Vignaioli Contrà Soarda Vespaiolo Vignasilan 2010 - 13,5% abv; 100% Vespaiola; Veneto
Vespaiola (or however you want to call it: Bresparola, Bresparola Bianca, Orisi bianca, Uva Vespera, Vespaia, Vespaiolo, Vespajola, Vespajuola Di Bassano, Vesparola, and Vespera) is pretty much an unknown grape to me. Apart from a couple wines from Contrà Soarda, I've never come across it (which is strange since it at least seems to have plenty of names).
I like this wine. It has a little bit late-harvesty feel about it with sweet and floral aromas, very peachy and ripe. It is very rich on the palate, spicy though not in the oaky way, very concentrated but with nice acidity and slight bracing bitterness that helps it be moreish. In fact, it is amazingly easy to drink for a wine of such body. It evaporates very quickly. Nice!
Often there's a reason that little known grape varieties are little known. And that reason is that they're shite. But there are so many varieties travelling with us on this organic spaceship that some lovely ones will inevitably get lost in all the noise from the so called "great" varieties. If this is anything to go by, Vespaiola should not be a neglected, marginal variety. But is it usually this interesting? Who else makes good examples?