2017 Tenuta dell'Ornellaia, Le Serre Nuove dell' Ornellaia 2017 6000ml

“Elegant, excellent ageing potential and immediately pleasing, this wine elicits the surrounding Mediterranean brush on the note. The tasting experience ends with a long finish and unexpected freshness.” Olga Fusari – Winemaker – May 2019

WINEMAKER’STASTINGNOTES
54% Merlot, 26% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Cabernet Franc, 6% Petit Verdot
 

“Le Serre Nuove dell'Ornellaia 2017 expresses itself with outstanding elegance, combining great ageing potential with immediate enjoyability. A deep ruby red colour with purple highlights, a beautifully complex nose characterised by scents of small red berries and balsamic notes reminiscent of Mediterranean scrub vegetation. The quality of the tannins on the palate is particularly striking, smooth and silky. The mouthfeel ends with a lingering finish and unexpected freshness.”
Olga Fusari - Winemaker - May 2019
 

THE 2017 GROWING SEASON
2017 will go down in history as being one of the hottest, driest years ever. Things were clear from the outset due to a particularly mild winter, with temperatures over three degrees higher than the seasonal average and rains within the norm. Consequently, the vines budded much sooner than usual, almost two weeks in advance. The vegetative cycle was accompanied by hot weather with very little rain from the month of March, and this was interrupted by a sudden drop in temperatures at the end of April, which caused frost in various parts of Tuscany.
 

Thanks to the mitigating effects of the sea, temperatures remained above zero along the coast, preventing damage to the young buds. The hot, dry weather returned in May, limiting vegetative development and the size of the bunches, while flowering occurred under excellent conditions. There was virtually no rain in July and August but fortunately the hot weather was offset by cooler temperatures at night.
 

The harvest began early, with the first Merlot on the 24th of August, continuing through until the last week of September in hot weather and under sunny skies. Rain finally put in an appearance around the middle of month, cooling things down and creating the perfect conditions for the later-ripening varieties.
 

VINIFICATION AND AGEING
The clusters were hand-picked into 15-kg boxes and then selected by hand on a double sorting table, before and
after de-stemming, and finally gently crushed. Since 2016, optical sorting has been introduced in addition to manual selection, in order to further increase the quality of selection. Each variety and each parcel was vinified separately. Alcoholic fermentation took place in stainless steel, at temperatures of 25°C for two weeks followed by one week of maceration, thus not exceeding a total of three weeks in tank. Malolactic fermentation was started in stainless steel, and completed after transfer to barrels (25% new and 75% a year old). The wine remained in Ornellaia’s temperature-controlled cellar for a further 15 months. It was assembled after the first 12 months and then reintroduced in the barrels for a further 3 months. After bottling, it was aged for an additional six months prior to release.