Bolgheri 2021: Overview of a milestone vintage and top-scorers

Bolgheri 2021 vintage rating 5/5

One of Bolgheri’s finest ever vintages, combining vibrant fruit, fresh acidity and ripe tannins with impeccable finesse and poise, showcasing exactly what the territory is capable of.

Winter rains ensured that there was sufficient underground water for the vines to access throughout the three-month summer drought.

This year, the Bolgheri DOC marks its 30th anniversary. It’s a milestone to celebrate, but it’s not a very long time in wine terms, especially for a zone which claims some of Italy’s most internationally recognisable labels: Sassicaia, Ornellaia, Michele Satta, Guado al Tasso and Grattamacco among them.

It’s hard to pin down exactly what has made Bolgheri so successful in a relatively short timespan, but fairly liberal regulations and a penchant for international varieties has attracted a real mix of winemakers from across Italy and further afield: Piermario Meletti Cavallari (Grattamacco) arrived from Bergamo; Michele Satta from Varese; the Antinoris from Florence.

More recently, Stanislaus Turnauer (Tenuta Argentiera) arrived from Austria, Konstantin Nikolaev (La Madonnina) from Russia, and Alejandro Bulgheroni (Tenuta Le Colonne & Tenuta Meraviglia) from Argentina. The point is that the majority of wineries in Bolgheri today are operated by ‘outsiders’.

The opportunity to make wines with international grapes in one of Italy’s most prestigious areas isn’t the only factor which attracts investment; the territory itself offers something unique, even compared to the rest of Tuscany.

Scroll down to see the top Bolgheri wines in 2024

Bolgheri: Top wines from the latest releases

I have tasted over one-third of the wines in this report on at least two separate occasions, sometimes more. When I first tasted the 2021 Superiores in the spring, they were on the whole showing beautifully, but by August they had begun to shut down and most will need some additional bottle age before they begin to open up again.

In the meantime, you can enjoy the 2022 Bolgheri Rossos – or even the upcoming 2023s – but you’ll need to tread carefully as quality is highly variable from producer to producer.

Just below, you’ll find my top-rated wines from the Bolgheri area tasted this year, including some labelled as Toscana IGT.