Category Archives: de oenographia

Best Tuscan wines? Life beyond Tignanello…

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In the wake of BrooklynGuy’s post on 1990 Tignanello and my subsequent response, a couple of readers wrote me asking me to create a list of currently available, interesting wines from Tuscany. In turn, I asked you to submit some top recommendations. Here’s what you had to say…

Tuscany

Top wine blogger (and dude whose musical and literary tastes always turn me on) David McDuff’s pics were “nothing cutting edge; all are just old friends.”

Isole e Olena Chianti Classico: Always a pure and elegant expression of Chianti (and Sangiovese.

Fattoria di Palazzo Vecchio Vino Nobile di Montepulciano: Honest vintage expression of the sun-baked Tuscan hills. (They also produce an excellent Riserva.)

Corzano e Paterno Chianti Colli Fiorentini: Proof that great farming can elevate mediocre terroir.

Tuscany

Sommelier to the stars David Rosoff didn’t “have a bunch of time to rack my brain on this today but…”

Castell’in Villa: Has to be there.

Caprili: I’m loving Caprili a lot these days.

Salvioni: Is it trite to say Salvioni?

Tuscany

Wine writer and veteran Italian wine traveler and educator Tom Hyland got right to the point.

Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino: Classic, elegant, great ageworthiness.

Rocca di Montegrossi Vin Santo: Incredibly concentrated, remarkable.

Ornellaia: Superb fruit, superb winemaking.

And he added, “3 exciting new wines from Tuscany.”

Enrico Santini Montepergoli: Bolgheri red, one of that zone’s best.

Castelvecchio Numero Otto:100% Ciliegiolo, very sexy!

Guado al Melo Jassarte: Blend of 30 varieties combining Italian and Eastern viticulture.

Tuscany

Elaine Trigiani took time out from tasting and teaching olive oil in Tuscany to pen this dispatch.

Fattoria Ispoli Chianti Classico: Well-mannered combo of clarity and mighty persistence.

Podere Le Boncie Le Trame: Quiet yet profound as Giovanna herself.

Santa Maria Rosso di Castiglione d’Orcia: Fermenty.

Tuscany

Guitar player extraordinaire and owner of the coolest wine shop in Central Texas, John Roenigk took time out from the Christmas rush to weigh in.

Selvapiana Chianti Rufina: All the textural suppleness and tenderness I might ever have expected of Sangiovese all the while being completely flavorful and satisfying.

Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva: Fine and complex, always been a personal fave.

Fèlsina Chianti Classico Riserva Rancia: Superb Tuscan estate, really dedicated to Sangiovese. Superb wine.

Tuscan dirt

Brit wine educator and Tuscanophile, author of a newly minted wine blog, David Way loves “the Sangiovese of Chianti and Montalcino as much as anyone, but rather more off the beaten track are…”

Sassotondo Maremma Toscana San Lorenzo: Sassotondo’s top Ciliegiolo, aromas of cherries and pepper, distinctive cru from the Maremma’s deep south.

Rocca di Frassinello Rosso Maremma Toscana: Elegant product of French-Italian collaboration, 60% Sangiovese, beefed up with 20% each Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, finely judged new oak above super ripe fruit. Rothschild collaboration.

Massa Vecchia Vermentino di Maremma Toscana: Hyper-natural “white” wine made as a red, i.e. 20 days maceration on the skins, orange tinge, dense herby fruit smells, orange peel, extraordinary.

Tuscany

The Italian Wine Guy by antonomasia Alfonso likes winemakers who are “small and live in as well as on their land and are fully grounded.”

Querciavalle Chianti Classico Riserva: They age beautifully, are fabulous values and have given me as much pleasure as Brunello or Super Tuscan wines have.

Capezzana Carmignano: The blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet (part of the appellation) make for a mouthwatering and delicious lip-smacking red.

Angelo Sassetti Brunello di Montalcino: Yes, his brother Livio is next door and has gotten better press and p.r. But my heart and soul is with Angelo, whose wine is still simple and direct and not obfuscated by modernity of success.

