2009 Bibi Graetz Testamatta Toscana IGT

Community Tasting Notes (21) Avg Score: 91.3 points

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  2/25/2024 - Bellissimo wrote:

  Decanted 60 minutes before dinner, drank with dinner and finished later that evening. Single purchase from 10 years ago, cellared properly over that time.
  
  Pretty classic Sangiovese profile showing cherry, stewed tomato, and herbs along with some dried leaves and gray tea. This wasn't nearly as sharp on the contrast of acid and tannins as others have described. In fact our bottle was lacking a bit of the acids and more tannin driven.

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  2/10/2022 - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Likes this wine: 92 Points

  Popped and poured at a restaurant. This is drinking really well now.

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  12/24/2021 - sfwinelover1 Likes this wine: 92 Points

  One off buy from online wine clearing house #1 ($59.99) about 2 years ago. On the nose and palate, incense, herbality, earthy minerality, cherries, plums, red currants, a pruny, slightly boozy note, balsamic, cedar with a slight mocha finish. Dark garnet, medium+ bodied, full legs. Intense tannins and acidity, no heat (subject to the above). Good complexity, VG+ persistence and intensity. This is a quirky wine. It came out of the bottle backward, with lots of tannins and acidity, strong secondary notes but muted fruit. After a couple of hours of air, the cherry notes in particular became a bit more prominent and sweeter, and the structure pulled back a bit, still not quite in synch, but a much easier drink. On night #3 (night #2 was a non-wine night), the red fruit gained assertiveness, the tannins and acidity receded further, which made the wine the most fun to drink, but also just a bit flabby. I note the prior writer comments that the fruit is diminished, but I don’t think that this is the case, as it did become more prominent over the time I’ve had the bottle open, yet this never fully came together. Neither unenjoyable nor uninteresting, in some ineffable way, it gave the sense it wasn’t quite living up to its potential (as sfwl has, alas, been told a time or 2, by teachers, employers and former gfs), a very good wine which feels like it should have had something even better in its grasp. Has an appealing, classic sangio savoriness. Hard to put a finger on the optimal tasting window, but I suspect we’re in it, although make sure to give this plenty of air, as you would any good sangio, if you’re consuming anytime soon. Very nice match with deep dish pizza, but particularly on night #3, quite solid on its own. I’ve had some younger versions of this bottling at Suckling’s Italy event in ‘19 and ‘20 and had similar feelings about the balance not being quite there. I do have a couple of ‘16s I’ll be intrigued to try in the future. 91-92+, with some prospect for improvement. Ok qpr from the discount website, but I wouldn’t pay full boat for this.

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  4/18/2021 - BBinSC wrote: 92 Points

  Still a huge wine despite its age, this wine really showed off how powerful Sangiovese can be. Still fairly tannic and acidic, fruit was diminished, but this wine has ages left with proper cellaring. Long, powerful finish.

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  1/30/2021 - SSGibson Likes this wine: 91 Points

  Smooth plum, cedar and strawberry, with good crisp acidity, smooth tannins, a nice balance and a medium finish. Fairly simple and perfectly nice, but not sure it was worth the ~$60 I paid. I decanted based on recommendations from others, and it did open up to a bit more fruit over time, but not a big change. Drinking well and I'll finish off my remaining bottle soon.

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