One of the most thrilling wines I tasted this year at Vinitaly wasn’t a thirty-year-old Sangiovese or a gorgeous Franciacorta rosé.

No, it was a wine that should retail for under $15 in the U.S.: a humble, fresh, bright and brilliant expression of Corvina by Tenuta Sant’Antonio (above, one of my favorite Valpolicella producers), vinified in a light, food-friendly quaffable style — the kind of wine you just can’t stop drinking.

Scaia is a dialectal term that appears in the western Veneto and in Lombardy. It denotes gravelly or pebbly, a reference to the diluvial subsoils commonly found in the ancient river valleys of the Valpolicella where this wine is grown and raised.

This wine POPPED!

I’ve been a fan of Tenuta Sant’Antonio since I first tasted the wines in New York back in the late 1990s.

The brothers who make the wines are farmers, children of farmers, and the wines they make stay true to the Valpolicella that I know and love.

Valpolicella is one of those appellations that’s been nearly eclipsed by commercialization. (Did you know that development in the township of Negrar, at the heart of Valpolicella, is so out of control that it has delivered a neologism to the Italian language, Negrarizzazione — Negrarization — meaning unbridled commercial development?)

So much of the Valpolicella and Amarone that floods the American market these days is over-extracted and over-laden with alcohol.

I’m so glad to see (and taste) that the Castagnedi brothers have stayed true to their roots and the great wines they’ve historically produced.

Thanks, again, to Master Sommelier Craig Collins for setting up our appointment at the winery’s Vinitaly stand.

From the department of “it’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it”…

The standout dish of Tony’s California Cult Wine dinner in Houston where I spoke on Tuesday night (yes, about California cult wines) was the above: poached sweetbreads that had been layered into a cylinder, breaded and fried, and then served atop a dollop of Oaxacan black mole.

Chef Grant Gordon obsessively sourced all the ingredients for the dish, which took him more than a week to prepare. He said the chiles chihualces were nearly impossible to find but was able to obtain after calling three stores in Mexico (two were sold out, he said).

When you lifted the hamachi, you found uni underneath. So decadent, so good…

My first marzolino truffles of the year, served over wholewheat pasta with sorrel mushrooms. Superb dish…

At 13.4% alcohol, I thought this Greg Linn Pinot Noir showed beautifully. Maybe not the earthiness I look for in old world Pinot Noir, but great acidity and wonderful balance. I liked it a lot.

I was also really impressed by Carte Blanche Syrah by Nicholas Allen. It showed a lot of depth for California and I liked how it had been vinified in a lighter style, retaining all the hallmarks of Syrah but also delivering lovely foodfriendliness. It paired brilliantly with the roast lamb.

I can’t say that I would ever reach for any of the wines (and I certainly can’t afford them) but life could be worse…

I’m so lucky to be associated with my good friend Tony and his team (I curate their media and speak at the occasional wine dinner for them). They’re a world-class act…

From the department of “wish you were here” “wish I could be there”…

There’s a new wave of young Langarolo producers who have returned to the old “traditional” style of Nebbiolo (that I prefer): wholesome farming practices, minimal-intervention vinification, and large-cask aging.

Many of them are the children of Barolo’s marquee names. And many of them have diverted their families’ wineries from the path of modernism.

My close friend and Franciacorta winemaker Giovanni Arcari has curated a portfolio of some of his favorite producers in Franciacorta to be presented May 11 together with the Nebbiolo at a mother of all tastings in Monforte d’Alba.

Man, I wish I could be there…

Yesterday, Cousin Marty (above, right) and I attended what is becoming an annual tradition in the Texas wine community: a pop-up restaurant with Master Sommelier Bobby Stuckey (above, left) and chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson of Frasca in Boulder, CO.

The two are visiting Texas, as they did last year, showing their Scarpetta line of wines.

I’m always geeked to taste and chat with Bobby, whose relationship with Italian wine is as much shaped by his boundless passion as by his encyclopedia knowledge and experience.

Among the many nuggets and insights he offered yesterday, he told the crowd of A-list Houston wine professionals that he believes “the world’s next Dagueneau will come from Friuli.”

When I asked whether he thought such a wine icon would emerge from the Colli Orientali del Friuli or Collio, he said the Colli Orientali had an advantage inasmuch as its slightly cooler climate more readily delivers higher acidity levels in the wine.

I covered the event, which held at überhip Uchi in Houston, in my post today for the Houston Press.

I just received a press release issued by the Brunello consortium informing recipients that the bottlers and growers association “has decided” to file a lawsuit against Gianfranco Soldera accusing him of “defamation.”

(Here’s an English-language translation of the press release issued by the consortium.)

According to its authors, the consortium has also moved to “expel” him. Even with his letter of resignation and his public announcement in late March that he had sent the letter to the body’s president, he would have remained a member until 2015 in any case, write the authors.

