To all Best Winers,
Tibor Gal may not be a household name to many of you reading this but his legacy is extreme, to say the least.
Tibor became one of the founding fathers of the current Bolgheri movement when he helped take the famed Tenuta dell’Ornellaia winery to a whole ‘nother level back in the 90’s. At that time, there was very little if any action in this promising coastal Tuscan appellation outside of the most famous of them all, Tenuta San Guido’s Sassicaia.
His expertise and know-how helped to make Bolgheri what it is today, the ‘ritziest’ section of Tuscany and one of the world’s greatest zones for the production of premium Bordeaux-inspired wines.
That’s a bold statement, but true.
After Ornellaia, Tibor’s next project was Aia Vecchia. He helped the Pellegrini family scout the best locations for planting back in the late-90’s and immediately set about creating at Aia Vecchia what he had already created at Ornellaia.
The winery’s first vintage of Lagone that we saw stateside (2001?) is still one of the greatest values I’ve ever tasted in Italian red wine. It was ridiculous how good it was, and knowing how much potential there was to be had. The winery’s vineyards were both in the Bolgheri zone as well as ‘Bolgheri-adjacent’, thus they could offer a pretty incredible price for a wine of that quality level. I sold a ton of it…
Over the years the winery continued to improve under the guidance of Tibor until a fatal accident took Tibor’s life all too soon in 2005. The winery took it hard. There was much work to be done to adapt to no longer having Tibor around.
But adapt they did. As a matter of fact, they’ve ‘adapted’ themselves to the top of the Bolgheri hierarchy in a very short period of time! Their wines are fantastic, and still offering simply outlandish value for what’s in the bottle.
Their 2010 Lagone is as good as ever. The wine is still around 2/3 Merlot with the balance Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, all aged in small French barrels for a year prior to bottling. It delivers unbeatable value for a wine from this section of Tuscany, on which the pundits happily concur.
Antonio Galloni says of this 2010, “The 2010 Lagone is beautifully rich and expressive. Grilled herbs, leather, sage and menthol flesh out in this radiant, generous entry-level red. Lagone has been a perennial favorite of mine going back to my student days. The 2010 is another successful edition.”
What did the great Galloni drink in college? Yup, Lagone. Cool.
And I’m guessing Wine Advocate’s Monica Larner knocked back a few cases of Lagone herself back in the starving student days as she threw a big 90 point score at this one during her last days at Wine Enthusiast remarking on its, ”…rich, concentrated aromas of black fruit and milk chocolate”. Yum!
We’re just getting started. The winery kicks it up a couple notches with their exquisite 2009 Sor Ugo bottling. This blend of mostly Cabernet Sauvignon with a healthy dollop of Merlot and Cab Franc also represents extreme value for what’s in the bottle. It is forward, generous, silky, and has the feel of a Bordeaux from a warmer year that could easily fetch triple digits.
Pretty much everybody on the planet who reviews wine agrees with me:
- 94 points from James Suckling, who called it “Full-bodied, with polished and silky tannins.”
- 94 points from Monica Larner, while she was at Wine Enthisaust. It also made their Top 100 list in 2013.
- 93 points from Galloni, who wrote, “A huge, explosive wine, the 2009 bursts from the glass with the essence of plums, mocha, leather, tobacco, spices and savory herbs.”
Three very different palates all digging on the same wine? It must be pretty darn good.
Now for the best part, the prices. These wines sell for at least 50% less than wines of comparable quality from this very expensive real estate. The 2010 Lagone, at $13.88 is a flat-out steal. The 2009 Sor Ugo at $33.88, is the only wine that I know of from Bolgheri with this levels of rave reviews at this price. You’re gonna have to head north of $60 (and higher) to find another Bolgheri red that works on the same level.
Thanks, Tibor. You will be missed, but your memory and legacy linger on…
Kyle Meyer and Tristen Beamon, Proprietors, BestWinesOnline.com
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