Tag Archives: Antonio Galloni

Declassified Dettori 06 Cannonau Renosu & carnitas at Bahia Don Bravo (La Jolla)

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Last year I was lucky to pick up a case of 2006 Romangia Rosso Renosu by Dettori (Sassari, Sardinia), Alessandro Dettori’s declassified Cannonau from the “uneven” 2006 vintage there (as Antonio Galloni has called it).

The U.S. retailer and Alessandro don’t seem to be on the same page as to why the wine was declassified (possibly because of a language issue?).

According to Alessandro, he decided to bottle the wine in 2008 in the middle of a disastrous vintage for him. Normally, he would have let the wine age longer in vat before bottling. But according to one of his ever lyrical emails, the bottling was inspired by a bout of powdery mildew during the devastating summer (for Dettori) of 2008.

Maybe he was concerned the onslaught of bacteria tainted a few of his vats. Or maybe, as he suggested in an email, he remembered how previous generations bottled their wine right away. They did so because they wanted the wine to be ready for the winter and feared being without wine. But by doing so, they also avoided potential spoilage issues.

I’d seen mixed reactions to this wine in the chat rooms. But I also know that Alessandro’s wines require patience — in your cellar and at the table.

He calls his declassified wines “Renosu,” meaning sandy (from the Latin [h]arena, meaning dry, sterile sand). According to his own gloss on the term, it refers to the wines raised in the lower-lying sandy subsoils as opposed to his hillside vineyards (when in fact, the grapes used to make this wine were once intended for his flagship red wine, the Dettori Rosso).

The good news is that the only bad news is that I wish I would have bought more of it!

When opened a bottle the other night with a heaping helping of carnitas at our favorite taco stand in La Jolla, Bahia Don Bravo.

We didn’t get any of the volatile acidity that folks on the boards have talked about and the wine was fresh and bright, juicy and tasty. Had I not known it was a declassified Dettori, I would have said it was the rosso (it’s one of those wines that, if you follow the producer, you can easily pick out in a blind tasting).

I loved the wine and it was a fantastic pairing for the salty, fatty carnitas.

Georgia P had refried beans for the first time that night. I think it’s safe to say that she liked them. ;)

We were sad to say goodbye to grandma Judy, Georgia P’s cousins, and all our good friends in San Diego. But after a week on the road and away from our little house at the corner of Gro[o]ver and Alegria, it was time to get back to Texas where we belong…

Why Antonio Galloni matters now more than ever

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Antonio Galloni (left; image via Corriere.it) has been on my mind the last few days.

In part because I turn to his writing repeatedly for his observations on vintage characteristics and site typicity. In part because his extreme and truly supreme knowledge of Italian wine inspire me. In part because the genuine and unmitigated exhilaration of his Twitter feed reminds me every day why I love what he does and what I do for a living. And in part because the Citizen Kane of wine blogging took a very cheap — and despicably hypocritical — shot at Antonio this week.

Unmentionable wine blogger — who will remain nameless here lest we drive more traffic to his petty hissing — accused Antonio of conflict of interest in an upcoming tasting he’s leading. My feeling is that even if there were a conflict of interest (and there is not), who cares and who could possibly be hurt by a vertical tasting of Solaia (even though I personally don’t care for the brand)?

In a recent where-are-the-snows-of-yesteryear post on his blog, self-described “old fart” wine writer (and all-around jolly fellow whom I enjoy and respect immensely) Tom Maresca bemoans the current generation of wine writers, winemakers, and wine sellers (cfr. the ballade des dames des temps jadis).

“There are no more Luigi Veronellis or Giorgio Grais,” he writes (ignoring the fact that there is still a very healthy Giorgio Grai), “no Edoardo Valentinos, and all too soon there will be no more Franco Biondi-Santis. Pioneers like Renato Ratti and Giacomo Bologna are long gone, as are retailers as passionate and devoted as the still-lamented Lou Iacucci – that is now a rare breed indeed.”

I can’t fault Tom for his Jeremiad: as north Americans have discovered fine wine over the last three decades, the wine business has become big business and the larger-than-life, “greatest generation,” selfless figures that he refers to are being replaced by the Zonins, Antinoris, and Lucio Mastroberardinos of this new and brave world.

And that’s why Antonio Galloni matters more than ever.

