Our most recent tasting group event was at Kathy’s house with a loose theme of Off the Beaten Path Italian Wines. We had a ton of delicious pot luck dishes and even more delicious wine.
Starters:
N.V. Fontezoppa Spumante Brut Verdicchio “Voile Blanche” Le Marche. Although I could not find reference to a vintage date on the label, the retailer claims this sparkling Verdicchio is from 2009. The bouquet is dominated by aromas of blanched almonds, with supporting notes of lemon pith, chalk, minerals and earthy root vegetables. It is also rather earthy-flavored, with a strong streak of sweet almond paste on the palate. It doesn’t have the lift or vibrancy of my preferred style of sparkling wine, but it does build incrementally over time and manages to finish with a decent burst of flavor. There is sneaky density and weight to the wine, but it feels sort of mealy and meaty to me. It is certainly something different and interesting, but not something I really connect with.
2005 Colleluce Vernaccia di Serrapetrona Secco Le Marche. Next, we tried this unusual sparkling red wine made with grapes that are partially dried prior to fermentation. Talk about a polarizing wine! The vast majority of people absolutely hated this, I would say. The first time I put my nose into the glass, I recoiled abruptly, for a huge hit of horse’s ass and cow pie absolutely assails the nostrils. Approaching with more caution thereafter, I also get dense aromas of cassis and cherry paste at the core, accented by tobacco leaf, leather, dusty dirt and spearmint notes in addition to the omnipresent schtank of sweaty horse. In the mouth, it opens with a very syrupy sweet red fruit concoction but foams up and seems to find a more elegant tone in the mid-palate before actually finishing quite dry. Really, this is a wild ride and not at all for the faint of heart. At times, I find myself really liking its unique character and fun layers of complexity, but overall it would be hard to recommend to anyone but the true wine geek.
2009 Monastero Suore Cistercensi Coenobium Lazio IGT. This is a slightly dark yellow, not really the light orange color I am used to seeing from the previous several vintages of this wine. The nose right now is tightly-woven, with aromas of honey, rose petals, dark citrus fruit, chutney and peach pit, with some sweet pea accents poking through from time to time. It is appealing, for sure, but just not as wild and fun at this stage of its early life as I found the 2008 and especially the 2007 to be. In the mouth, it is floral-toned but also quite fleshy-textured and interestingly layered—showing a lot of depth and density allied to those airy floral qualities. But I sense it is tight right now—needing a bit of cellar time to let its hair down. Still, it was a runaway crowd pleaser and my wife made sure I went out and bought some for our cellar.
2010 Argiolas Vermentino di Sardegna Costamolino. Aromatically, this is vibrant and tingly but also airy and pretty, with scents of lemon peel, orange zest, chalk and honeysuckle providing some direct and easy pleasure. In the mouth, it is a touch sweeter-fruited than the Pala drunk alongside it, but it is full of pretty peach, honeysuckle, orange, kiwi and grassy elements that are clean, giving and immediately enjoyable without a lot of fuss or muss. A very good QPR, in my opinion.
2010 Pala Vermentino di Sardegna Crabilis. The nose here is vibrant and fresh, with open aromas of white flowers, peach, honeysuckle, yellow raisin, yellow apple, kiwi, orange peel and beeswax. In the mouth, it is fresh and a bit grassy, with lots of grapefruit and kiwi flavors that are light and zesty and accented by mineral undertones. It is young but fairly generous in a light-weight and nicely-driven framework.
Red Wines:
2004 Le Piane Colline Novaresi La Maggiorina. We started off the reds with this wine from the Piedmont, which is much lighter than I was expecting. It leads with airy but earthy aromas of bitter smoke, grape stems, leather, black cherry and damson that have a tart edge to them. In the mouth, it is quite similar—light to medium-weighted, with a lot of tangy and tart flavors accented by smoke and crunchy minerality. It is not a dense wine by any stretch and there are no tannins to worry about, really, so it comes across as fresh and jazzy—calling out for food. In this setting, it wasn’t one of the more memorable wines.
2000 Pacina La Malena Toscana IGT. This super-Tuscan is unusual in its heavy reliance on Syrah in the blend. Boy, it sports a full, rich, sexified nose—full of cherry paste, cedar dust, dense black currant, black leather, clay, jalapeno pepper and soft spices that are just lovely and engaging. It continues in the bold and sexy vein on the palate, where it has a luxurious and velvety texture, excellent push and a very pleasant richness of fruit. Everything works together in fine balance and it is drinking extremely well right now. It was my #3 wine of the night and the group’s #2.
