Notes from a Tuscan tasting.
Henriot Brut NV – not in theme but a great way to set us up for a good tasting. Medium colour, nice lemon in the nose, and clean finish with good acidity.
2010 Passopisciaro Guardiola – this chard was not easy to nail, as varietal typicity wasn’t exactly screaming out chardonnay at us. Nice wine with slightly cheesy nose but some chard character once you looked past that , quite crisp.
1986 Podere Il Palazzino Grosso Sinese – this one was a lot of fun. Very pale colour much like an older Burg, lots of wood in the nose, sweet entry and some spice, with dry fruit at the end. It held up heroically for quite a while, refusing to fade.
1994 Caprai Montefalco Riserva – a sangio/sagrantino/merlot blend (70-15-15) and not Tuscan, this wine showed very well, medium dark with a slightly ripe nose combining pepper and fruit, was long and elegant and had lots of terminal acidity. Good showing.
1997 Castello Banfi Brunello Poggio al Oro – while I’ve enjoyed many wines from Banfi, I’ve also had a lot of duds, so it has been a bit of a crap shoot guessing what will come out of a bottle. In this case, pretty good – dark, medium bodied wine with a decent but unexceptional nose, with less Italian typicity than I’d have liked.
1998 Castello Romitorio Brunello – interesting juxtaposition of a very traditional wine in a bottle with a very new age artistic label only made sense to me once I’d looked up the owner after the tasting and discovered that he (Sandro Chia – presumably he didn’t make his money selling Chia Pets) is a painter. The wine was very nice with dark cherry fruit in the nose, a supple smooth passage across the palate and an elegant long, slightly acidic finish.
2000 Frescobaldi Mormoreto – corked
1998 Poliziano Le Stanze – I’d had this cab merlot blend in the cellar since release and had brought it as a back up for the Montefalco, but when the Mormoreto crashed and burned in an oily cloud of wet cardboard, I offered this too. Glad I did – it showed a lovely nose of all the right things for a Bordeaux – cocoa, plum, cassis and pencil lead etc., but was nonetheless not a particularly international style of wine in my opinion, having retained an Italian sensibility. Good length. Ready to drink now.
2006 Le Serre Nuove del Ornellaia – a second wine, darker and with more purple than the Le Stanze, but with similar nose – currant and vanilla, big sweet fruit in the mouth, needs time.
1999 Il Poggioni Sant’ Antimo Vin Santo – light brown colour, sweet dried apricot, nutmeg and caramel nose, a nice oxidized nuttiness in the mouth and a long balanced finish.
I have to add a note about the food. A couple of very nice pizzas made in a wood fired BBQ almost filled us up, and then the main course came out – a base of shredded confit of duck, with onions and corn on top, and then mashed potato topped with seared foie gras above that, all stacked in a cylindrical mould. Oh yeah!!