Tuscany

I was really excited to see Massa Vecchia in David Way’s contribution. I love those wines and they stink to holy heaven. I don’t think they’re available yet in this country.

I have to second David Rosoff’s pick, Castell’in Villa. As Franco likes to say, it’s one of those wines in which I always find “emotion” and “poetry.”

I’m also dying to try Tom Hyland’s “very sexy” 100% Ciliegiolo by Castelvecchio.

There are a lot of others I would add, like Sanguineto in Montepulciano, also one of Elaine’s favorites. And I was was thrilled to see her include a wine from the Orcia River Valley. I have tasted some great wines from the Orcia river valley (outside of Montalcino), and, in my view, Orcia will be the next appellation to emerge as a producer of great wine from Tuscany (nothing I’ve tasted from Montecucco has really knocked my socks off).

Thanks, everyone, for weighing in. There are so many interesting wines from Tuscany to reach for these days. This polyglot hypertextual list is rife and ripe with trusted classics, a few surprises, and the heart and soul of Tuscany when you scrape off the patina of marketese. Nothing wrong with Tignanello, of course (BrooklynGuy’s post has inspired Alfonso to “stand upright” a bottle of 1990 Tignanello to taste with me and Tracie B when we get together next weekend). So many great bottles and so little time…

Amphora-aged Primitivo, pozoles and old Rioja, and a Texas wine I liked

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Above: This week, Tracie B and I attended our first holiday party of the year at the home of Texas “natural treasure,” author, radio personality, blogger and all-around delightful host, Mary Gordon Spence.

Man, has it been a crazy week — between work, Tignanello triage, the new Amarone DOCG, and the holidays upon us!

Above: Everyone who knows me knows that I rarely eat sweets. But homemade flan? Mary Gordon found my weakness!

Tracie B and I are headed to La Jolla for the weekend, a good thing since snow is expected today in Central Texas!

I’m working on my “interesting wines coming out of Tuscany these days” post and I received a lot of great recommendations from a bunch of Italian wine professionals and bloggers. Thank you, all. I’ll post them next week.

Above: George O brought this bottle of what I’m guessing is a dried-grape red wine from the Texas Hill Country made by Tony Coturri at the La Cruz de Comal winery. It was a great pairing for the flan.

If you haven’t seen it already, please check out this wonderful post authored by Franco (and translated by yours truly) on the amphora wines made by Vittorio Pichierri in Sava (Manduria, Apulia). Amphora wine is all the rage these days. Gravner started making wine in amphora in the late 1990s? Pichierri has been aging his wines in interred amphora since the 1970s and beyond (he uses an ancient format called capasone).

Above: We were joined by the inimitable Bill Head, whose tall Texas tales alone are worth the price of admission (seated next to Tracie B), his lovely SO Patricia, and George O. Jackson (right), photographer and author of a photo collection I am dying to see, Essence of Mexico 1990-2002, images of folklore he captured traveling through rural Mexico.

Dinner at Mary Gordon’s was just the excuse I’d been waiting for to open some older López de Heredia that a client gave me. The 1990 Tondonia white was stunning, as was the 1991 Bosconia. We opened both bottles as we sat in Mary Gordon’s living room and munched on jícama and chips and salsa: I couldn’t help but think about how great these oxidative wines are with food. The 2000 Bosconia Reserva was great with Mary Gordon’s excellent pozoles.

The conversation turned from tales of larger-than-life Charlie Wilson from Bill’s years in Washington to Mary Gordon’s memories of working for President Lyndon B. Johnson, to George O’s adventures in rural Mexico. I spent the whole evening on the edge of my seat. Maybe it’s because I live here now but it always impresses me how Texas often finds itself at the center of the American collective consciousness and American iconography.

Thanks again, Mary Gordon, for such a wonderful evening! And happy holidays to all ya’ll!

