I met with Andy, Adam and Ed three weeks back at one of our usual restaurant haunts to enjoy some fine food and taste through some random Italian wines from our respective cellars. A few themes began to emerge and we ended up focusing mostly on Super Tuscans.
We started first with some absolutely stellar and wonderfully individualistic white wines that nearly stole the show:
2007 Monastero Suore Cistercensi Coenobium Lazio IGT. This wine has a sort of cloudy orange tint to it, with a definite unfiltered look. Although it looks a bit curious, it smells absolutely fascinating! It is wild and funky, with all sorts of unique aromas spinning up and out of the glass--including notes of toasted orange peel, mulled apple cider, crème brulee, leather, ash, butterscotch, sherry, menthol and allspice. It is also one of those wines I’m sure if served in a black glass would have some people guessing a red wine like an aged Pinot Noir. Anyway, on the palate it is smooth and velvety in texture, with a creamy quality that lasts right up until a late burst of acidity comes in on the finish to cut it through a bit. It is fairly full-bodied, with a lot of ashy earth, fine mineral and spice elements to go along with the creamy and layered yellow fruit, peach, tangerine and wild honey-flavored mélange. The wine is totally engaging, individualistic and a complete delight to drink. For those who are interested, the story behind the wine is an interesting one, too. It is made by nuns at the Cistercian monastery in Vitorchiano, with the help of Giampiero Bea. The blend is 55% Trebbiano, 20% Malvasia, 15% Verdicchio and 15% Grechetto, with the wine apparently seeing extended time on the skins.
1999 i Clivi Colli Orientali del Friuli Galea di Ferdinando Zanusso. The next wine is a bright, fresh yellow color. The nose is effusive with lime zest, white flowers, lemon ball, chalk, fennel bulb, fireplace ash and Asian 5-spice powder melding into a complex yet fresh and zesty bouquet with great persistence and drive. On the palate, it is a very pretty wine, with a lovely layered texture with pristine acidic balance. It is just singing right now, unlike the 2002 version of this, which is not even close in quality to this. It has a good amount of body and glycerin, with a smooth and languid feel to the drawn-out finish. It is probably at peak right now, but can also hold for a while yet, I imagine.
We then dug into the reds in roughly the following order:
1997 Fontanabianca Barbaresco Sori Burdin. Our non-Tuscan interloper posesses an immediate and uplifted bouquet of strong creosote and tar, mixed purple and blue berries, fruit cake and cocoa paste riding above earthier tones of barnyard scrabble dirt, green tobacco leaf, menthol and meatier corpulent notes. It shows off a good amount of complexity, with all of those serious earth notes competing with the playful sweet tones riding on top. In the mouth, it has really nice flavor, too, featuring tastes of rich berry fruit, smoke and cool earth that are really juicy and mouth-watering. It has a nice medium weight, though, and an easy airy flow to it despite those deeper bass notes. It is a bit fuzzy and less focused on the finish, perhaps, but it is otherwise delightful for drinking right now. My #3 red WOTN.
1997 Castello della Paneretta Terrine Toscana IGT. There is a very appealing brightness all around to this wine, starting with the bouquet that features attractive and almost sexy aromas of high-toned cherries, raspberries and red currants to go along with some chocolate powder, tar oil, mace and earth scents. In the mouth, this displays a good dose of bright acidity and continues the pleasantly high-toned qualities of the nose. It has a nice texture that turns increasingly silky the longer one stays with it, giving it a rising sense of class and refinement. It is very pretty, well-balanced, fresh and long—drinking beautifully right now but able to cellar another 3 to 5 years without worry I would think. The blend is 50% Canaiolo and 50% Sangiovese. My #2 red WOTN.
1993 Castello Banfi Sant' Antimo Summus. There is a dense dark color to this. It has a rather meaty and thick sort of nose to it, with scents of dark earth, black leather, black currant, black licorice, tomato paste and a bit of sawdust. On the palate, it feels tightly-packed, fudgy and serious, with rather low acidity and lacking the obvious Tuscan profile of many of the other wines on the table. The tannins are fuzzy and chewy, though hardly over-bearing. It is just chunky and perhaps a bit simple, though it could just also be that it needs more time in the cellar. The blend is 45% Sangiovese, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Syrah.
2000 Pacina La Malena Toscana IGT. This one is a bit lighter-styled on the nose, with gently tangy notes of light cherry, white pepper, tomato leaf and mint that are pretty and feminine. In the mouth, it is moderately creamy in texture, but with a significant uplifted acidity that falls short of puckering but is definitely ever-present. It feels like a bit of an alarm clock for the palate in a lot of ways, with all of the bright red berry and cherry fruit leading to a dusty, vibrant finish. While fine for drinking now, I think I’d like this better in 2-3 years’ time. The blend is 70% Syrah and 30% Sangiovese, though I have to say that at least for now the Sangiovese is more apparent to my palate.
1985 Antinori Tignanello Toscana IGT. Not surprisingly, this wine is the lightest color of the night, but it still looks awfully healthy to me. A blend of 80% Sangiovese, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Cabernet Franc, it features a lovely, mellow bouquet of dried cherries, raspberries, soft leather, sliced jalapeno and a gorgeous little dusting of peppermint dust that really works. It is elegant and gentle in the mouth, with soft red fruit, leather and loamy earth flavors. It might get a bit pinched by acidity toward the finish, but it is lovely through the middle. It settles on the tongue for a nice long while, with an easy persistence. There is really no point in aging this any further, though. Drink now and enjoy. My WOTN.
2005 Tenuta dell'Ornellaia Le Serre Nuove Toscana IGT. The blend here is 50% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot. The nose is corpulent and dense with distinctive notes of iron filings, crème de cassis, tomato paste, lava rock and forest fern that are definitely appealing but exceedingly young and tightly-coiled. In the mouth, it is rigidly-structured with an adamantine backbone and plenty of chewy and dense dark plum fruit stuffing accented by soft vanilla and oak. But it also has a fine bracing acidic vein running through it that makes me think this is going to be real good in like 5 to 7 years’ time. I kept half the bottle in the refrigerator for 3 nights and on day 4 it was more layered and approachable with a really nice velvety Merlot feel. So, give this one some time.
2007 Tenuta Sette Ponti Crognolo Toscana IGT. This primarily Sangiovese-based wine is packed in tight on the nose, with aromas of black earth, licorice and lava rocks having some sex appeal but never really opening up beyond brief glimpses the whole night. It is also quite young in the mouth, where it feels dense and grippy and features a big wall of tannins standing between the taster and the plush dark fruit. All the facets of the wine are kind of dialed up too high and are warring with each other right now, so I’d suggest locking this one away for a while.
-Michael