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Masseto 2016

Masseto, Tuscany, Italy

Masseto
Tuscany Italy
  • 100
    Points
  • The 116 best of the all Tb wines
  • 17 tasters of 18 recommend this wine
336 100
  • Taste
  • Moment

Food Pairing

Roasted Beets with Goat Cheese

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's 50 best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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The Titan of Bolgheri: How a Flawless Classical Year Sculpted an Immortal 100-Point Paradigm

Masseto 2016 is a mythical, historically monumental, and staggeringly profound 100% Merlot that stands as one of the absolute greatest, most flawless masterpieces ever produced in the history of Italian winemaking. The official 2016 vintage report describes an absolutely idyllic, textbook growing season on the Tuscan coast, widely revered as a bench...

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The Story

Masseto was born ‘almost by chance’ in 1986 when it was decided to vinify the Merlot from the Masseto vineyard alone as it ‘promised well’. This small, exceptional and legendary cru has soon become a collector’s item sold in auctions all over the world. The first vintage was called very simply ‘Merlot’ but, from 1987, it has taken on the name of its vineyard ‘Masseto’.

The Masseto vineyard is a unique place. Blessed with the generosity of a...

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Wine Information

The 2016 Masseto is an undisputed 100-point masterpiece and widely celebrated as the single greatest modern release in the history of Bolgheri’s iconic Merlot estate, achieving universal consensus perfection (Wine Advocate, Vinous, James Suckling) and commanding market prices from $1,100 to $1,500+ per bottle. Born from a classic, cool-night vintage across the famous 11-hectare blue-clay hill, it opens with an ethereal bouquet of dark wild plu...

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Vintage 2016

2016 is a textbook year for the Masseto, with a typically Tuscan coastal climate which saw a dry and sunny vegetative season, with abundant sunshine and the right one amount of rain for perfect ripeness. 2016 presents itself with a particular color intense and young, the intense aroma of ripe dark fruit blends with subtle cocoa notes spices. On the palate, the rich and dense structure of ripe and silky tannins is balanced by a fruity note sens...

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Average Bottle Price

2026 2023
990€ +19.3% 830€

This data comes from the FINE Auction Index, a composite of average prices for wines sold at commercial auctions in 20 countries. The average prices from each year have been collected since 1990. This chart plots the index value of the average price of the wines.

Tasting note

color

Deep and Ruby red

ending

Long, Pure and Lingering

flavors

Blackberry, Cranberry, Blueberry, Vanilla, Toasty and Cedar

nose

Intense, Complex and Rich

recommend

Yes

taste

Average in Acidity, Warming, Perfectly balanced, Developing, Medium-bodied, Round, Ripe, Elegant, Dry and Silky tannins

Veridict

Sophisticated and Excellent

Written Notes

Vintage Report: A magnificent vintage defined by balance and linearity. A mild spring led into a warm, dry summer devoid of extreme heatwaves. September provided the ultimate finish to the season, with brilliant daytime sunshine and cold nights. This allowed for an extraordinarily slow, perfect phenolic maturation of the skins and pips.

Tasting Notes: Breathtakingly elegant and sophisticated. This wine perfectly balances massive flavor concentration with pinpoint, razor-sharp definition. It features soaring aromas of dark plums, licorice, woodsmoke, and crushed stones. The structural matrix of fine-grained, chalky tannins tightly wraps around a core of deep, dark fruit. It leaves a laser-focused, pristine finish that lingers on the palate for minutes.


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  • 99p

 Served blind. Liquorice, blackberries, some spices, dark fruits, liquorice notes nose.Fresh acidity, ripe tannins, blackberries, anise, dark fruits, liquorice, rich, long finish. 

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  • 94p

Rich and solidly built, this red features black cherry, plum, cedar, vanilla and toasty oak aromas and flavors. A line of refined tannins marks the finish, yet overall this is balanced, remarkably fresh and expressive. 

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  • 96p

Good looking normal size bottle and in an perfect condition. Colour is ruby red and deep. On the nose it is intense, rich and complex. The taste is elegant, ripe, round, fruity, perfumed, and dry, warming, with silky tannins, and average in acidity, medium-bodied, with perfectly balanced structure and developing. On the palate it is layered and has cranberry, vanilla, toasty, new-oak, floral, cedar, balsamic, blackberry, blueberry and chocolate flavours. The finish is long, pure and lingering. This wine is sophisticated and excellent. I paid around 500-1k€ a bottle. Perfectly stored bottles are still very worthy and will last well for another 20-30 years and decant at least 45min before tasting. Too expensive for quality. I do recommend.

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  • 96p

This is so solid and powerful with incredible vertical dense that goes down and down on the palate. Compacted and thick with caressing and polished tannins that are powerful yet refined. Super concentration yet agile and energetic. This is a wine that needs time to come together and resolve all of its amazing components. Reminds me of the legendary 2001. Try after 2023.

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  • 100p
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Information

Origin

Bolgheri, Tuscany

Vintage Quality

Excellent

Value For Money

Best buy

Investment potential

Excellent

Fake factory

Be Catious

Glass time

2h

Inside Information

Seven different lots were vinified during the harvest. The bunches, hand harvested in 15kg crates,were evaluated and selected by hand on a double sorting table before and after destemmingand then subjected to soft crushing. Each single lot of the vineyard was vinified separately.Fermentation took place in both steel and wood tanks, small portions of vineyards in barrel. Fermentation was followed by 15-20 days maceration at a temperature between 25 and 30° C. Afterwards, malolactic fermentation began in 100% new oak barrique barrels, while keeping thevarious lots separate for the first 12 months of ripening.

Subsequently, the wine was blended and reintroduced once again into the barrels for another year, for a total of 24 months. The ageing process then continued in bottle for another 12 months before being released on the market.

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