2007 Paolo Bea Vigna San Valentino Umbria IGT. This was my wine of the night. First of all, it is just immensely alive on the nose, with poppingly beautiful scents of peach juice, orange blossom, honeysuckle, passion fruit, strawberries, bright cherries, creosote, blonde tobacco and toasted brown spices that almost have more in common with a white wine than a red one but just work together wonderfully. On the palate, it is just lovely—with a beautiful honeysuckle and peach inner mouth perfume that beautifully accents the smoky dark cherry flavors. It is an exceptionally juicy wine, with solid structure but a lilting beauty to it. This is a unique and captivating wine to my tastes.
2001 Cantina di Santadi Carignano del Sulcis Superiore Terre Brune Sardegna. Oh my, the bouquet of this wine soars right up out of the glass with uber-modern aromas of smoldering incense, eucalyptus, dill, cedar dust, vanilla, mint and toasted barrique. It is sleek and highly-polished, with a nice high-toned edge to it at times, as well. In the mouth, it is sweet and sexy, with chocolate-covered cherry flavors allied to scorched earth and more incense sorts of notes. It is fully-loaded, velvety-textured and slathered with vanilla and brown spice tones on the rather lasting finish. It isn’t overblown in size or anything, just made in a very new-wave and highly-stylized fashion that appealed enough to 5 of our 10 voters to make it into their top 3 wines of the night, but probably won’t appeal at all to traditionalists.
2006 Argiolas Korem Isola dei Nuraghi Sardegna. This wine is also pretty heavily oaked, though the nose is darker and less flamboyant than the previous wine—focusing on aromas of dark cherries, black and red currants, cool rocks, vanilla and dark spices. In the mouth, it has a nice smooth texture to it for such a young wine and gives up plenty of black cherry fruit flavors to go along with bits of toasted bread, fudgy chocolate and dark mocha elements. It has solid structure and excellent stuffing, but right now I also sense some slivers of alcoholic heat from time to time--and the tannins definitely rear up on the finish—so I’m inclined to suggest putting this away for another 5 years at least.
2000 Mastroberardino Taurasi Radici. This was my #2 and the group’s #1 wine of the night. It starts out with a classically-structured bouquet that is fresh and pure, with an excellent lift and delineation to the stony, earthy notes and the filigreed dark fruit aromas. It is similarly sculpted and lively in the mouth, with taut cohesiveness to the structure and a relentless drive to the acidity. For all that, it is grippy in texture and beautifully layered with flavors of black cherry, black currant, black rocks, dark chocolate and menthol that are full and giving. It is in a great spot for drinking now, but I wouldn’t hesitate to hold it a while, either.
1998 Masi Brolo di Campofiorin Veronese IGT. I find this wine to have a surprisingly fresh nose of blackberries, raisins, forest greens, lava rocks, dark earth, incense and toasted spices. In the mouth, it is smooth and layered, rich and chewy. There’s a lot of life to the wine and no sense of being overdone or roasty at all. It is actually on the dry side, with a lot of meaty red and black fruit flavors to go along with iron and dried blood accents. It has a certain youthfulness to it, but also drinks pretty darned well right now.
1997 Masi Amarone della Valpolicella Costasera. This is a traditionally-styled Amarone, especially in comparison to the Allegrini tasted alongside it. It has a smoky, dark and serious nose to it--with aromas of iron ore, dried blood, seaweed, granite, blackberry, fig and raisin. It is kind of thick and meaty in the mouth, with heady black currant, raisin, date, iron ore and dark chocolate flavors in a very large-framed structure. It certainly has heft and luxuriant texture, but also a surprisingly tensile crunch of acidity running down its spine. There’s still plenty of life left in this wine and I think I would wait another 4-5 years before opening another, as I don’t see it going anywhere soon.
1997 Allegrini Amarone della Valpolicella Classico. The Allegrini sports an aromatic core of lifted caramel, sweet cassis and rich raspberry compote, but with an interestingly earthy underbelly I haven’t noticed in any other bottles of this I’ve drunk. In the mouth, it is velvety smooth and definitely a bit on the overtly sweet-fruited side of the spectrum—with all kinds of cherry paste, raisin and fruitcake flavors done in a modern style. It is long and toothsome on the fine finish.
-Michael