Preparations are complete at Tenuta La Massa for the launch on the international markets of the new vintage of its grand vin, Giorgio Primo 2020.This Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Petit Verdot is the very quintessence of the estate’s ceaseless, painstaking process of winemaking advances, both in vineyard and winecellar.
La Massa Giampaolo Motta, estate’s founder_Ph Studio Clou
An evaluation of a challenging growing year such as 2020 underscores the constructive and ever-active dialogue between man—in this case estate founder Giampaolo Motta–, the estate technical team, and the earth—here, the renowned Conca d’Oro of Panzano in Chianti. “The La Massa soils,” explained Giampaolo Motta, “are both the foundation and the external face of a growing area that is amazingly dynamic, fully capable of producing a blend that is its true offspring in every sense.” Giorgio Primo, grown in select areas of La Massa’s clay-schist soils, is the estate’s most eloquent self-expression. Right from its very first vintage, in 2007, it has reflected Motta’s passion for Bordeaux varieties, which here have become the authentic testimony to the character of this particular locus, even though the grapes’ French heritage clearly leaves its own noble imprint on the wine as well.
The proportion of the individual varieties varies by growing year. Cabernet Sauvignon predominates (75%) in the 2020 vintage, with respect to previous years, since its refined tannins ensured an elegant expression of that year’s complex weather performance. Petit Verdot contributed 10%, reinforcing the cuvée’s structure, while Merlot was reduced to 15%.
The 2020 season proved difficult to manage during the final stages of the harvest, since it brought continuous cold and rain. In taking stock of the adverse weather and its effects on the vines, Motta directed a vinification that would showcase the elegance and refinement of his Cabernet Sauvignon. “The choices we made in the winemaking process,” he explained, “guaranteed the fullest expression of the fruit and particular character of our terroir, which is as complex as it is generous.”
Giorgio Primo 2020 puts on ample display the full range of expertise gained over time by Giampaolo Motta and his team. “The result,” Motta concluded, “is a wine of superb cellarability, well-balanced and refined, one that clearly expresses our love for a corner of earth that has embraced us and that each year gifts us such excitement. Cabernet’s noble breed is based on a corpus of polyphenols that create a dynamic duet of aromas and palate that thrust forward into a very promising future.” Firm structure and stylish length inspire in the wine-lover the desire for a renewed encounter with a cuvée that is such an appealing offspring of its land and of the hand of man that crafts it.