GREAT TUSCAN VINTAGES TO DRINK NOW
The best Tuscan vintages are not always the easiest. In 2010 there was a chance of real glory, but you needed to earn it right through a season seemingly laden with bear traps – life was easier for the perennially attentive producers able and willing to sacrifice crop for quality in order to capture 2010’s elegance, both in terms of fruit clarity and tannic finesse.
The follow-on 2011 was the difficult child, scolded by brutal Saharan heat just before harvest – a small crop required laborious selection, which the best producers handled with sweat and skill. Tuscany 2013 can divide opinion, but it is a favourite of mine: wines with backbone, a sense of purpose and crystalline fruit expression.
The final two vintages would be called ‘a pair’ in Bordeaux, almost as if in 2015 the oven had been turned up a notch too high, with 2016 providing a tempering correction. The best 2015s are rich rather than dense, and the fruit needs time to unfold its full complexity. 2016 is the beautiful child, still in its infancy – the best vintage since 2004 (when I began spending much of my time in Tuscany), its joyful transparency is tempting now, but deceptively ageworthy.
2010
Tuscany’s best estates produced silky, saline wines with good acidity and finesse in 2010, similar to those from 2004. The best of these wines display mouthwatering clarity and are now coming into their prime.
A cold winter gave the vines a proper cool down after the previous year’s at times relentless heat. But a gloomy early spring with sporadic rain set nerves jangling, not least because the overcast conditions affected fruit-set. This reduced the potential crop – a worry at any
