The all-Merlot 2000 Masseto, warm, spicy, and very ripe in aroma, is broad and enveloping on the palate, lush, silky, and, again, rather ready, though the force and length on the finish suggest that there are easily a dozen years of life ahead of it. Ornellaia has been through some significant changes over the past several years. First with the departure of Lodovico Antinori and the arrival of the new owners, Mondavi and Frescobaldi, then with a double changeover of winemakers, first Andrea Giovannini (now at Monsanto) from 1999 to 2001, then Thomas Duroux, trained at Bordeaux and then the oenologist for the unsuccessful Mondavi Languedoc project. High quality, however, has been a constant – these have been Bolgheri’s best wines, along with those of Le Macchiole, over the past five years, and there is no indication of any change in the level of ambition.

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