Broke into a box of old Sangios last night and this was the best:
1. VillaRagazzi Sangiovese RodenoVnyd/NapaVlly (13%) Napa 1989: Med.color w/ some bricking; rather earthy/dusty light cherry/black cherry/Sangio bit pencilly/oldChianti/rustic slight pencilly/oak complex interesting nose; fairly tart/tangy/bit metallic rather earthy/dusty/root cellar bit oldChianti/pencilly/rustic light toasty/oak some complex flavor w/ light gently bit drying tannins; med.long rather tart/tangy light cherry/black cherry/Sangio light toasty oak slight pencilly/rustic/rough/earthy complex finish w/ light smooth tannins; showing its age and lost most of its Sangio fruit but not too dissimilar from a 20 yr old mid-range Chianti; on the downside but still offers up some pleasure.
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The renowned wee BloodyPulpit:
1. Cracked into a case w/ old Calif Sangios. The AmadorFoothill '92 and the VinoNoceto '93 were pretty much shot. But this VillaRaagazzi offered up some real pleasure w/ my GranoArso pasta.
This was the first vintage of Sangio by Greg & Michaela Rodeno. I was not expecting much from this wine and was quite pleasantly surprised how good it was. I haven't tried their Sangio in many a yr and should remedy that.
We know, of course, that Sangiovese is an absolute failure in Calif. We've been told that by the "experts". The failure of the Cal-Ital movement was laid at the feet of Sangio. But I hope to tell you that the Cal-Ital movement is not dead (and, save for NEB, just not well organized these days). There have a lot of very good wines of late from Italian varieties. It'll be a great deal of fun to watch BryanHarrington as he falls further off the deep end and some of his Italian varieties start producing.
My experience is that often the most interesting Sangios are those that have other varieties blended in. But the delicate cherry Sangio character can often be lost w/ too much of other varieties blended in. I'm not a big fan of the SuperTuscan (Sangio/Cab) blends. I can hardly wait until there's some Ciliegiolo available to blend with.
Tom