Reaction to news of the new Amarone DOCG

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jeremy parzen

Above: One of these things is not like the other things. One of these things just doesn’t belong here. Photo by Tracie B.

In the wake of the post by Franco and me yesterday at VinoWire reporting the Italian government’s approval of the new Amarone della Valpolicella and Recioto della Valpolicella DOCGs, the enoblogosphere is reeling with tweets, retweets, pings, and posts.

First and foremost, Italian Wine Guy reacted quickly with an update of his Best Italian DOCG List post.

I also saw a lot of responses to a group message I did from the VinoWire Facebook group: it seems there are a lot of people out there, studying for their Master Sommelier exams, who find this info extremely useful.

There were also a number of retweets from top sommeliers like Jonathan Honefenger of Tony’s in Houston and Master Sommelier Jesse Becker of Wine to Match.

Those of you who follow the Italian enoblogosphere may have noted an absence of reaction. It’s my sense that the move to create the DOCGs for Amarone and Recioto was more a gesture of vanity by producers than a marketing coup and really just the result of political back scratching by the inimitable agriculture minister Luca Zaia.

As wine writer Tom Hyland noted in his comment to our VinoWire post: “Let’s face it, Amarone is so famous that it doesn’t even need it. But given how many wines are now DOCG, it probably would have been embarrassing if it had never received this classification.”

You would think that Zaia and those who market Italian wines in the U.S. would wake up and smell the coffee: a definitive, officially sanctioned list of Italian appellations and detailed descriptions of regulations and production standards would be a no-brainer at this point. Americans love precision and they love technical details (California producers often write exact percentages of blends on the labels of their wines, for example). As it stands, Alfonso aka Italian Wine Guy’s list is the most comprehensive if not exhaustive list.

I understand why Italians don’t really care about the DOC and DOCG classification system at this point — especially in light of the recently implemented Common Market Organisation reforms. But in terms of marketing Italian wines to consumers in the U.S., an official list of DOCs and DOCGs would be an excellent tool for wine educators and wine professionals in this country (and would certainly help sales).

Dear minister Zaia, if you’re looking for a translator, I’m your man! (I even speak Trevigiano dialect!)

In other news…

There has also been a lot of reaction to my Tignanello post on Monday. I wanted to thank everyone for the comments: in the next day or so, I’ll do a post on what I think are the most interesting wines coming out of Tuscany these days. Please send me your comments, favorite appellations, thoughts, suggestions, by emailing me here.

In the comment section to the post, Cristiano pointed out rightly that “the father of the Tignanello is Giacomo Tachis, and not Renzo Cotarella.” (Renzo has overseen winemaking at Antinori for more than a quarter of a decade and was recently called the “father of Tignanello” by L’espresso writer Laura Rangoni.)

In other other news…

The photo above? Just for fun…

The ultimate (authentic) wine pairing for pizza

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Above: It’s easy to understand why they can make fresh, clean wines in the Commune of Lettere (Naples), where vines are tended atop the peaks of the Lattari mountain chain.

It’s another busy day over here at Do Bianchi Editorial and I really shouldn’t be posting. But when a lovely lady sends me an etymological quaestio, the chivalrous in me trumps my otherwise unflagging work ethic (hah!).

Over at My Life Italian, Tracie B has produced a truly wonderful and thoroughly delightful post on a wine we shared just over a week ago in New York: a sparkling red blend of indigenous grape varieties from the township of Lettere (province of Naples). You’ll have to click through to read about this wine and why it — together with Gragnano — is one of Neapolitans’s favorite pairings for pizza.

But as far as toponomastic matters are concerned, I poked around the web and found an answer to her query as to the origins of the name Lettere.

The most likely etymon I found was that Lettere is a corruption of Lattari (pronounced laht-TAH-ree, if I’m not mistaken), the name of the mountain chain where the township is located. The beautiful (and fruitful) mountains take their name, most believe, from the Latin mons lactarius, literally the suckling mountain (from the Latin lac meaning milk) because the mountain chain was known in antiquity as an excellent site for sheep to pasture.

