Ornellaia

Why we follow Ornellaia

The estate

Lodovico Antinori founded the estate in 1981 and planted it on advice from André Tchelistcheff, who also picked out the Masseto hill as Merlot ground. The first Ornellaia was the 1985. Ownership then moved in stages. Robert Mondavi took a minority stake in 1999 and full ownership in 2002, selling half to Frescobaldi the same year. Constellation inherited the Mondavi half in 2004, and Frescobaldi bought it out in 2005. The Frescobaldi family has owned it outright since. Ferdinando Frescobaldi is president, with Lamberto Frescobaldi alongside him. Michel Rolland has consulted since 1991. Axel Heinz ran the estate from 2005 to 2023; Marco Balsimelli took over as technical director in 2024, with Denise Cosentino heading winemaking.

The vineyards

Around 97 hectares under vine, worked as some fifty separate parcels across two sectors — Ornellaia, around the cellar on the Via Bolgherese, and Bellaria to the north. Bellaria is the stonier and better-drained of the two; the home sector carries denser clay. The soils are of marine, alluvial and volcanic origin: sand, marl and marine fossils lower down, clay with limestone pebbles higher up. That variation is the reason the estate vinifies in so many lots. Plantings run to roughly 38 hectares each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, 12 of Cabernet Franc and 7 of Petit Verdot, with Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier and Petit Manseng for the whites. Certified under Equalitas in 2021 and SQNPI in 2024, though not organic.

In the glass

Every variety and block is fermented apart — around eighty lots — in stainless steel and concrete, with malolactic mostly in barrel. Eighteen months in French barrique: assembled after twelve, then returned to wood for six more, and twelve months in bottle before release. Masseto, the Merlot off the blue clay hill, has been made since 1986 and labelled under its own name since 1987. It has had its own underground winery since 2019 and is run as a separate estate and a separate brand, though it sits within the same company and shares a technical director. Since the 2006 vintage each release has carried a Vendemmia d'Artista label, a word chosen for the vintage and interpreted by a contemporary artist.

With Lamont’s

Offered through the Private Cellar Selection. Register your interest and we will contact you when the next allocation is confirmed.

Around 140,000 bottles of Ornellaia a year and roughly 30,000 of Masseto, spread across ninety-five markets. Masseto in particular arrives in single figures. Register your interest and we will contact you ahead of the next release.