Our regular group met this month at Jud’s house to drink through some Italian wines and enjoy them with some fine potluck dinner dishes.
2005 F.X. Pichler Riesling Smaragd Loibner Oberhauser. Jud started us out with this interloper from Austria that features a bouquet of orange blossoms, rosewater, white pepper, gravel, pear, green melon and lemon peel. In the mouth, it is fresh and juicy with citrus, pear, melon and peach flavors accented by white pepper and a bitter minerality. It is lighter-bodied but fairly richly-fruited, with a big acidic streak running all the way through it to provide structure and cut. It feels taut and a bit aloof at times, so I might give this one a year or two before opening another.
2007 Feudi di San Gregorio Falanghina Sannio. Oily citrus notes dominate the aromatic profile of this wine, along with scents of peach, honey, flowers and chalk. In the mouth, it is round and luscious, with plenty of density to the oily citrus and stone fruit flavors. It feels a bit bottom-heavy at times, but I actually find the soft acidity sufficiently mouth-watering to keep this from getting too cloying. My concern is more with the notably short finish this exhibits--just sort of falling off well before it seems it should.
N.V. Rotari Brut. I missed this one as we moved out of the kitchen and into the dining area.
2003 Argiano Rosso di Toscana Il Duemilatre di Argiano IGT. This first red has a nice Old World nose featuring aromas of sweaty saddle leather, tobacco leaf, dusty ashes, turned earth and foresty undergrowth riding above pure red cherry and raspberry fruit. In the mouth, it is rounded and moderately rich, though not especially voluminous. The flavors are a bit narrow on the palate and focused on dark chocolate, sour cherry and black smoke notes that have solid intensity and length. The tannins are quite manageable and the acidity provides good drive, though there are hints of alcoholic warmth that I hope will settle down with some short cellaring time. For the most part, though, this is easy to drink and enjoy now.
1997 Jacopo Biondi-Santi Sassoalloro Toscana IGT. The nose here shows interesting savory notes of salami, mixed deli meats, peppercorn, earth and vegetation leading the way for the red cherry and raspberry fruit aromas. In the mouth, the high-toned sour cherry and raspberry fruit is the thing one notices first, but there is also a fair amount of greener earth tones in there, too. It is medium-bodied, slithery-textured and finishes on the tangy side with a crank of fresh-ground pepper. It is an easy-gliding wine that does manage to show a number of interesting facets. However, it is probably on the downside of the slope at this point, so I suggest drinking up.
1995 Castello Banfi Brunello di Montalcino. One finds very nice aromas of shade tobacco, plush leather, fine earth, smoky black cherries and plums on the nose of this Brunello. A second glass later in the evening is more explosive and overt, showing off the tobacco and leather elements to an even stronger degree, with the fruit giving off a sappy sort of quality that is really engaging. In the mouth, the wine is fresh and brightly tangy with lively currant and black cherry fruit that belie the dense chocolaty core. It has a creamy texture and solid density of flavor, with soft spices adding nicely to the balanced and lingering finish. I have to say that I like this a lot and think it can go for a good while, too. This was my #3 wine of the night.
2005 Marchesi di Grésy Barbaresco Martinenga. Aromatically, this is a very pretty, feminine wine—with fine scents of roses, perfume, fresh asphalt, light cherry, pure strawberry and gentle leather combining in an airy, ethereal and wonderfully lifted package. It stays much the same on the palate, really enticing the drinker in with its feminine wiles. It is light and tangy and very spicy, with the purest of pure red fruits like sour cherry, strawberry and raspberry taking center stage. The length is impressive and it really pumps out the flavor and holds the attention for a wine of such delicacy. I think it is an impressive effort and is showing amazingly well despite its youthful vigor. I’d be very curious to follow this wine through the years to see how it evolves. This and the Domenico Clerico (an entirely different style of Nebbiolo!) were my wines of the night.
