Browse Tag

italy

TN: I’m glad I met ya’

Torrepalino 1995 Etna Rosso Solicchiata (Sicily) – Soft, ash-drenched red fruit. Mostly, but not entirely, dead, with spiky acidity poking through the well-worn holes. I find a certain decrepit charm, our group’s one avowed necrophiliac likes it, and most of the rest of the room pronounces it undrinkable. But the terroir does most definitely show. A few years ago, this might have been really interesting. But what the hell…it was only $2. (2/07)

TN: Offida heads

San Giovanni “Kiara” 2005 Offida Pecorino (Marches) – Dense and unsupple, perhaps a bit like tasting a wall, with very slightly rotted stone fruit, cantaloupe and turmeric, then some biting, bitter nuts on the finish. It sounds bizarre, but it actually works…though the wine could definitely use some more acidity. The finish is somewhat abrupt. Interesting, though perhaps not immediately appealing. (2/07)

TN: Agata agita

[still life]Sant’ Agata “’Na Vota” 2004 Ruché di Castagnole Monferrato (Piedmont) – Neon-fragrant redness with mild but scraping tannin and aggressive (though not at all high) acidity, plus a dark, almost tarry note. As boisterous as the wine is, it cowers a bit in the presence of food, yet it needs something to counteract the structural rough edges. A strange wine. But then, it’s a ruchè, from which one learns to expect such things. (2/07)

TN: Li vit alone

[bottle]Li Veli 2003 Salento “Passamante” (Apulia) – Blueberry fruit concentrate. But in a fun way, not in an overdriven all-the-life-sucked-out-of-it modern/internationalized fashion. There’s even a bit of acid, which is striking given the vintage and the other aspects of the wine, and some black streaks of tar sweating in the hot summer sun, but mostly this wine is about the truly exuberant fruit. It’s a single-note wine, but it’s a pure one. (1/07)

TN: Teroldego white

[bottle]Bertagnolli Grappa di Teroldego (Trentino) – Strikingly aromatic; a full chorus of floral and fruit notes with deep, chewy basso profundo beneath and lilting counterpoints atop. Delicious. (1/07)

TN: Hey, Marcarini!

[still life]Marcarini 2005 Moscato d’Asti (Piedmont) – Yet another perfume truck crashed through the window of a florist, though in this case both are carrying a higher-quality cargo than is the norm. There’s a little bit of translucent fruit flesh underneath, but despite the aromatics and/or the fruit I’ve come to experience these wines as frothy, delightful expressions of fermented light. (1/07)

TN: Going down lagrein

Mumelter “Griesbauerhof” 2004 Lagrein (Alto Adige) – It’s light, it’s heavy, it’s light, it’s heavy. This wine pulses with a dark energy, a blood-stained metal bar reaching back for another blow to the head, then a friendly, fresh-faced basket of fruit and red, summery flowers. It’s a disturbing juxtaposition, frankly, but the wine somehow works. There’s a bit of brett, but just a complexing accent rather than a palate-wearying slathering. I’d let it age. (1/07)

TN: Oh when the grapes go Marches in

[label]Coroncino 2004 Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi “Gaiospino” (Marches) – This wine has presence and style, but it also has a quite noticeable dollop of wood, and there’s just not enough other stuff to stand up to it. A little acid rears its head here, a tart melon there, a squirt of lemon spatters off the surface, but mostly this is a lightly- but over-oaked wine that just doesn’t bring much authentic pleasure. (1/07)

TN: Classic

[logo]Fèlsina “Berardenga” 2000 Chianti Classico “Riserva” (Tuscany) – Tightening and closing. Strawberry and a rough, grey-toned earth with raspberry-leaf acidity are lent substance by a long, lingering finish that darts and swirls, not quite alighting. There’s more here, but I think one will have to wait for it. (12/06)

TN: Under the Tuscan San

Podere Canneta 2005 Vernaccia di San Gimignano (Tuscany) – Intensely fresh, like green apples from a seaside tree, eaten while still attached to the tree. There’s a saltiness to the acidity, and the wine is vividly focused and sharp throughout. Very, very good. (1/07)