Campo alle Comete

Campo alle Comete lies at Bolgheri on the Tuscan coast, the appellation that changed Italian wine. The name means field of the comets, after the meteor showers visible over the Tyrrhenian on clear summer nights.

Bolgheri was pasture and marsh until the 1940s, when Mario Incisa della Rocchetta planted Cabernet Sauvignon at Tenuta San Guido because the gravelly soil reminded him of Graves. The wine became Sassicaia, and because Cabernet had no place in Tuscan appellation law it was sold as humble vino da tavola for decades. Its success created the Supertuscan category and eventually forced the law to change; Bolgheri received its own DOC in 1994.

The zone is warm, maritime and flat by Tuscan standards, sheltered by hills to the east and cooled by sea breezes, which is why Bordeaux varieties ripen fully here when they struggle inland. Cabernet Franc in particular does exceptionally well.