Welcome back to Notable, where twice a month I report on the most interesting wines of recent tasting. Last week I participated in two online events with Italian producers: Argentiera, in Bolgheri, on the Tuscan coast; and Tenuta di Castellaro, on the tiny Aeolian Island of Lipari. Let’s dive in.
Argentiera, in Bolgheri
Bolgheri is famous not for Italian grapes but French. If you squint hard enough, the region’s gravelly coastal plain is vaguely reminiscent of Bordeaux, and in the mid twentieth century, a handful of enterprising Italians started tinkering with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, aging blends in French oak barriques to yield polished, international-style wines that captured critics’ hearts. The varieties weren’t legally permitted in Tuscany so the wines were labeled Vino da Tavola, but they swiftly reached escape velocity and by the end of the century had earned Bolgheri DOC status and an international reputation as so-called Super Tuscans.
There are now 76 members of the Bolgheri consorzio, including Argentiera. The estate, founded in 1990, lies at southern tip of the appellation and comprises 85 hectares spread across four vineyard sites, from the sandy lowlands to the coastal hills that offer a spectacular view of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Farming is organic but not certified.
Winemaker Nicolò Carrara, who has worked for Argentiera since 1999, led the virtual tasting of four of their wines: three red blends variously of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot; and a white wine made from Vermentino (a grape of the Mediterranean, not the Aquitaine).
I should confess my wariness of vinifying French grapes in Italy, and in a French style, to boot. The Italian peninsula bristles with grapes that have, over centuries, become intimately attuned to Italy’s variegated territorio, and these tend to be the wines I prize. Grapes do wander, of course, via trade routes and other cultural peregrinations; that’s partly how Italy historically earned so much vinous variety. But the direct importation of French cépages into Italian viticulture for the express purpose of producing French-like wines has always struck me as redundant at best and needlessly appropriative at worst. Plus, I’ve rarely tasted one (especially made from Merlot or Chardonnay, two French grapes widely planted in Italy) that felt truly Italian, by which I mean nervy, earthy, maybe bitter, definitely savory, even salty; in other words, true to place.
So I was pleased to try these Bolgheri reds and find a tracery of Italianate sensibility amidst all of those Cab-y, Merlot-y flavors. They tasted like Bordeaux blends, but they also evinced a kind of feral leafiness, bitterness, and volatility I associate with Italian wines. In a good way.
Argentiera Scenario Bolgheri Bianco DOC 2024
12.5% ABV | About $55
A varietal Vermentino wine. Pale yellow color with beautiful green and yellow citrus fruit aromas, plus bay leaf, lime peel, salt. The flavors are lit with big citrus energy, but texturally it’s more suave, and as it expands and lengthens it reads like green pear. Crunchy and refreshing.
Argentiera Poggio ai Ginepri Toscana IGT 2024
13.5% ABV | About $30
A blend of 40 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 30 percent Merlot, 20 percent Cabernet Franc, and 10 percent Petit Verdot, vinified in stainless and aged in stainless and neutral barriques. It’s a woodsy wine suggesting red and black fruits, juniper berry and juniper leaf. Light bodied and somewhat astringent, it finishes dark and drying. It needs rich food as counterpoint.
Argentiera Villa Donoratico Bolgheri Rosso DOC 2023
14% ABV | About $50
This blend leans a little harder on Cabernet, at 45 percent, with 30 percent Merlot, 15 percent Cabernet Franc, and 10 percent Petit Verdot. The wine aged in 500-liter French and Austrian tonneaux. It’s another leafy wine, with juniper and pine and charming cherry fruit and smooth, leathery tannins. Lifted, with firm acidity, it’s got a dark, almost brooding finish.
Argentiera Bolgheri Superiore DOC 2023
14% ABV | About $120
This is the flagship wine, grown at elevation. The blend is 48 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, 45 percent Merlot, and 7 percent Cabernet Franc, and the wine aged in a mix of barriques, tonneaux, and large casks. It has the spicy aroma of oak mingling with the leafy Cab-Merlot vibe. Ripe and rounded, with solid fruit and youthful but pliant tannins. It has the stuffing to age and will profit from cellaring for at least five years.
