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Buy any 12 bottles and save 10% (excludes sale). Free UK delivery on orders over £175. Tel : 02922 337454
Buy any 12 bottles and save 10% (excludes sale). Free UK delivery on orders over £175. Tel : 02922 337454
1999 Cepparello, Isole e Olena Your Store

1999 Cepparello, Isole e Olena

Tuscany, Italy

The Long Game

A beautifully mature Tuscan icon, now in that spellbinding stage where power has softened into nuance. The nose opens with dried cherry, wild raspberry and rose, then drifts into tobacco, leather, forest floor, coffee and sweet spice. On the palate, it feels resolved but still alive, silky, savoury and gently structured, with faded red fruit, earthy depth and that vital thread of acidity that keeps it moving. The finish is long, graceful and quietly complex, more about detail than drama now, but still with enough shape and energy to remind you why Cepparello became a benchmark for pure Sangiovese.

For when: the bottle matters as much as the moment.
Pairs with: bistecca alla Fiorentina, porcini risotto, aged pecorino or slow conversation.
If this wine were a place: a candlelit Tuscan dining room at the end of a long autumn day.

What makes it special
Cepparello was first released in 1980 as Isole e Olena’s top selection of 100% Sangiovese, created by Paolo De Marchi as a pure expression of the grape from the estate’s best fruit. The 1999 vintage was produced in meaningful but still limited quantity, with Wine Spectator noting 4,250 cases made, and it earned 92 points from Wine Spectator and 90 points from Decanter on release. Today, mature bottle notes suggest it has moved firmly into its secondary and tertiary phase, showing dried fruit, earth, leather and mushroom, yet still carrying enough acidity and structure to age with dignity if well stored.

Whats in the bottle
100% Sangiovese

Notable Awards
92 points from Wine Spectator

£125.00 - £125.00
£125.00
£125.00 - £125.00
£125.00
Availability:
3 in stock, ready to be shipped

Isole e Olena is one of the great names of Chianti Classico, an estate formed in 1956 when Francesco De Marchi united the two historic hamlets of Isole and Olena into a single property. A new chapter began in 1976, when his son Paolo De Marchi took over and began reshaping the estate with a far more quality-driven vision, focusing obsessively on vineyard selection, site expression and the potential of Sangiovese as a fine wine grape in its own right.

That vision changed Tuscan wine history. In 1980, Paolo created Cepparello, a pure Sangiovese wine made from the estate’s best fruit at a time when Chianti rules still encouraged the use of other grapes. It became one of Tuscany’s defining wines, not only for Isole e Olena, but for the wider evolution of Chianti Classico and the rise of top-tier Sangiovese in Tuscany. Even today, Cepparello remains the estate’s flagship, a symbol of the precision, restraint and longevity that define the house style.