A wonderful tasting of wines from Bibi Graetz was going on at my local wine shop The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan.  The final three wines offered were his Colore wine done as a vertical collection tasting.  This tasting was celebrating Bibi Graetz’s Twentieth Vintage.  “Colore is my passion, my dream and the pinnacle of what we produce each year at Bibi Graetz.  Colore truly embodies the essence of our wine making philosophy – working with native Tuscan varieties like Sangiovese, Colorino, and Canaiolo; harvesting grapes from our 80 – 135-year-old vine; and artisanal farming and winemaking – working with vineyards owned by generations of local families.”

We started with the Bibi Graetz Colore Rosso Toscana IGT 2015.  This wine has never been available in the USA and is now only available as a component of the boxed Collezione Verticale, so it was a pleasure tasting this wine, as well as all the wines this evening.  The wine is a blend of eighty percent Sangiovese, ten percent Canaiolo, and ten percent Colorino.  The fruit for this wine was all hand-harvested from eighty-year-old vines from the Lamole Vineyard (located in Chianti Classico), Vincigliata Vineyard (located in Firenze), and the Siena Vineyard (just south of Tuscany).  All three of the vineyards offered soil rich in Galestro (a friable rock that is silt and marl clay with intercalated layers of limestone) and clay, the famed soil of Tuscany.  Each parcel was kept separated with its own harvesting, destemming, gentle pressing, with Initial Fermentation using indigenous yeast with about eight manual punch-downs a day for about two weeks, with an additional week of maceration on the skins.  The wine was then transferred to barriques for Malolactic Fermentation and the assorted barriques were kept separate for almost three years, before the blending was decided on. A nice deep garnet red wine that offered notes of black fruit, spices, and sous bois.  I couldn’t get over how fresh this wine was for being 2015 and it offered tones of plums, cherries, spices, with a secondary flavor of leather and mocha.  This wine received plenty of approvals from the other tasters and it could probably be over the top in another ten years.

We then had the Bibi Graetz Colore Rossso Toscana IGT 2016 and this was a great vintage for the area.  This wine is a blend of eighty percent Sangiovese, ten percent Canaiolo, and ten percent Colorino and all from at least eighty-year-old vines.  The fruit was harvested from Lamole Vineyard (located in Chianti Classico), Vincigliata Vineyard (located in Firenze), and Siena Vineyard (just south of Tuscany); and all three vineyards offered soil rich in Galestro and clay, that is the prized soil of Tuscany.  Each parcel in the vineyards is individually hand-harvested, over multiple pass throughs, destemming, gentle pressing, with Initial Fermentation using indigenous yeast with about eight manual punch-downs for about three weeks, followed by another week of maceration, and then an additional three weeks of skin contact.  Once complete, seventy percent of the wine was moved to barriques of which half were new abend sourced from Burgundy.  The remaining thirty percent went into cement tanks.  All the wines were then aged for almost three years, before blending and bottling.  A beautiful deep ruby red wine that offered notes of black and red fruits, and then some notes of leather, cloves, and tobacco.  On the palate this was a big wine, full and robust, very chewy with black cherries, plums, some raspberries all blended with silky tannins and perfect acidity and a very long finish of balsamic and strong terroir.  I found this wine to be wonderful and captivating, but still needing about ten years of cellaring for strong and interesting secondary and tertiary notes and tones.

We finished the vertical run with Bibi Graetz Colore Rosso Toscana IGT 2020, and the Colore is his “dream” as the highest expression for Bibi Graetz.  From the very old vineyards, the poor soils, and the high altitudes all combine for the perfect terroir of Tuscany, and only a few barrels will become Colore.  There were three new elements for the 2020 vintage.  First the climate, was perfect for the region, creating a great season and vintage.  There was a new vineyard in Olmo di Fiesole, that brought a new depth of freshness with its terroir and at an altitude of 420 meters.  Third, was a new winery built in Fiesole to do the work in a comfortable manner.  With hand-harvesting, and an additional vineyard, the harvest lasted three weeks to pick all the grapes at the perfect time.  All the Sangiovese grapes were now from: Lamole Vineyard, Vincigliata Vineyard, Olmo di Fiesole Vineyard, and Siena Vineyard.  There were up to eight harvest per vineyard in selecting the grapes, with a secondary inspection before destemming, then a gentle press and the juice went to open-top barriques for each plot and parcel.  Initial Fermentation occurs using indigenous yeasts, with six to eight manual punch-downs a day for two weeks, followed by another week of maceration on the skins.  Then each of the juices are transferred to old barriques, where the Malolactic Fermentation occurs and the juice is aged separately for about twenty months, prior to the art of blending, and an additional six months of aging in the bottle, before distribution.  This wine was a bright ruby color which offered notes of dark and red fruits, rhubarb, florals, and spices.  On the palate a fresh and smooth (suave) wine that is full-bodied offering beautiful tones of cherries, raspberries, orange peel blended with polished tannins and a nice lingering finish of terroir.  This wine was four to five years younger and it was great to appreciate what it will mature to, in comparison.  This wine reminded me of the 2015 which got total rave reviews, so I would opine that in fifteen to twenty years this will be a stellar wine for the books.  A wonderful tasting experience for everyone involved.