Tracie B and I will be heading to central and northern Italy in early 2010 but we are hoping to head south next fall. We’ll be sure to take a print out of this listing of pizzerie in Lettere (click on “Dove Alloggiare e Mangiare”)!

And in the meantime, I’ll reiterate Tracie B’s advice: head to Kesté Pizza e Vino in New York and order some Lettere (or Gragnano) with your pizza!

Emergency post: Tignanello, there’s nothing wrong with liking it

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Above: As if by some sort of cosmic connection, Tignanello was on my mind this weekend after I learned about a hand bag line called Tignanello while shopping with Tracie B at a local mall in Austin. (I guess the hand bag line has been around for a while but I just learned about it this weekend.)

It’s been a crazy Monday (after the holiday weekend) and I really don’t have time to post today but extreme situations call for drastic measures!

In his post yesterday, one of my all-time favorite wine bloggers and palates and all-around good guy, BrooklynGuy, asked his readers: “Does my Favorite Thanksgiving Wine make me a Bad Person?” The wine in question was a bottle of 1990 Tignanello, one of Italy’s (and Tuscany’s) most famous labels and vineyards and one of the original Super Tuscans — in fact, a Super Tuscan ante litteram. Evidently, his friend brought the bottle to BrooklynFamily’s Thanksgiving celebration and in the words of BrooklynGuy, “Yes, I drank a Super-Tuscan, and I loved it. And I love the fact that I loved it.”

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with liking that wine or wines like it (do you like my chiasmus?): especially when the new wood has integrated with the other components of the wine, as I imagine was the case in this nearly twenty-year-old bottling, these wines can be the source of immense pleasure. In another lifetime, when I lived in New York and worked at the top of the Italian wine circuit, I had the opportunity to taste a number of older vintages of the historic Super Tuscans, like Sassicaia (notably, 1985) and Tignanello (notably, 1990, 1995, and 1997). The wines can be very, very good.

I can’t say that I like the wines but I certainly don’t think there’s anything wrong with liking them. In fact, I showed 2005 Tignanello in my recent seminar on Tuscan wines (participants loved it, btw).

Why don’t I like them? And more importantly, why don’t I like the categorically? In the case of Tignanello, it’s not that I don’t like it but rather that there are so many other wines I’d rather drink — wines that, in my view, are more indicative of the place and the people who make wine there.

Having said that, I bet that the 1990 Tignanello — first produced in 1971 as Tignanello and the first Sangiovese to be aged in new French oak, according to the producer — showed gorgeously that night (and my deep respect for BrooklynGuy’s palate leads me to believe that it did, indeed, show well).

Above: To barrique or not to barrique? The answer is almost categorically “no” on my palate, especially when it comes to noble expressions of Sangiovese.

Frankly, I feel like I owe BrooklynGuy an apology and I feel terrible that he felt obligated to apologize — however jokingly — for liking a wine that is not a “hipster wine,” as he put it. After all, I have been known to patently dismiss barriqued Italian wines and Super Tuscans in general. The truth is I would have loved to try that wine myself!

It’s important to note that the designation Super Tuscan is generally not used by Italians. I’ve read that James Suckling claims he coined the term but I believe that Nicolas Belfrage actually created it in the 1980s. (Coincidentally, I’m reading Belfrage’s new book, The Finest Wines of Tuscany, and will review it soon. He doesn’t discuss his relation to the term although he does hyphenate it.) It’s also important to note that, whatever its origins, the designation is used purely in an marketing capacity and has no official weight or significance.

And while Tignanello is often called “one of the original Super Tuscans” (together with Sassicaia and Ornellaia), it’s important to note that its creators did not call it a Super Tuscan. In 1971, they declassified the wine from Chianti Classico with the vineyard designation to simply Tignanello, the vineyard designation. Why did they do this? Probably because they’re marketing sense led them to believe — rightly — that by shedding the then-tarnished Chianti label, they could command higher prices for the wine.

