Rihanna takes leftover wine from the restaurant

Sassicaia and Rihanna: caught by the paparazzi's flashes outside the restaurant

Sassicaia is perhaps the most well-known Italian wine in the world!
An expensive wine, excellent to the point of becoming glamorous and trendy among luxury lovers from every country!
Top executives, entrepreneurs, cinema and music stars and those from every other field, politicians! Everyone, wine experts and non-experts alike, has elected it among their favorite "dining companions" to be surrounded by at public appearances!

Recently, during the presentation of his autobiography, former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson declared: "I had good relations with both Ancelotti and Mancini. But the wine Roberto offered me was fantastic, bottles of Sassicaia..."
Who could blame him!
Now raise your hand if you wouldn't go crazy to win the beautiful Rihanna's heart!
Do you know who managed it?

A 2003 Sassicaia! Spotted outside a restaurant and immortalized by photographers and paparazzi with a great flash of camera lights!
The American singer had ordered this special wine, but realizing she wouldn't be able to finish it, asked the sommelier for the cork and decided to take it home with her – without even covering it with a bag!
Certainly not the most etiquette-approved gesture; but are you for or against Rihanna?
A wine like this would be wrong to leave behind given its cost, the effort that goes into producing it, and the respect it deserves; it is also true that it probably wouldn't have gone to waste, and given the star's income it certainly wouldn't have made a dent in her budget!
One thing is certain: Italian wine has generated tremendous publicity for itself, thanks to its extreme quality, the paparazzi, and of course Twitter!

But how did Sassicaia come to be?
The name of the product comes from the estate of the producing family, so called because it is located in a very "stony" area fifty meters above sea level.
The story of this wine begins when the Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta, Piedmontese by birth, decided – despite his passion for Burgundy wines based on Pinot Nero – to plant Cabernet Sauvignon in Bolgheri, as he believed it was better suited to growing near the sea.
Mario was no novice: his grandfather Leopoldo Incisa della Rocchetta, a renowned ampelographer, wrote in 1862 "Descrizione dal vero di 105 varietà di uve, parte indigene e parte di origine straniere".
In short, a Tuscan wine born at the hands of a Piedmontese! That alone should make it special!
Following negative opinions about the wine he produced, the Marchese left it to age in the cellar, until he decided to taste it again and realized it was improving with time!
Here enters his nephew Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga, who contributed significantly to modernizing the winemaking operation by relocating the cellar to its current location, introducing the Willmes press which pressed the grapes in a much more delicate way, and the use of barrique.
In 1968, the first bottle of Sassicaia was sold with a simple sugar-paper label at the estate's kiosk!
Despite their passion for wine, the Incisa della Rocchetta family had another, probably stronger one – horses – and so they decided to have Sassicaia marketed by their relatives who were already working in the sector: the Antinori.

Here another Tuscan enters the scene, winemaker Giacomo Tachis, already a collaborator of the Antinori and a constant partner of arguments and discussions with Mario Incisa della Rocchetta.

Sassicaia, as many know, by using non-native grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, had no right to be classified as a DOCG wine and was therefore defined as a "table wine" – and what an expensive table wine at that! (further proof that appellations do not necessarily indicate greater quality)
The Americans called them, in the 1970s, Supertuscans; Sassicaia was the pioneer, but Tignanello, Solaia, Ornellaia and others also belong to this category.