The defamation charge is based on an interview with Soldera published on March 26 in the Italian national daily Corriere della Sera in which Soldera alleged that consortium members had encouraged him to commit fraud when they offered to give him wine (in the aftermath of the December 2012 vandalism that purportedly destroyed six vintages of Soldera’s wine).

The charge of defamation is based on Soldera’s statement that [the consortium had] “wanted to donate wine to me. I was supposed to bottle it as if it were mine, without knowing where it came from. [This was] an unacceptable and offensive proposal, a swindling [fraud] of the consumer.”

Consortium president Fabrizio Bindocci is quoted in the press release: “We feel that the lawsuit is a necessary move,” he says, “to safeguard the public image of winemakers, Brunello, and the Montalcino territory. We were deeply offended and hurt by this and other negative claims made by Soldera regarding the Consortium.”

The fact that there’s a new Italian wine buyer at a wine shop in Houston make not seem like big news to some.

But when you consider that the Houston Wine Merchant is the last independently owned wine store in Houston — one of our country’s biggest markets, the fourth largest city in the U.S., and a strong wine market despite the continuing financial crisis — there’s no denying that this is the guy that Italian winemakers are going to want to see when they pass through town.

Last week, I caught up with Antonio Gianola (above), the merchant’s new hire, one of the wine professionals I admire most in Texas.

His knowledge of Italian wine is unimpeachable and his professionalism beyond reproach.

And… he’s super nice guy.

Click here for my post on our chat over at the Houston Press.

I’m entirely geeked to see someone with his talent and experience in Italian wines buying for the Houston Wine Merchant (where I shop when I’m in Houston).

Above: Giotto’s Marriage at Cana.

Italian news junkies were gripped over the weekend with political intrigue, as 87-year-old Giorgio Napolitano was elected to an unprecedented second term as President of the Italian Republic.

Most pundits predict Berlusconi as the winner of the new power balance.

(“[P]olitical turmoil is preventing leaders from taking steps to right the economy, which is struggling to emerge from the longest recession since World War II,” reports the New York Times. “Unemployment is above 11 percent, and the national debt has risen to 130 percent of gross domestic product, the second-highest ratio of debt to G.D.P. in the euro zone after Greece.”)

These developments didn’t entirely drown out the chatter from Montalcino, where — Italy’s leading wine blogger Franco Ziliani reports — there are rumors that the Brunello consortium voted in an April 4 assembly to “expel” producer Gianfranco Soldera from the body. (Here’s the thread on the recent contentious public exchange between the consortium and Soldera, who purportedly sent his letter of resignation to the group in late March.)

According to Ziliani, consortium president Fabrizio Bindocci declined to comment on the rumors but did not deny them when reached over the weekend by telephone.

On March 30, responding to Soldera’s accusations that the consortium had encouraged him to sell fraudulent wine when the body offered to give him wine (following an episode of vandalism in December 2012 that purportedly destroyed six vintages of Soldera’s wine), Bindocci told the Italian national daily Corriere della Sera: “We wanted to give him wine to help him, as is the custom among colleagues in the country. He refused the wine. Now other bottles of his suddenly appear. It would seem that he has performed the Miracle of the Marriage at Cana” (where Jesus turned water into wine).

Bindocci was referring to a press release issued by Soldera at the end of March. In it Soldera reported that he had been able to recover a considerable amount of wine that had previously been reported as destroyed in the vandal’s attack.

And so the world of Italian wine turns…

In other news…

Above: Enologist Riccardo Cotarella, the “wine wizard,” known for his modernist approach to winemaking in Italy and widely considered a leading figure of the Italian wine establishment. Image via Empson USA.

Also via Ziliani’s blog, I have learned today that Italian wine establishment enologist Riccardo Cotarella plans to present “zero sulfur [added]” wines from 26 wineries at tasting to be held in Rome on May 16.

Details and registration info for the tasting have been posted by Bibenda, a media platform widely considered by industry observers to be the mouthpiece of “big wine” in Italy.

The wines are the result of eight years of research by Cotarella and his team of enologists, referred to as the [sic] “Wine Research Team.”

Its method is an “absolutely scientific process through which [the team was able] to identify procedures to be implemented in the vineyards and in winemaking aimed at obtaining the highest quality of wine.”

The labels of each of the wines reports: “The vine and wine accompany man on his journey throughout Civilization. Passion and scientific research help to surpass limits at times unthinkable.”

Here are the wineries listed in the post, all of them Cotarella’s clients:

Allegrini – Castello di Cigognola – Carvinea – Còlpetrone – Coppo – Di Majo Norante – Falesco – Fattoria del Cerro – Fattorie Greco – La Guardiense – La Madeleine – La Murola – Leone De Castris – Poggio Le Volpi – San Patrignano – San Salvatore – Tenuta dell’Arbiola – Tenuta di Frassineto – Tenuta San Polo – Terre Cortesi Moncaro – Terre de la Custodia – Trequanda – Villa Matilde – Villa Medoro – Domaine du Comte de Thun.

As Ziliani notes in his post, “never say never.” To which, I’ll add, stranger things have happened.