A Berklee-educated jazz musician, a Milan-trained tenor, a successful finance executive, and — in my view — the leading expert on Italian wine today, Antonio is a true renaissance man for a new chapter in the history of wine connoisseurship. (Few remember, btw, that Voltaire made his fortune in finance before turning to philosophy.)

The culture of wine writing has shifted dramatically in the last ten years and I believe that Antonio’s model of superbly informed writing balanced by his business acumen (expressed through the many high-end consumer tastings that he leads throughout the country every year) represents the new generation of Anglophone vinography.

When House and Garden closed wine writer Jay McInerney’s legendary $75K expense account in 2007, the move represented the end of an era. At the time, there were scores of wine writers making a living purely by writing and not “monetizing” their intellectual property. Today, you can count their number on one hand.

Even our good friend Alice Feiring has begun to monetize her career following the example of Jancis Robinson and Robert Parker, Jr. (and I highly recommend her soon-to-be-published Natural wine newsletter and Kickstarter campaign to you; I’m a subscriber).

Just like the world needs Alice, so the world needs Antonio. And I thank goodness for both of them. Let’s not blame them for monetizing their intellectual property. Let’s praise them for following a brave new path in a brave new world…

First Kiss: 07 Produttori del Barbaresco and Gianni Brunelli olive oil

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Maybe it’s because she knew I was depressed by the flurry of bad news from Europe.

But it’s definitely because I’m the luckiest guy in the world: when Tracie P came home from work yesterday, she brought me a bottle of 2007 Barbaresco by Produttori del Barbaresco, which — believe it or not — I still hadn’t tasted.

However bizarre the 2007 vintage in Langa, everything I’ve tasted so far from Barbaresco and Barolo has been simply sensational. Here’s what one of my favorite wine writers, Antonio Galloni, had to say about this strange but glorious (imho) vintage:

    The year started off with an unusually warm and dry winter, with virtually no precipitation. Flowers and plants went into bloom nearly a full month early. Growers had never seen conditions such as these. The summer was warm, but evenly so, without noticeable heat spikes. Towards the end of the growing season nighttime temperatures lowered, slowing down the maturation of the grapes, and allowing for the development of the perfume that is such an essential component of fine Nebbiolo. The harvest was earlier than normal, but the growing season started so early in the year that the actual length of the vegetative cycle was actually close to normal if not longer than normal by a few days.

At first kiss, the 2007 classic (as opposed to vineyard-designated) Barbaresco by Produttori del Barbaresco was very generous with its fruit. Arguably the most elegant bottling I’ve ever tasted from the winery that forms the centerpiece of our wine collection, the wine showed stunning balance before quickly closing up, with the muscular tannin dominating the wine in my glass for the rest of the evening (I’ve saved the great part of the wine in the bottle and will revisit it tonight and tomorrow night). If ever there were an expression of Barbaresco “Barolo-esque” in its power, this would be it: there was a delicate menthol note in the mouth that reminded us of some of our favorite “east-side,” “Helvetian” growers.

It’s too early for final judgment on this wine, but wow, my impression is that we have a lot to look forward to…

In other news…

I also opened a bottle of Gianni Brunelli olive oil that Laura Brunelli gave me when I visited the family’s amazing farm in Montalcino in October.

A drizzle over some still warm toasted bread was unbelievably good, one of the mineral olive oils I’ve ever tasted. (When tasting olive oil, please be sure the olive oil is room temperature and always taste with warm bread; the gentle heat of the bread will prompt the oil to release its full flavor.)

I used the oil to dress some fresh red leaf lettuce and some cannellini beans. Utterly and absolutely delicious.

Whereas Ligurian olive oil tends toward the fruity and Sicilian toward the spicy, great Tuscan olive oil leans toward salty: I added just a dash of kosher salt to both the salad and the beans and Laura’s oil imparted all the savoriness I needed to both dishes. Fantastic stuff… Enough to cheer a wine blogger up after a day of gloomy news from his adoptive country…

Stay tuned for a post on my visit with Laura, a tour of her amazing “biodynamic” house, and a tasting of some current and older vintages of her family’s incredible wines… one of the best tastings from my last trip to Italy… Thanks for reading!

Can wine be evil? Stories that haven’t been told #ewbc

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In the first panel/round table where I spoke at the European Wine Bloggers Conference in Brescia a few weeks ago, I was asked “to defend the written” word as a medium for wine blogging (here’s my post on my “defense”).

In the second panel, organizer and curator Ryan Opaz asked me and the other participants to talk about “stories that haven’t been told” in wine blogging.

