2012 Antica Estate by Antinori Cabernet Sauvignon Atlas Peak Napa

Tignanello on Atlas Peak — The Legacy of Piero Antinori

In 1966, Piero Antinori was 28 when disaster struck his family’s business. After weeks of torrential downpours, the Arno River flooded the streets of Florence, pouring into the Antinori cellars as well as ruining countless historical treasures and priceless works of art.

At the same time, it was discovered that a preservative had mistakenly been added to a batch of Tuscan wine, and customers were getting sick. After months of locating and recalling each of the tainted bottles, the company’s longtime general manager accepted responsibility and resigned. Niccolò Antinori, Piero’s father, put his son in charge.

Piero traveled tirelessly across Italy, rebuilding the family’s reputation with customers. But each time he returned to Florence, he found himself drawn to a 57-hectare property where he’d spent summer afternoons as a child. Purchased by Piero’s namesake grandfather in 1900, the vineyard was planted on a high, steep hillside facing southwest, framed by olive trees.

While days were warm, nights were balmy and breezy. Limestone pebbles were scattered throughout the vineyards. Piero had fond memories of the spot, of a beautiful old villa and Podere Tignanello, a more rustic farmhouse, perched on two hilltops.

In 1971, Piero Antinori shocked Tuscany when he crafted the first vintage of barrique-aged Sangiovese blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc drawn off hillside parcels beneath the farmhouse. He named that Bordeaux blend “Tignanello.”

Just four years later, Antinori’s passion for Bordeaux varieties pushed him to further blur the boundaries of Tuscan blends. From a vineyard adjacent to Tignanello, Antinori furthered his experiments with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The first vintage of that blend from the 1975 harvest bore the name of the vineyard from which it was drawn — “Solaia.”

During a 1985 trip to Napa Valley, Piero Antinori was shown a 1,200-acre estate on a high plain, in the eastern mountains of Napa Valley. Antinori immediately fell in love with the property perched between 1,200 and 1,800 feet in elevation — high above the fog line — on the rocky, mountainous terrain east of the valley floor. Almost as immediately, Piero had formed a partnership to purchase the property.

For nearly two decades, the Antinoris developed the property cautiously, conducting countless soil samples to determine which Bordeaux varieties and clones to plant on each of the dozens of designated vineyard blocks.

In 2007, a small batch of Atlas Peak Cabernet Sauvignon was released. And five years later, Piero Antinori — at the age of 74 — one more time sensed that the time was right. With the release of this powerfully structured 2012 Antica Cabernet Sauvignon, Antinori put an exclamation point on his incredible career, stunning Napa Valley — and Wine Spectator — just as he once stunned Tuscany.

The 2012 Antica Cabernet Sauvignon, drawn from one of the most extraordinary Napa Valley vintages in history and true to its Atlas Peak origins, is an absolute powerhouse. Brilliant purple-black in hue. Voluptuous aromas of crushed black fruits, violets, black cherry, and plum, generously framed with new-wood cedar. Big, bold, and ultra-concentrated like all the great mountain Cabernets of 2012, dense and chewy texturally, gushing with black-fruit intensity, doused with sweet crème de cassis, finishing with plenty of muscular Atlas Peak tannins. Drink now for its youthful bombast or lay down until the late 2020s.

$60 on release. Just $45 this morning, courtesy of the Tuscan trailblazer and maker of Tignanello and Solaia.

• ABV 14.40%
• Enjoy right away
• % Cabernet Sauvignon