Why Super Tuscans are so super

Super Tuscans are the most recent type of wine developed. They also happen to be my favorite type of wine. If you look at France and Burgundy, they have been consistent wines for over a thousand years. Most areas in Italy such as Chianti and Barolo have been around for about an equal amount of time. Super Tuscans were "invented" in 1971. Sassicaia is usually referred to as the first Super Tuscan. Some say it was Tignanello which is owned by the largest family of wine producers in Italy. Personally most of the evidence points to Sassicaia with Tignanello being an extremely close second and they are the parents of this wine genre. 

How did it happen? Most wine producing countries in Europe have developed strict rules and regulations to ensure high wine quality and make it easy for consumers to identify and become familiar with types of wine. This has been greatly beneficial for these countries and for many wine producers and the system works. Champagne is recognized world wide as well as Barolo and so on. The reason is because a consumer can look at a bottle and have an idea of what it will taste like. This confidence the consumer has for this purchase makes the wines much more marketable. Currently in Italy it goes Vino di Tavola (table wine), IGT(a recent addition because of the issues related to Super Tuscans), DOC, DOCG (going from lowest to highest). The problem with this system is; say you love the terroir in Chianti but you think that Cabernet would be better suited for it. In Chianti, in order to be a classified wine (wine of labeled high quality by the government) it must be at least 80% Sangiovese along with many other rules. So if you want to make Cabernet Sauvignon in Chianti, of course they can't stop you, but the government has no choice but to label it as table wine (the lowest quality) even though it could be the best wine ever. 

So that's actually basically what happened. Sassicaia did grow Cabernet Sauvignon in the Tuscany region near Chianti and it was the best wine ever. It was so noticeably exceptional that it quickly became the most expensive wine in all of Italy. Italy was of course pretty embarrassed that the most expensive wine the country is considered table wine so they had to make a new classification specifically for this and new emerging wines riding in Sassicaia and Tinganello's coat tails. These two powerhouses have remained at the top of the game since Super Tuscans conception and for good reason.