🏅James Suckling 98 pts
🏅Wine Advocate 96 pts
🏅Wine Spectator 95 pt
2018 Testamatta
"Testa-Matta” in Italy is someone witha strong personality, a distinctive style and positive attitude and creativity.No other name could describe better Bibi Graetz flagship wine. Supertuscan madewith 100% Sangiovese from old vines, this wine is the result of the combinationof tradition and creativity, elevating the idea of Tuscan Sangiovese andbringing the word “Supertuscan” to the next level.
The Bibi Graetz winery was founded in 2000on the hill of Fiesole, overlooking Florence, where Bibi, who grew up in afamily of artists, felt completely in love with wine and made of it his life.
Bibi was fascinated by old vineyards; bytheir finesse, elegance and the purity of the furits they can produce. Today,the Bibi Graetz estate has assembled one of the largest collections of oldvineyards in Tuscany.
Love for old vines brings with it thepassion for native Tuscan varieties. Sangiovese, Canaiolo and Colorino are thecore of our wines.
Old vines, high altitude, poor stony soilsand natural viticulture characterize our production philosophy aimed to portraythe terroir of each single vineyard.
The “Dream”
Colore is the highest expression of Bibi Graetz dream. The drive of this wine is to create a pure excellence of Tuscany, a wine made with traditional tuscan grapes sourced from some of the oldest and rarest vineyards of the region.
Sangiovese represent the structure and the power of the wine, Colorino fruits and velvety tannins, Canaiolo minerality and intensity. Only the best few barrels of the whole production will become Colore.
Winemaker’s Tasting Notes
Sangiovese 80% Canaiolo 10% Colorino 10%
“After the magnificent 2015 vintage I couldn’t believe that the quality of 2016 was even higher! Walking in the vineyards during the harvest I had the impression of being in the middle of hundreds of bronze sculptures, the grapes looked like perfect artefacts. I’m not surprised by the result of the wine,powerful, with a lot of tension and a solid structure. Full bodied and dense
this Colore has a lot of blackberries, tobacco and plum.”
Bibi Graetz
Vintage 2016: the growing season
This vintage has a very high reputation all over Italy, especially in Tuscany,2015 and 2016 has been some of the best vintages of the past years, in different ways. In fact 2015 is more approachable and less bodied and 2016 has more strength, complexity and structure. The 2016 growing season has been very regular with a nice balance of rain and sun during spring and a mild winter before. The vines had the chance to fully develop the vegetation, and the sporadic rains in Summer granted the right amount of water for the
development of the grapes. September and October had only few days of rain and were mostly sunny allowing a long ripening time and harvest. Harvest started 26th September and finished the 3rd November.
Vinification and Ageing
The grapes sourced for Colore were selected from 3 vineyards: Lamole,Vincigliata. Siena. Each vineyards was harvest up to 8 times, allowing to hand-pick the grapes at the right maturity point. After the first selection in the vineyards, a second selection occurs at the winery before the destemming. The berries were at this stage softly pressend and placed in open-top barriques,
with extreme attention on keeping each plot and parcel divided from the others. The fermentation is conducted by indigenous yeasts naturally with 6 to 8 manual puchdowns per day, without temperature control and without bleedings, and lasted up to 2 weeks, with 1 extra week of maceration on the skins. After the fermentation the wine is moved into new barriques, where the malolactic fermentaion happen. Every parcels is aged separately for almost 3 years before the final blend is decided.