2003 Cantina del Pino Barbaresco Ovello. This is another highly aromatic wine, but it leans much more toward a richer style. It features pretty aromas of cocoa powder, mace, red flower petals and sweet red berries galore, but also lots of burlier notes of mossy earth and leather that give it a nice feel of complexity and character. In the mouth, though, this is just way too young right now. It is big in volume and pretty much overpowers the palate with its rich black cherry fruit extract, its massive spiciness and its pasty dry tannins. There is some solid acidity in there for the longer-haul, but this is fairly unapproachable at this point in its evolution. Sock this away for a good while.
1997 Domenico Clerico Barolo Ciabot Mentin Ginestra. Here is one seriously dark and mysterious Barolo bouquet--with intriguing scents of wintergreen, rich black currant, tanned leather, tar oil, hardened bacon fat and earthy brown spices swirling around. It seems to be holding even more in reserve, providing glimpses of future glories from time to time. It has a certain reserve to it, but also a lot of richness and complexity. It demonstrates outstanding balance in the mouth, despite all of the raw material stuffing it possesses and the masculine, seriously-structured frame it carries. The blackberry, black currant, dark-roasted coffee and truffle oil flavors are cool, dark and a bit chalky-textured at this stage of the game. The tannins are nicely managed throughout the palate journey, but along with the rather steely structure will help this wine age effortlessly for much time to come. I have 2 more of these and will try to hold out another 5 to 7 years before trying again.
1999 Luigi Pira Barolo Marenca. This wine has an extremely nice bouquet to it that really penetrates the nasal passages with its intensity and fresh, lifted aromatics. It shows off a lot of creamy cherry and silky higher-toned raspberry fruit aromas to go along with notes of asphalt and a sweeter core of mocha and chocolate powder. It is just really nice. It is darker and more serious on the palate, with a fine coating of tannins and a rather dry character that borders occasionally on austere. Still, there is a lot of extracted flavor here and good raw materials in abundance. The black cherry, mixed currant and coffee bean flavors are nice and cohesive, but this is another wine I think will be better and more approachable in about 5 years
2003 Luigi Pira Barolo Marenca. This smells totally roasted and stewed, eventually coming to smell like a raspy garbage can from a seedy alley somewhere. It is foul. In the mouth (why did I do this to myself?), it is much the same—brutally dried out, tannic and stewed, with a painful acerbic edge. This is just awful and I have to believe the bottle got cooked somewhere along the line.
2004 Pio Cesare Barolo. The bouquet here emits aromas of apple blossoms, licorice rope, pure red cherry, fireplace ash, brown grape stems and charred earth. There is also something sort of like peach pit, too, that seems to soften the character at times. On the palate, it is sort of confectionary in nature at first, with cherry roll-ups, candy cigarette and powdered raspberry sorts of flavors. Some cool-toned acidity comes in to prevent it from becoming too sweet or candied, but also has the side-effect of drying out the finish and making it feel slightly linear and clipped. Overall, this needs some time to allow the palate to catch up to the nose. Try again maybe in 5 years.
1999 La Spinetta (Rivetti) Monferrato Rosso Pin. This is extremely thick-textured on the nose, with dark treacled fruit that veers toward the warm date, baked plum and sticky black cherry paste end of the spectrum. It is much the same on the palate, where it is jammy and chunky and warm, with an unquestioned fullness of rich fruit flavors. There is actually just a bit of acidity from time to time that helps it seem less goopy than the nose would suggest. Overall, though, it seems awkward and hulking at this stage and I have really no idea what to expect from further aging of this.
2004 Pelligrino Passito di Pantelleria. Served from 375 ml bottle. This wine has a surprisingly serious and dark-toned aromatic quality to it. It features scents of nectarine, Valencia orange, pineapple, dark orange blossom and an unusual granite and saline quality, as well. What is really unusual is that it doesn’t really smell traditionally “sweet” in any obvious way. One keeps expecting for it to turn prettier or more noticeably sweet, but it never does. This is made even odder by the fact that the palate does in fact deliver some moderate levels of sweetness of the sort one would expect from a wine of this style. It has a certain Muscat-like orange blossom and rose water character to it that rides above flavors of clementines and orange hard candy. It is concentrated, fairly dense and creamy-textured, with a freshening acidity on the finish—providing a nice end to a great evening.
-Michael