Tua Rita, 25 harvests of Redigaffi between art in the bottle, with pure Merlot, and art on the label

Suvereto, in Val di Cornia, is a territory of colors and strong lights, halfway between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Metalliferous Hills. A place where wines express this “abundance” of smells and flavors: it also happens in the labels of Tua Rita, a company born almost by chance in 1984 by the wish of Rita (Tua) and Virgilio (Bisti), who found, in this corner of Tuscany, the place to live in contact with nature. The passion for the fruits of this land, however, primarily grapes, led the couple to become winemakers, followed from the beginning by the oenologist Luca D’Attoma. After almost 40 years of history, yesterday a celebration, in full medieval style, with a dinner immersed in the vineyards, Tua Rita celebrated the harvest n. 25 of the iconic wine, Redigaffi, directed by Stefano Frascolla, together with his wife Simena Bisti and their son Giovanni Frascolla.
The Redigaffi, icon of Tua Rita, is among the finest Italian wines in the Liv-Ex Power 100 rating, the very limited selection of the most recognized and sold labels in the world, with quotations from “blue chips”: designed as all the labels of the company, from the Livorno master of “fantastic architectures” Raffaele De Rosa, the “celebratory” 2019, was chosen by the wine lovers through a contest on social media. In the end, there were over 2,000 likes on the profiles of Tua Rita, which awarded “The illuminated squire”, the painting that represents a young warrior and faithful soldier preparing his companions for battle. It is the beginning of the journey, it is the character who anticipates the day of celebration, it is the dawn of victory.
“Redigaffi is a wine born from an intuition that becomes a project and the symbol of the company”, explained, to WineNews, Stefano Frascolla, talking about Merlot in purity, which is now on the market with 2019, the harvest n . 25: “We wanted to create a different way of talking about our wine by involving those who follow us, thus making them participants in this journey”. “The 25th anniversary of Redigaffi is an exciting milestone not only from a personal point of view, but it also celebrates - explains Stefano Frascolla - the evolution of our 100% Merlot. As a life path, it has gone through three phases that in the imagination we trace back to childhood, adolescence, and maturity. Thus, if in childhood its natural power was mediated by a certain softness, in adolescence it brought out his impetuous character, an almost indomitable strength that led it to achieve notable goals in terms of wine criticism, up to reach the maturity in which the synthesis between softness and opulence have made it a wine of great elegance and balance. Quality is always greater: a goal for the future is improving”.
And, in fact, the tastings (with an audience of great occasions, with opinion leaders from all over the world, ed) of the twenty-five vintages, from 1994 to 2019 (the harvest of dreams for a wine producer), confirm the value of this symbol of the creation of pure Merlot of Italy: from the elegance and sweetness of the first vintage, 1994, to the 1999 harvest, explosive, with warm connotations, thanks to the luminous and sunny summer, to a year of balance like 2000: a slightly rainy spring that created the right water reserves for a sunny summer, which gave birth to a Redigaffi which was defined by the “critic of critics”, Robert Parker (“The Wine Advocate”), as an “icon of Italian wine”. But, from this vintage, which also for WineNews remains perfect, beautiful, superb, elegant, and truly a point of reference, we cannot fail to mention two small jewels of vintages considered minor and complicated (because they were so rainy and therefore cold), but which then during the tasting, after years, revealed that they are not: 2002 and 2014. In short, two small vintages are united by being truly elegant, delicious, fresh, aromatic, deep, and also with a good structure. The proof, after all, of the variability of the wine and also of the judgments of technicians, experts, and critics. Or to tell it better, one of the great beauties of wine. Prosit!