Pieropan 2007 Recioto di Soave Classico “Le Colombare” (Veneto) — Sweet cloudberries, crystalline minerality, finely honed acidity. A beautiful, beautiful dessert wine. Like drinking the palest most tranparent gold. (9/16)
soave
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)
Horses in Nevada
Pieropan 2006 Soave Classico Calvarino (Veneto) – Chalk and powdered sugar minerality with dried leaves and not-minor oxidation, in the manner of this wine from many – not all – vintages. Experience says this will age, developing its minerality. On-the-spot assessment says it will not reward that aging. Which is right? Probably the former. (5/11)
La Perlara of the Orient
ca’Rugate 2002 Recioto di Soave “La Perlara” (Veneto) – 500 ml. Pretty much the perfect point for a recioto di Soave, with the smiling white stone fruit laced with makrut lime giving way to coppery minerality and ever-increasing density. Is it marvelously complex and lingering? No. But it’s quite good. (12/10)
Anselmi something
Anselmi 2006 San Vincenzo (Veneto) – Very advanced and a little bronzed, thus I suspect either heat damage or cork failure, and possibly both. Layers of spice and flower dust, honeyed but a little short, are still in evidence. But this is not an intact bottle. (5/10)
Anything you want, Rugate
ca’Rugate 2006 Soave Classico San Michele (Veneto) – More jagged than cohesive, showing more seams, cracks, and edges than is typical for this wine, its green plum, honeydew, and tart watermelon rind core are given the usual (for the appellation) dusting of powdered sugar in solution, though the wine doesn’t come of as more than anecdotally off-dry, and may in fact be analytically sugar-free. In a way, the discontinuities lend the wine appeal, but it’s not everything it could be. (1/09)
Capitelli idea
Anselmi 2005 “I Capitelli” (Veneto) – Light peach cream. Delicate on its feet. Fun. (9/08)
Siffredi’s mom
Pieropan 2004 Soave La Rocca (Veneto) – Melon and metal. All primary – pre-primary, actually – and promise, with absolutely nothing indicating current drinkability except in the pursuit of academic curiosity. (9/08)
Alan
Corte Sant-Alda 2005 Soave Vigne di Mezzane (Veneto) – Sandy, dusty, lithe, cute…and a little boring. Soave needs something – either Pieropan-style minerality or Anselmi-style richness – that this wine doesn’t deliver, in order to be other than wan. (8/08)