The 2000 Ornellaia is notably different than the 1999, less concentrated in color due to the high temperatures of the growing season, significantly more alcoholic, but with much sweet black currant fruit, velvety and balanced flavors, and a round, smooth finish. Rather forward for a wine of its type, it should nonetheless provide fine drinking until 2016-2018.
Ornellaia has been through some significant changes over the past several years. First with the departure of Lodovico Antinori and the arrival of the new owners, Mondavi and Frescobaldi, then with a double changeover of winemakers, first Andrea Giovannini (now at Monsanto) from 1999 to 2001, then Thomas Duroux, trained at Bordeaux and then the oenologist for the unsuccessful Mondavi Languedoc project. High quality, however, has been a constant – these have been Bolgheri’s best wines, along with those of Le Macchiole, over the past five years, and there is no indication of any change in the level of ambition.
(WA 26th Apr 2004)