The different panelists had widely divergent approaches to the subject but wine writer and blogger Elisabetta Tosi made a point that resonated with me.

In Italy, she said, wine marketers continue to tell wine stories in terms of family and tradition, focusing on the generational continuity and historical significance of the wines and the wineries. Most, she observed, neglect to talk about the quality of the wine itself, concentrating solely on the cultural value of the wine.

Her point aligned with mine: I believe that, although there are some notable exceptions, English-language wine writers favor technical descriptions of the wines they cover, from how they are produced to how they taste; in Europe, where wine writing is not as rigidly codified as it is on this side of the pond, I find that wine (and culture desk) writers tend to discuss wines in terms of their cultural value and context.

To her point, I added that while English-language writers tend to limit their descriptions and assessments to the technical merits and flaws of the wines, European writers view wines as ideological and even ethical expressions of their respective nations. In other words, where Antonio Galloni — a writer and Italian wine expert whom I admire greatly — will provide tasting and vintage notes for a wine by Bartolo Mascarello, an Italian writer will attempt to delineate the epistemological implications of the winery, the winemaker, and his wines (as in this post, where a blogger lists the authors he finds on Bartolo’s shelves: “Togliatti, Longo, Marx, Liberovici, Marcuse”; can you imagine James Suckling even contemplating such authors?).

A great illustration of this divide came up in the feed today, when leading Italian wine writer and top Italian wine blogger Franco Ziliani published a post entitled “Americans are the only ones capable of believing in the fairytale of a ‘Chiantified’ Merlot.”

In the post, Franco examines a review of a Ricasoli Merlot by W. Blake Gray in which the American writer praises the winery for a “Chiantified Merlot,” his “favorite wine in the portfolio.”

Nonplussed, Franco decries Gray’s claim that the wine is “a positive example of internationalization.”

“How the devil can you take people like this seriously?” asks Franco. The lunacy of Gray’s assessment and Ricasoli’s approach to internationalized wines for the American market is self-evident in Franco’s view and that of his readers.

In America, wine writers and wine shoppers and winemakers think of wine solely as a luxury product. In Europe, they think of wine as an indispensable nutrient, even when proposed in its most elitist expressions. In America we describe how it was made and how it tastes. In Europe, wine writers address a given wine’s technical achievement and its inherent quality but they do not shy from its ideological and ethical implications.

There’s nothing wrong in asking whether a wine is good or bad, in my view. In fact, I believe that mundane assessment of wine is a wonderfully rich pretext for a deeper understanding of humanity and our humanness. But I also believe that we must approach wines metaphysically, in other words, beyond their physical limitations. Beyond asking whether a wine is good or bad, I told the audience who attended the panel, we should be asking whether or not a wine is good or evil.

Although it’s not the only story that has yet to be told, I believe it is the most urgent one that awaits our attention, our utterance, and our articulation.

Thanks for reading…

(In the photos above: St. Francis of Assisi, Mussolini, Palmiro Togliatti, and a group of old men playing cards in Borgonato in Franciacorta, province of Brescia.)

New York Stories 6: lunch with Antonio Galloni at Marea

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Above: The cuttlefish crudo at Marea.

There are many in our field who claim to be the world’s greatest experts on Italian wine. You certainly don’t need me to tell you who they are: they have publicists for that!

To my mind, Antonio Galloni is the greatest English-language authority on Italian wine in the U.S. today.

That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of others important writers to whom we need to listen. But the clarity and purpose of Antonio’s voice and the aequitas of his approach make him stand out among the field of the merely so-called as well as the bona fide Italian wine experts.

Above: Sommelier Francesco Grosso’s list features a lot of the usual suspects (and you don’t need to tell you who they are) but it also includes many gems for the Italian wine geeks among us, like this Blanc de Morgex et La Salle by Pavese.

Antonio was leaving the next day for Italy and the list of producers he is visiting… well, it would make you drool, too.

I cannot conceal that I was thrilled to get to meet him and to talk shop. We discussed Bartolo Mascarello, Beppe Rinaldi, Gianfranco Soldera, Angelo Gaja, and many others, and his insights are always fascinating to me (whether delivered via the Wine Advocate these days or a voce, in this case).

I followed his excellent newsletter Piedmont Report since its early days in 2004 (the original Italian wine blogger ante litteram?) and I think his knowledge and experience in Piedmont in particular are remarkable. His vintage notes are especially vital to our field.