Tenuta di Castellaro, in Lipari
Tenuta di Castellaro is a small estate on Lipari, in the volcanic Aeolian archipelago off the northeast shoulder of Sicily. Although its neighbor, Stromboli, constantly steams and fumes, Lipari is not an active volcano, but it does have fumaroles that bring sulfur compounds to the surface, acting as a natural anti-fungal in this maritime climate. The estate has 21 hectares of vineyard that yield 70 thousand bottles per year, including white, orange, rosé, red, and sweet wines. It also produces capers (caperi) and caper berries (cucunci), wild fennel, and tarragon. Production is certified organic.
Castellaro works with varieties that have long histories on Lipari, including white Malvasia delle Lipari and red Corinto Nero. Chasing the vine genetics, I was reminded (by Wine Grapes) that Malvasia is not one plant, it’s many, a sprawling category of diverse vines that share performance characteristics, specifically floral perfume and a propensity to produce sweet, golden-hued wines. Lipari’s Malvasia appears to be identical to Malvasia found across a wide swath of the Mediterranean, including sites in Spain, Madeira, and Croatia, which suggests it’s an extremely old variety. Its parentage is lost in the Mediterranean mists of time.
Meanwhile, Corinto Nero is actually Sangiovese under the hood, although this particular cultivar has been grown on Lipari for centuries and is, unlike its Tuscan peer, seedless. Lacking those seedy tannins, the fruit makes a wine with light structure and color.
During a virtual tasting, export manager Daniele Sassi presented three wines: white, orange, and red. I was struck by their curious salinity and sizzling acidity. An Italian might call this sapidità, strictly “sapidity” but loosely more like “salt and minerality had a baby.” These qualities render the wines especially good with raw and fresh sea foods (sing it with me: What grows together goes together). The wines also seemed—how can I say this?—volcanic, as in “forged by Vulcan,” tinted with a flavor of brimstone that does not read as any specific sulfur fault but as an environmental marker.
Bianco Pomice Terre Siciliane IGT 2023
13% ABV | About $30
A blend of 60 percent Malvasia delle Lipari and 40 percent Carricante, the most significant white grape of Etna; Sassi called this wine an “Etna Bianco-plus.” It’s highly perfumed, white-floral, honeyed, the orchard in spring bloom, also with a sense of dried apricot and peach and that characteristic tint of sulfur. Texturally it’s a mix, heavy at first but soon lightening as the acid and salt hit hard. The fruit feels somewhat beside the point (not unusual for an Italian wine) so overall it’s mostly about vitality and refreshment.
Eúxenos Terre Siciliane IGT 2022
12.5% ABV | About $45
An orange wine made exclusively from Malvasia delle Lipari. The fruit was de-stemmed and whole berries were added to anfora made from cocciopesto, an ancient Roman building material that’s denser than traditional terracotta. After a one-month maceration, the pomace was removed and the wine aged for another ten months in anfora. It’s a deep golden color, not stridently orange, and it needs air to blow off some reductive character. Then it offers a sense of sultana, dried apricot, and mango, and earns structure mostly from firm acidity; the tannins, such as they are, are lightly astringent rather than deeply textural. Like the Bianco, it has a profound, penetrating, saline quality.
Nero Ossidiana Rosso Terre Siciliane IGT 2021
13% ABV | About $35
A blend of 90 percent Corinto Nero and 10 percent Nero d’Avola, it’s a limpid cherry color, festive looking, with a scent of bramble berries and herbs and, again, that sulfurous bite. This is another salty wine, odd in a red but not surprising by now. The wine’s acidity stands forward, the fruit reading like red grapefruit muddled with cherries. Glistering acidity lights up the finish, which absolutely sizzles and fumes.
Paintings ©2026 Meg Maker
Argentiera is imported by Volio Imports. Tenuta di Castellaro is imported by Massanois. All wines were samples for review.
Sapidity is another one of those terms that seems to mean different things to different people.
Please invite me to come taste with you! These list and images are always beatiful!