Lastly, it’s important to note that the declassification wasn’t the only element that Antinori and the “father of Tignanello,” Renzo Cotarella, introduced in its effort to conquer a greater piece of the foreign market: they introduced new-French-oak-small-cask aging, lower-than-required yields, and — I would imagine — Californian practices in the cellar (I don’t know but am guessing they began using cultured yeasts and other forms of manipulation through technology).

The most interesting tidbit of BrooklynGuy’s post, in my view, is the fact that he points out (and in many ways he’s right on): “Antinori’s Tignanello was a big part of the beginning of the Super-Tuscan craze that ultimately ended with the huge Brunello scandal.” Tignanello has always been made mostly from Sangiovese with smaller amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc (to give color, weight, and tannin). The oaky, beefy (as it were) style of wine ultimately conquered the American market in what is surely to be remembered as one of the greatest coups in the history of wine marketing.

BrooklynGuy asks:

Is this wine partly to blame for the bastardization of Tuscan wine?

No, it’s not the wine. The blame lies with winemakers who have abandoned the flavors and aromas of their land for the sake of avarice.

Is Tignanello bad? And if it is bad, can it still taste good?

Tignanello isn’t bad. But there are so many other, greater expressions of Sangiovese that achieve much, much more at a much lower price point.

The 1990 tasted great, that much I can tell you.

I would have loved to taste it with you, BrooklynGuy! But then again, I know that it’s always a great experience to taste any wine with you!

Chapeau bas, for keeping it real in Brooklyn.

Thanksgiving vine

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It’s that time of year again and the holiday season is upon us…

A recent post by Vinogirl on the ubiquitous Vitis californica of my home state got me thinking about the miracle of the vine and its fruit.

Not so long ago, in a comment to my post on grapes under an earlier Tuscan Sun, Vinogirl noted sagaciously that the vine provided “food, drink and firewood for man, leaves for oxen and seeds for pigeons…”

This morning, as Tracie B and I sit around as we do on most Sundays, sipping coffee, surfing the internet, and listening to This American Life, my Sunday New York Times tells me that today the U.S. food stamp program helps feed “one in eight Americans and one in four children.”

It made me think about what winemaker Dora Forsoni (below right, with her partner Patrizia) told me last year when I visited her and she brought out table grapes for us to munch on as we tasted her wine. “My father was so poor,” said the Tuscan native Dora, “that he couldn’t afford fruit for us kids to eat. So he planted a vine so that we’d always have fruit.” Even without tending, the vine will naturally render fruit. The grapes tasted sweet and juicy.

vino nobile

For Tracie B and me, finances are tight (as we try to put away some money for our upcoming wedding) and the business of wine sales continues to be an uphill battle. But the miracle of the vine continues to give us a livelihood, even in the tough economic climate.

The Thanksgiving weekend is almost over and tomorrow we’ll pick it up again after taking the weekend off (a rarity for us these days). In these tough times, when a lot of folks in our country and across the world are struggling, we sure have a lot to be thankful for: love, health, and the miracle of the vine.

Our date with the City, part 2: the best natural wine bar in the U.S.?

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beaujolais

Above: I may be going out on a limb here when I say that Ten Bells seems to have captured the title of the “best natural wine bar in NYC” but I’ll go ahead and say it anyway. The selection of stinky cru Beaujolais was pretty impressive, even after affable owner Fifi Essome had sold out of many of the labels for his Beaujolais festival the Thursday before our Sunday visit. Photos by Tracie B.

Whether it’s Saignée, Wine Digger, Eric, Alice, or McDuff, it seems like all of my fav bloggers are either writing about or hanging out at The Ten Bells on the Lower East Side of New York City (which takes its name from the homonymous and notorious London pub).

