On Nov 27, 12:19*pm, "Bill S." > wrote:

> 1979 Sassicaia – I have always liked this wine a lot, but had figured
> that it was now in decline, so I opened shortly before serving it,
> just in case it tanked too quickly. *There was a slight mintiness in
> the nose, and some VA at the outset but that seemed to abate fairly
> quickly. The wine was understated to begin with but seemed to pick up
> steam with air in the glass, adding some cedar to the fruit nose and
> seeming to fill out a bit (it was initially a tad lean on palate).
> There was still some soft tannin and good acidity levels. *No one
> guessed that it was Italian right off, and they had to work their way
> in to the property once that was revealed. *This surprised me and
> showed better than the last time I’d opened it. One more bottle in the
> cellar to go. If you’ve got this, I wouldn’t wait (my cellar is very
> good and others may age faster), but it showed a surprising amount of
> charm over maybe an hour in the glass.
>
> 1982 Sassicaia – my last bottle of this, I think. It has always shown
> well and this was no exception. Darker colour, more interesting dark
> fruit based nose with some vanilla, very good balance, a tasty wine
> with excellent length. *Not a big rush on this, although it won’t get
> any better with further age.

I recently had my last bottle of the 1980 Sassicaia Reserva (Tenuta
San Guida) 1980, Incisa. If I remember correctly, this wine was
lighter than some from more famous years. The wine was well stored
since release, and there were no bottle or other issues. From your
descriptions of the 1979 and 1982, I would say that my 1980 is
somewhere between your description of the 1979 and 1982. It would not
benefit from more age, but might hold on a few more years.

I never bought much of this wine, because I was more interested in
Italian wines made from native grapes when some started showing that
very high quality wines could be made from from them. Of course there
have long been a few top quality Barolos, Brunellos, Amarones, etc
often nearly lost in a sea of poor examples of such. However
Mastroberardino and now others have produced some very fine examples
of Taurasi, Greco di Tufo and Fiano di Avellino. Dr. Lungarotti made a
Torgiano Rubesco Riserva which was very fine and proved that Umbria
could produce fine dry red wines. The late Carlo Hauner produced a
very good example of Malvasia delle Lipari at a time when many sweet
wines from Sicily and surrounding islands were often not very good. I
can enjoy Sassicaia, especially if someone else is paying for it, but
in the past I found some top Bordeaux a better value. After seeing
recent Bordeaux prices, that may no longer be the case.