WTN: Caprili Brunello 2004

This is shaping up to be a very good weekend in wine. Yesterday a nice Ridgeview and today a couple Texiers that I have written so often about I won't bore you with more notes.

But we also had a deeply satisfying Brunello. I have had great trouble with Sangiovese - largely I suspect because we have mostly seen the spoofy examples. So this Caprili Brunello di Montalcino 2004 was a pleasant surprise.

Initially it was very bright and a little tight and had sandalwood and cherry aromas. With time it gained body and the fruit gravitated towards the darker wavelengths - it seemed like it would come from a warmer sub-zone of BdM (does it really? or was '04 a warm year though I remember it being called a more "classic" one?). Despite this morphing of the fruit quality it never lost its purity, focus and raciness. There is proper grip to the palate-cleansing tannins and highish acidity, so the fruit is always kept in its proper place...

Very enjoyable wine. I guess this only sees big, Slavonian botti and nothing French or small?

[James Roscoe]

Was Caprili one of the producers accused of using Merlot? I love Brunello, but it takes a while for the good ones to come around.

Caprili is a good, small, conscientious producer of Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino. They use only sangiovese grapes and big botti which is the way Brunello should be made. Then it is what it is. If you want oak and cabernet go somewhere else! There's a lot of small producers in Montalcino doing good work. The problem is because of the prices of Brunello, the area has attracted a lot of industrial and unconscientious scum that don't have a passion for making wine, just for making money. I think Brunello is indeed one of Italy's great wines, its just that there are a lot of labels now and one has to be very well informed to pick the right bottle.

[James Roscoe]

Thanks Agostino. I am no expert. I have two Brunello's in a rather limited cellar. I want to try more, but one has to be careful as you point out.

Was Caprili one of the producers accused of using Merlot? I love Brunello, but it takes a while for the good ones to come around.

James,

The firms accused of adding some (around 5%) cab, or merlot, or syrah to their Brunellos were mostly the big guys: Antinori, Banfi (an American firm), Frescobaldi, Argiano and Casanova di Neri.

The Brunello regulations call for 100% sangiovese. But of course market forces are strong and who buys most Brunello? The US market. The US palate prefers darker, richer wines. That is why some producers added those French varieties. To keep it in perspective though, look at California regulations. You can call a wine a Cabernet, Syrah, what have you, and still legally include 20% or 25% (I don't remember) of just about any other grape without having to declare it on the label. In Chianti, for instance, you can legally add 5 or maybe 10% cab or merlot and other permitted grapes. So was what these guys were doing bad? Yes, in my opinion, because I love tipicity. Once you lose tipicity, then all the world starts to look and taste the same.

What's embarassing and funny is that Wine Spectator picked the 2001 Casanova di Neri Brunello as their 2006 #1 Wine of the Year. It just goes to show that adulterating your wine can pay off.

Rumour has it one of the wines from Soldera (very traditional, super expensive, very rare) was rejected by the Brunello commission for beight too "light" colored. Soldera got pissed off and blew the whistle that set off the whole scandal. Many people in the area of Montalcino lament this "shitting in your own back yard." A lot of Brunello producers are very small family enterprises - and this bad publicity coupled with the economic crisis has hit them very hard. Many Italians comment that the French also have such activities going on but they don't make a big stink about it and ruin their own reputations world-wide. If they deal with it, they do it internally. Of course the Italians are such a fractious bunch that such unity of purpose is seldom seen. Moral of the story, a lot of honest Brunello producers (the majority) were tainted by this scandal and are suffering economically as a result.

Cheers,
Agostino

Thanks Agostino! Do you also know if they might be situated, as I surmised, in a warmer micro-climate of Brunello or if '04 was a warm year despite my thinking it wasn't? This was a such an enjoyable wine that I thought I would buy another bottle or two to age for some time.

Thanks Agostino! Do you also know if they might be situated, as I surmised, in a warmer micro-climate of Brunello or if '04 was a warm year despite my thinking it wasn't?

Dear Otto Nimininimemem , it doesn't have much to do with a warmer micro-climate. I've noticed wine all over Italy hitting bigger alcohol numbers of late and one minor reason of course is that its fashionable to put a bigger number on the label whereas in Italy it used to be fashionable to put a smaller number. For an Italian it used to be that a 13% alcohol wine was "troppo forte." With globalization at work that has changed. Italians hardly have a choice now because of the pull of international markets. Few people have stood their ground. By Italian law you can round up or round down as you choose. Wineries now round up, even Bordeaux.

The main reason though for the bigger numbers lies somewhere else and its not easy to figure out. Different winemakers have told me different things. I think its a combination of these three:
1) Climate change: it's gettin' warmer!
2) World competition has made people strive for quality, drastically reducing their yields, this also can create riper wines.
3) A change in the view of how to determine when grapes are ripe: instead of just looking at sugar levels I've noticed winemakers look to see if the seeds are woody, that is, are the seeds ripe. (see Oswaldo's Eureka post) Instead of "technological" maturity, people are now looking for "phenological" maturity (as in phenolics). This basically means people waiting more for riper, more alcoholic grapes to harvest. But this is also misleading because the farmer can't always choose when to harvest. If the weather forecast calls for rain for a week sometimes you have to pick otherwise you have a bunch of rotted, diseased grapes on your hands.

Anyways, as I've learned, its all very complicated!