So after Tracie B and I finished lunch with Michele at Kesté, we took a stroll over to the east side and picked up Alice in SoHo and walked down the Bowery to Broome and Orchard on the Lower East Side and tasted a few of the by-the-glass Beaujolais selections that were leftover from the wine bar’s Beaujolais festival the previous Thursday — and what an impressive, if picked-over, list it was!

alice feiring

Above: Alice Feiring is one of my dearest friends and one of the persons I have known the longest in New York. Her book The Battle for Wine and Love was recently released in paperback.

Beyond Lou on Vine in Los Angeles, which remains my favorite American winebar, I can’t think of anywhere else you will find a greater selection of natural, stinky wines. And while Lou can trump nearly any joint for the hipster celebrity sitings on any given night, The Ten Bells seems to have become the official backdrop for the natural wine dialectic of our fine nation and seems to be the official satellite office for visiting natural winemakers.

I liked the way McDuff put it best: “The Ten Bells is mysterious… The Ten Bells is dark… The Ten Bells is Dangerous…” Just quickly scanning Fifi’s hand-written chalkboard wine list as Tracie B, Alice, and I caught up after our last meeting in Paris at Racine’s, I eyed at least a score of labels that I wanted to try. The oysters looked fantastic, too.

We had lots to catch up on but the main topic of conversation during our all-too-short visit was Alice’s recent and heated exchange with The Wine Spectator’s James Suckling, who was finally hipped to natural wine by our mutual friend (and jazz guitar great) Anthony Wilson. I’ll be connecting with Anthony early next month and I’ll be sure to get the juice behind the juice he turned Suckling on to!

Our date with the City was too short and there were so many folks and places that we would have loved to have seen. I can’t say that I miss living in New York but you gotta love the buzz of that city, the energy, and the wine. With London, Paris, and Rome, New York is right up there as one of the great wine destinations of the world — whether you’re drinking old Nebbiolo at Manducatis in Queens or stinky, natural Beaujolais on the Lower East Side at The Ten Bells. I sure don’t need it everyday… but a beautiful, crisp, clear fall day in November, with some yummy Beaujolais in our tummies, catching up with some dear friends, felt just right…

Antonio knows that pleasure is the child of pain

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From the “run don’t walk department”…

Last night, after leading an Italian wine tasting in Houston, I finally got the chance to sit down with cousins Marty and Joanne for a proper dinner at Catalan, where — and I’ll just cut to the chase since I need to get my butt on a plane in a few hours — wine director Antonio Gianola’s list just blew me away. Joly by the glass? Erbaluce, Vin Jaune from the Jura, Edi Simčič Pinot Grigio, López de Heredia, Nikolaihof, 1989 Domaine des Baumard????!!! There were just so many great wines that I wanted to taste… and that was just in the chapters devoted to white wine! Antonio’s list is precise and informed, informative and fun, easy to navigate for the neophyte and thrilling to leaf through for the connoisseur. There is a threshold where a wine list becomes a thrill of its own and a form of profound dilectio for wine lovers (remember this piece by Eric?). Antonio’s list passes through that threshold with ethereal and seamless celerity. And the best part? His prices are among the most if not the most aggressive I’ve seen anywhere in the U.S. Click through to the restaurant’s website to read his list (which Antonio seems to update like clockwork). And check out this profile of importer Neal Rosenthal by Houston Chronicle wine writer Dale Roberston where Antonio is featured (and where I lifted the photo).

De vinographia: Perhaps the greatest wine writers of all are the authors of great wine lists.

Antonio loves the desert, Antonio prays for rain…

Tracie B and I are on our way to New Jersey for the wedding of one of my best and dearest friends in the world (and the drummer in Nous Non Plus). Stay tuned… I heard something about some Vajra being poured tomorrow night and some Beatles songs… mmmmmm…

*****

“Antonio’s Song”

—Michael Franks

Antonio lives life’s frevo
Antonio prays for truth
Antonio says our friendship
Is a hundred-proof
The vulture that circles Rio
Hangs in this L.A. sky
The blankets they give the Indians
Only make them die
But sing the Song
Forgotten for so long
And let the Music flow
Like Light into the Rainbow
We know the Dance, we have
We still have the chance
To break these chains and flow
Like Light into the Rainbow
Antonio loves the desert
Antonio prays for rain
Antonio knows that Pleasure
Is the child of Pain
And lost in La Califusa
When most of my hope was gone
Antonio’s samba led me
To the Amazon
We sing the Song
Forgotten for so long
And let the music flow
Like Light into the Rainbow
We know the Dance, we have
We still have the chance
To break these chains and flow
Like Light into the Rainbow.

