Browse Tag

veneto

Commander Adami

[bottle]Adami Prosecco di Valdobbiadene “Sur Lie” (Veneto) – Tart and papery. Segmented, and the lack of cohesion renders the wine a little flat. Unserious Prosecco is fine, but it needs to taste alive. This tastes like it’s trying for some sort of profundity, but if so it’s a failure in that regard. It simply comes across as deadened. (5/07)

Truth in advertising

Corte Sconta Prosecco Amabile (Veneto) – This is the house wine (of which we drank two and a half bottles on our previous visit); just smelling it brings yet another flood of memories. Now, with more familiarity and…um…greater capacity, I could probably drink gallons of it, because if ever a wine style was aptly named, this is it. There’s a slight prickle, but certainly no obvious bead, and the wine is linear and utterly pure, with a little bite of rinds and skins at the end. It’s undiminished drinking pleasure. (10/07)

[label]Corte Gardoni 2006 Bardolino Chiaretto (Veneto) – While overt heaviness and alcohol can be a problem for rosés, Bardolino Chiaretto often has the opposite problem: too light, too thin, too acrid. Thankfully, none of that’s on display here. Instead, it’s a bright, smiling, linear beam of light red fruit. Some sort of Disney animation of dancing and frolicking animals, flowers and children under an animatronic sun wouldn’t seem out of place, at all. Summer was the right season for this wine, but drinking it now brings the summer right back. (11/07)

Zenato garden

[vineyard]Zenato 2003 Valpolicella Superiore (Veneto) – Tannic, yes, but there’s plenty of chewy, grippy purple fruit despite the tongue-drying, and even a bit of acidity lurking somewhere in the background. I still wouldn’t call it balanced, but it’s a reasonable success given that it only tastes a little bit like someone was trying to make a “super-Venetian” out of corvina. (8/07)

Rico

[bottle]ca’Rugate 2005 Soave Classico San Michele (Veneto) – Delicate and lightly herbal, showing sun and air and a mild, lemony character, but not a whole lot else. It’s perfectly fine, it’s just…eh. (8/07)

The full Monte

[bottle]ca’Rugate 2005 Soave Classico Monte Fiorentine (Veneto) – While this is not entirely unlike the San Michele, there’s a clean bell-tone of fennel and fruit in the middle, plus a rounded, polished mineral core, that gives this wine the clear advantage over its brother. It’s no Pieropan (or Anselmi), but it’s a good wine in its own right. (8/07)

Perlara before swine

[bottle]ca’Rugate 2002 Recioto di Soave “La Perlara” (Veneto) – Rich spice in concentrated lemon and orange, pairing intensity and purity, yet sacrificing no lusciousness. There is a very slight thinning vs. a few years ago, but that could be attributable to bottle variation rather than age. (7/07)

TN: Training Prà

[label]Prà 2002 Soave Classico (Veneto) – Showing signs of maturity, as the softly perfumed fruit is stripped away in layers to reveal the soft, mineralized underbelly shot through with streaks of vivacious acidity. It’s not an aggressive wine by any means, but it’s both fuller and sharper than at release. This is at full maturity. (7/07)

TN: Via Veneto

Quintarelli 1994 Valpolicella Classico “Superiore” (Veneto) – Smoky, showing midpalate fatness and a texture that billows between leather and satin. There’s quartz at the core. Concentrated, beautiful and long. I’m not sure there’s much Valpolicella character here anymore, however. (6/07)

TN: Joe

[valpolicella]Allegrini 2001 Veronese “Palazzo della Torre” (Veneto) – Big and obvious, with highly-structured skins and char, but very little that’s appealing. (6/07)