characteristic of combining

Cabernet Sauvignon Cabernet Sauvignon () is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Australia and British Columbia, Canada to Leban ...

and

Cabernet Franc Cabernet Franc is one of the major black grape varieties worldwide. It is principally grown for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the Bordeaux style, but can also be vinified alone, as in the Loire's Chinon. In addition to being use ...

grapes and to be aged in a type of barrel called a

barrique Oak is used in winemaking to vary the color, flavor, tannin profile and texture of wine. It can be introduced in the form of a barrel during the fermentation or aging periods, or as free-floating chips or staves added to wine fermented in a ves ...

, leaving in fact the historical disciplinary of the

Chianti Classico A Chianti wine (, also , ) is any wine produced in the Chianti region of central Tuscany. It was historically associated with a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket, called a ''fiasco'' ("flask"; ''pl. fiaschi''). However, the ''fiasco'' is ...

DOCG wines as established by

Bettino Ricasoli Bettino Ricasoli, 1st Count of Brolio, 2nd Baron Ricasoli (; 9 March 180923 October 1880) was an Italian statesman. He was a central figure in the politics of Italy during and after the unification of Italy. He led the Moderate Party. Biograp ...

. For this reason it lost the name DOC and remained the only generic indication of

table wine Table wine (rarely abbreviated TW) is a wine term with two different meanings: a style of wine and a quality level within wine classification. In the United States, the term primarily designates a wine style: an ordinary wine which is not fortif ...

until 1994 when it could boast of the

Indicazione Geografica Tipica ''Indicazione geografica tipica'' () is the third of four classifications of wine recognized by the government of Italy. Created to recognize the unusually high quality of the class of wines known as Super Tuscans, IGT wines are labeled with the ...

. After the first experiment in 1975, the white grape was completely removed. Now the composition is 80%

Sangiovese Sangiovese (, also , , ) is a red Italian wine grape variety that derives its name from the Latin ''sanguis Jovis'', "the blood of Jupiter". Though it is the grape of most of central Italy from Romagna down to Lazio (the most widespread grape ...

, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Cabernet Franc and the gradation of 13.50%. This relationship between the grapes has been so since 1995 with the exception of the period 2001-2006 in which the Sangiovese rose to 85% at the expense of Cabernet Sauvignon which was decreased to 10%. In practice it was, together with

Sassicaia Tenuta San Guido is an Italian wine producer in the DOC Bolgheri in Toscana, known as a producer of "Super Tuscan" wine. It produces Sassicaia, a Bordeaux-style red wine. The estate also produces a second wine, Guidalberto, and a third wine, Le D ...

, the precursor of

Super Tuscan Tuscan wine (Italian ''Toscana'') is Italian wine from the Tuscany region. Located in central Italy along the Tyrrhenian coast, Tuscany is home to some of the world's most notable wine regions. Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di ...

wines that have managed to obtain numerous awards all over the world.

Cultural references

*Tignanello wine inspired the naming of the lifestyle blog ("The Tig") that was run by

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (; born Rachel Meghan Markle; August 4, 1981) is an American member of the British royal family and former actress. She is the wife of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, the younger son of King Charles III. Meghan wa ...

(before her royal marriage) from 2014-2016. "5 Things Meghan Markle Will Love About London.." The Free Library. 2018 Newsweek Media Group 06 Mar. 2019 https://www.thefreelibrary.com/5+Things+Meghan+Markle+Will+Love+About+London.-a0521634957 *The name could derive from the Etruscan divinity

Tinia In Etruscan religion and mythology, Tinia (also Tin, Tinh, Tins or ''Tina'') was the god of the sky and the highest god in Etruscan mythology, equivalent to the Roman Jupiter and the Greek Zeus. However, a primary source from the Roman Var ...

, the equivalent of

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label=genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, ...

References

Italian wines San Casciano in Val di Pesa