An Italian wine walks into a bar…

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austin wine merchant

Above: Yesterday, I tasted through the current releases of Fèlsina with my friends, from left, Craig Collins (who works for the winery’s distributor in Texas), John Roenigk (owner and manager of The Austin Wine Merchant), and Chiara Leonini, Fèlsina’s export manager. For the record, Fèlsina is pronounced FEHL-see-nah.

It’s a labor of love and it’s my self-appointed duty: I just spent the first hour of my day translating Franco’s editorial on the list of The Wine Spectator’s top 100 wines and the Italian showing in the list. You’ve heard me say it before: Franco (the “Giuseppe Baretti” of Italian wine) is a friend, a colleague, a mentor, a partner, and one of the wine writers whom I admire most. I encourage you to read what he has to say: here in America, where few read the Italian wine media, we are often unaware of how the Italians view us and our wine media and how our wine media generally ignores the wines and the styles of wine that Italians hold to be the best representation of their enology.

In another editorial published today, by a young wine blogger and marketing consultant based in Apulia, the author writes: “Just think that the first wine in the list is an American wine that costs $27 and the second is a Spanish wine that also costs $27. In order to pay the tidy sum of $110, you have to get to the eighth place in the list for a Tuscan wine that costs a hefty $110!”

Today, I’ll leave the editorializing and pontificating to others, but I do encourage you to put it in your pipe and smoke it, so to speak.

As it just so happens, yesterday I tasted with the export manager for a winery that landed the thirteenth position in the magazine’s list: Fèlsina, whose Fontalloro, a barriqued 100% Sangiovese that has long been a popular wine in the U.S.

“Some would call it a Super Tuscan,” said Chiara (above), “even though I don’t like that term.” And, in fact, the wine actually qualifies as a Chianti, even though the winery has chosen historically to declassify it, initially to vino da tavola status and now IGT (it was first released in 1983, she said, the same year as the first release of the winery’s “cru” Chianti Classico, Rancia).

I’m a bona fide fan of Fèlsina but my favorites are always their entry-level wines, made from 100% Sangiovese grapes, vinified in the traditional style, and aged in large old-oak casks that have been used over and over again. The wines generally cost under $25 and I highly recommend them. The 2006 harvest was a good vintage for these wines, 2007 a great vintage. (I also had fun trading notes with Chiara about our university days in Italy. She studied Chomsky and generative linguistics at Florence, around the same time I studied the history of the Italian language and prosody at Padua and the Scuola Normale in Pisa. We knew a lot of the same professors!)

I’ve spent enough time in front of the computer this morning and it’s time for me to head to Houston, where I’ll be speaking about and pouring Italian wine tonight. So I’ll leave the punch line up to you Italo Calvinos out there…

An Italian wine walks into a bar…

Best Thanksgiving wines (or at least, what me and Tracie B will be drinking)

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Above: Tracie B and I held an informal wine tasting last night with our friends CJ and Jen, who made some excellent pulled pork for dinner (photos by CJ).

It’s that time of year again and everyone’s doing their “Best Thanksgiving Wines” posts. So I figured I’d do mine. Seems like there’s more humor and a greater twang of irony this year in the otherwise traditionally Hallmark consumerist spirit. Maybe ’cause everyone is so broke (or at least I am), it feels like you’re reaching beyond the perfunctory when you compile these lists. It does occur to me that we in the U.S. of A are probably the only folks who believe in these “best” and “top” lists. I just can’t imagine Franco writing a “Top Ten Christmas” wine list. Can you?

