Ferrando 2008 Erbaluce di Caluso “Cariola” (Piedmont) – At uncorking, this is awful. It smells, and tastes, lavishly wooded (NB: it is not) and overly lactic. I loathe it so much that the cork goes back in the bottle after fifteen minutes of eye-squinching unpleasantness and stick it in the fridge, intending to give it another shot the next night. Which I don’t. Two nights later, the cork comes back out, and the wine is in full-throated song. All the worrisome tarting-up is gone, replaced by lush and lavish wild berries (gooseberry, perhaps, though not nearly that aggressive) belled with Yuletide herbs and greenery. Extremely dense, long, and in constant motion. And yet, that lactic-like note lingers on the finish. I wonder if something might not be wrong with this bottle – heat damage? – though the wine is so good that whatever might be wrong can’t do much except postpone the moment of enjoyment. Or maybe there really is something here that I don’t like. The most important lesson, however, is the always-needed warning against snap judgments. In a typical professional tasting, I would never have had the opportunity to revisit my initial dismissal, and that would have been a shame for me, and inexcusable for the wine. (8/11)
italy
Let it Bea
Bea 2006 “San Valentino” (Umbria) – This is not beginner wine. Strappy, with glass shavings in the cat o’, tropical storm lashings of biting fruit somewhere between lavender and your darkest nightmare, with crushed flowers in coal dust tempura and high-speed injections of razor-wire acidity. Alive and elusive, with sharp teeth to bite and sever the arteries of the unaware. Reading back over this note, I’m reminded of the frequent reader complaint regarding similar verbiage: “yes, but did you like it?” Well, here’s the thing: the wine’s really not concerned with being liked, and in fact is about much more than that. It’s that, as much or even more than the usual organoleptic qualities, that I like. It’s not even that the wine’s an intellectual rather than sensual pleasure. In fact, I’d call it, at heart, a primarily psycho-cultural pleasure. (8/11)
Raw grapes
Carpazo 2007 Rosso di Montalcino (Tuscany) – Grating and surly, with more tannin than its black raspberryish fruit needs, and with more anger than the drinker wants. (8/11)
Peterpan
Pieropan 2007 Soave Classico (Veneto) – This has always seemed like drinking pure liquid essence of some gritty white-powder mineral, reserved to the point of austerity but with a certain majesty…a bit faded, but still proud. What “fruit” there is shows leafy and easily-blown by the wind. (8/11)
Lacrymosa
Mastroberardino 2008 Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio Rosso (Campania) – Deep, dusty, dark with a fresher exterior; this is a lot more impressive than I remember it being. There’s both good and bad in that impressiveness, though: there’s an incredible amount of appealing flavor, but there’s also a polish and slickness to it. It’s hard to deny the wine’s quality, but ultra-naturalista-hippiedynamic drinkers might turn up their dirt-infused noses. Not to tease or anything… (8/11)
Dell’icate
Valle dell’Acate 2009 Il Frappato (Sicily) – Less adventurous or aspirational than the ones I’ve been drinking from Occhipinti and COS, but still utterly refreshing; like spiky young Beaujolais, except with more flowers and less squeezed-berry fruit. Volcanic? Maybe the power of suggestion. But it’s absolutely delicious while not quite allowing itself to be thirst-quenching…fun, but not too fun. (8/11)
Hooked on a feeling
Lageder 2004 Pinot Bianco Haberlehof (Alto Adige) – This was so firm and mineral-driven in its youth that I decided to age it a while to see what happened. Answer: not much. It got creamier, of course, but otherwise, it’s the same wine it was. Just older. Would more age help? Maybe, but I’m not confident. (8/11)
A tip of the Capp
Cappellano 1961 Barolo (Piedmont) – Some things transcend description not because of their inherent qualities but because of their unlikely reality. So it is with old wines. I mean, I love describing them – the longest note I’ve ever written was about a Vouvray of about this age – but when one has been lucky enough to have a fair number of such artifacts, the purpose of extensive notation becomes less clear. Because, really, how meaningful is the description? There’s almost none of this wine left, what’s left is incredibly expensive, and even if a bottle can be secured the likelihood of this bottle and another having much in common grows lower each year. So here, there’s a fragile, incredibly delicate wine of sweet berries and almost no remaining structure, and while that fragility shouldn’t be mistaken for decrepitude (it’s extremely intact, supple, and present), it’s certainly not going anywhere else worth waiting for. It’s a beautiful, beautiful old wine, with its diminishing bottle count reduced by one, but I enjoyed drinking it more than I’ve enjoyed writing about it. (8/11)
Spelling
Produttori del Barbaresco 2006 Barbaresco (Piedmont) – L.10.155, for those keeping track. A really nice wine, with the dry structure and dried aromatics of a fine nebbiolo. It’s blendedness keeps it from expressing any particulars from its place, yet it does taste like a Barbaresco. (7/11)
Produttori del Barbaresco 2006 Barbaresco (Piedmont) – I don’t know that I’d often be moved to call any Bararesco not issuing from the house of Gaja or their brethren as “lush,” but there’s a certain lushness to the granulated flower petal aromatics of this wine that have always been part of its early appeal. That said, it’s less fleshy than it was at release, already retreating behind tannin that (again, in context) seemed a little smoother and more approachable than normal. It needs food right now, but very soon all it’s going to need is time. (9/11)
Summer of ’68
Occhipinti 2010 “SP68” Bianco (Sicily) – Sweaty (good sweat) crystalline stone fruit and flowers. Heavy, but sitting atop a strong updraft. It’s a little difficult to get to know, but maybe a few more dates are required. (7/11)