“Every element of traditional winemaking in Barolo is present in Beppe Rinaldi,” he said making reference to the winemaker he goes back to every year and one of his favorites. This was just one of the gems that I took away with me that day. Man, I’d love to taste those wines with him.

Above: The spaghetti were excellent, although the crab and sea urchin sauce was a little too spicy.

I learned that his parents owned a wine store in Florida when he was growing up. I discovered that he’s a jazzer (studied at Berkeley) and a opera tenor (studied in Milan).

But the coolest thing was to learn that this dude, however revered and feared he is by nearly every Italian winemaker and wine publicist in the world today, is a really mellow guy who just digs Italy, Italian wine, and Italian food.

It can’t be easy to work with and for “Bob Parker” and to manage all the pressure and scrutiny that come along with the gig. But somehow Antonio seems to never have lost site of his original mission. He just loves Italian wine. (He speaks Italian with native speaker proficiency, btw.)

The power of the wine press may be excessive at times. But thank goodness that there are folks like him who somehow (miraculously, really) manage to balance the yin and the yang of it all.

Whether tasting with Gaja (yin?) or Rinaldi (yang?), Antonio put it best: “I’ll just never get tired of traveling to Italy,” he said, “and tasting wine and eating great food.”

Ubi major, minor cessat.

One last note on Giacosa Asili 07 from Antonio Galloni (and the complete wedding album online)

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From the department of “wine geekery”…

Above: I wish words could convey Bruno’s bright smile that day and the pleasure he seemed to take in tasting and talking about his wines with Franco, Tracie P, and me. Photo by my better half.

One last note that I wanted to share, for the record, culled from emails I traded yesterday with one of the wine writers I admire most and one of the greatest English-language authorities on the wines and winemakers of Piedmont, Antonio Galloni (who also happens to be an extremely nice guy).

His comments speak to Bruno’s observation that you could “smell Asili” in the 2007 Asili white label bottling (even in the light of the fact that the wine was made predominantly from grapes sourced from a parcel previously classified as Rabajà).

“Because of the freakish growing season in 2007 that you describe,” i.e., with an extremely mild winter and consequently anticipated vegetative cycle, wrote Antonio, “the 2007 Asili white label does actually reflect a lot of that vineyard’s characteristics, even if it is 80% juice from Rabajà.”

He also pointed me to this passage, lifted from his October 2009 tasting notes: “Curiously, the 2007 Asili is a very soft wine, considering it is made mostly from vines that informed such majestic Rabajas as the 2001 and 2004.”

All of us present at the tasting a week ago Sunday were impressed with how approachable the wine was. And Bruno’s observation, “you can smell Asili in this wine,” was significant, indeed, especially in the light of the unusual vintage and the reclassification of the Barbaresco cru system. Antonio noted that in the wake of the reclassification, “you will soon see a host of new, single-vineyard bottlings from places you probably never knew existed.”

Food — or grapes, as the case may be — for thought.

Thanks again to Ken for asking me to look more carefully at Bruno’s observation and thanks to Antonio for his truly invaluable insights.

In other news…

It will remain one of the great mysteries in the history of humankind: how did a schlub like me end up with a beauty like Tracie P née B?

The complete wedding album is online here. Thanks again to Jennifer and CJ for an amazing job!

And thanks to my gorgeous bride Tracie P: words could never express the happiness and joy that you have brought into my life, an endless Valentine, every night when I kiss your sweet lips good night and when they greet me in the morning. I love you so very much… What a miracle you are!

Giacosa tasting, clarifications

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Asili

Photos by Tracie P.

Wow, heartfelt thanks to everyone for all the comments and messages in the wake of the Bruno Giacosa tasting post Friday! It was an unforgettable experience.

Ken Vastola, author of an excellent “bibliography” of Giacosa’s wines, asked me to clarify a few points. So, yesterday, I called Giacosa’s enologist Giorgio Lavagna to get some answers.

Ken wrote:

    Antonio Galloni wrote in his review: “In 2007, the white label Asili is roughly 80% juice from the old ‘Rabaja’ parcel and 20% Asili from the vines Giacosa has always used for his [Barbaresco] Asili.”

    That doesn’t seem to fit with Bruno’s comment in your article about this wine “You can smell Asili in this wine.”

    You wrote “The only difference between the white and red (reserve) labels is the additional cask aging.” Does this imply (seemingly contrary to Antonio’s comment) that all the juice from the 2 parcels was blended, then separated for aging? I have to say this is the type of question that Bruno and the winery have been either coy or forgetful about over the years.