My favorite top Thanksgiving wine post so far was authored by Saignée, “I Feel Obligated to Do a ‘Thanksgiving Wine Pairing Post'” (it’s worth checking out but it also sports a NC-17 rating).

Above: The only wine that exceeded my $20-or-under-rule for this year’s holiday was the 2007 Bucci Verdicchio dei Castelli di Iesi, which you should be able to find for under $30. Man, I love that wine.

The Solomon of wine writing and blogging, Eric, poked some fun (or at least, I read it that way) at the Grey Lady’s perennial Thanksgiving suggestions (marked this year by the absence of Frank Bruni) in his post “Six Years of Thanksgiving Wisdom.” I love the wine that Eric brought to the paper’s Thanksgiving tasting, a Frappato by Valle dell’Acate (Sicily). I also love the new wine descriptor, coined and used by Eric to describe it, and I love that it made it past the paper’s grammarians: “earthy chuggability.”

And lest he think that I’ve forgotten him, I got a genuine chuckle and chortle out of Strappo’s “THANKSGIVING WINE STUNNER: EXPERTS CLAIM RED OR WHITE OK!”

This year, Tracie B and I will be heading to Orange, Texas, just like last year, but this year, we’ll also be bringing Mamma Judy with us — her first visit to Texas since I moved here last year. Mrs. B and Rev. B are expecting 24 people at this year’s festivities. Since finances are tight for this fiancé (especially in view of our upcoming nuptials), I tried to keep my wines under $20 (and, for the most part, I succeeded on that part, as they say in the south).

Bucci 2007 Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi
($22.99 at Jimmy’s in Dallas)

CJ and I really dug the crunchy mouthfeel of this wine and its elegant, lingering finish. The acidity was “tongue splitting,” as Tracie B likes to say.

Domaine Fontsainte 2008 Corbières Gris di Gris
(rosé, $17.50 at The Austin Wine Merchant)

We all agreed that the fruit in this wine was approachable and fun, juicy and tangy. This could go with just about anything at the Thanksgiving table.

Marchesi di Gresy 2007 Dolcetto d’Alba Monte Aribaldo
($18.75 at The Austin Wine Merchant)

I just can’t believe what a value this wine is at under-$20. It’s rich and chewy, surprisingly tannic, and has that noble rusticity that you find in the Marchesi di Gresy.

Mas Lavail 2007 Terre d’Ardoise Carignan
($11.25 at The Austin Wine Merchant)

Tracie B called this “salty” wine “the stand alone” wine of the flight we tasted with Jen and CJ. The price-quality ratio here is stellar (at $11.25? HELL YEAH!) and the wine is chewy, rich, with dark fruit and lots of savory flavors. I can’t wait to pair it with Tracie B’s Meemaw’s deviled eggs and Mrs. B’s sweet potato pie.

AND HERE IT IS, THE MOMENT YA’LL HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR… MY NUMBER 1 THANKSGIVING WINE FOR 2009!!!

Selvapiana 2007 Chianti Rufina
($16.25 at The Austin Wine Merchant)

Selvapiana is one of my all-time favorite producers (one of Franco’s favs, too) and Rufina is one of the greatest expressions of Sangiovese. This wine is tannic and will benefit from a little aeration before serving but once it opens up it’s all about bright acidity and plum fruit flavors. The price range will vary for this wine across the country but it’s always a tremendous value.

Thanks for reading ya’ll! I’m wishing you a great (and safe) holiday with your loved ones.

In other news…

I had a blast pouring and talking about wine and pairing European and domestic wines with Asian food at the Saheli “Discover Asia through Wine” event on Saturday night. The Tandoori chicken (above) was one of the hits of the evening, as was the Selvapiana Chianti Rufina, which I paired with the Chinese roast duck. Donations support battered Asian women and immigrants in the greater Austin area.

In other other news…

I’ll be pouring wines from Piedmont and Tuscany this Thursday at the Galleria Tennis and Athletic Club in Houston. Click here for details.