Asili

Giorgio confirmed the percentages that Antonio reported in his previously published notes on the wines. As has been widely reported, Giacosa did not bottle his 2006 (because of a hail storm that damaged the vineyards, said Giorgio yesterday [!!!]). 2006 was also the year that certain adjacent rows of Rabajà were reclassified as Asili, including the rows that Giacosa had used historically to make his Barbaresco Rabajà bottling.

The fruit for the 2007 Barbaresco Asili “white label,” said Giorgio, is sourced primarily from the parcel previously called Rabajà, roughly 80%, and roughly 20% from Asili. In the light of this information, Bruno’s comment that “you can smell Asili in this wine” is significant. It seems to suggest that he agrees with the reclassification.

The fruit sourced from the Rabajà parcel and Asili were vinified together in 2007, said Giorgio.

But he was quick to point out that the fruit for the 2007 Barbaresco Asili Riserva (“red label”), which will be released in 2012, was sourced exclusively from the top part of Asili, the sorì as the best parcel is called in the wine parlance and dialect of Langa.

Barolo

    Is Bruno really making a 2007 Rocche white label? I assumed (or read?) he would make a red label in 07. So far he has not made both a red and white label in the same vintage from Rocche. Though I guess if it’s still in barrel then red or white label is still only a guess. He can change his mind.

Giorgio confirmed that the 2007 Barolo Rocche del Falletto will be a “red label” riserva and that there will be no “white label” 2007 Barolo Rocche del Falletto (and, indeed, as Ken points out rightly, this keeps with tradition at Giacosa: when a red label Barolo Rocche del Falletto is produced, no white label is produced). The 2007 Barolo Rocche del Falletto has not been bottled yet and we tasted a barrel sample (in the unlabeled 375ml bottle above).

    You mention a Bruno Giacosa 2004 Barolo Rocche del Falletto (white label). In 2004, I’m pretty sure he made a white label Falletto and a red label Rocche, but no white label Rocche. Was this from a finished bottle with a label on it or could it be the red label? I have not seen a white label Rocche on the market, only a red label on futures.

We did taste a 2005 “white label” Barolo Rocche del Falletto in the tasting room and we drank a 2004 white label Barolo Falletto at lunch at Enoclub in Alba. In our conversation, Giorgio reiterated that in 2005 no red label Barolo Rocche was bottled as such. He said that he “nearly regretted” this and when we asked him if they had bottled the parcel as white label in response to the economic crisis, he didn’t answer. The bottom line is that 2005 Rocche del Falletto probably could have bottled as red label and that the white label bottling represents all the more value for the price point. The winery did, indeed, produce a 2004 Barolo Rocche del Falletto red label (and consequently no white label for that parcel for that vintage).

N.B.: Historically, Giacosa has made Barolo Falletto (sourced from his Falletto estate in Serralunga d’Alba) and Barolo Rocche del Falletto (sourced from the top parcels on the Falletto estate). In excellent years, Barolo Rocche del Falletto is aged longer in cask and released as “red label” riserva. In superlative years, Barolo Falletto has also been released as a “red label” riserva. 1996 was the last occurrence, according to Ken’s bibliography.

To learn more about the history of Giacosa’s labeling and bottling, be sure to check out Ken’s site.

Thanks, Ken, for such great questions and thanks, everyone, for reading!

Now, ENOUGH with this wine geekery! I promise something sappy and romantic for tomorrow… ;-)

On deck: tasting current releases of G. (Mauro) Mascarello: a man “you cannot help but love.”

Banfi 2004 Brunello, I cannot tell a lie (and other notes and posts on 04 Brunello)

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Tracie B snapped the above pic of me using my Blackberry the other night, when she came home with an open bottle of Banfi 2004 Brunello di Montalcino in her wine bag (when not otherwise occupied being knock-out gorgeous, Tracie B works as a sale representative for a behemoth mid-west and southeastern U.S. wine and spirits distributor).

The moment of truth had arrived: it was time for me to taste the wine with my dinner of Central Market rotisserie chicken, salad, and potatoes that Tracie B had roasted in her grandmother’s iron skillet.

The wine was clear and bright in the glass and had bright acidity and honest fruit flavor. The tannin, while present, was not out of balance and the wine had a slightly herbaceous note in the finish that might not please lovers of modern-style wines but that I enjoy. If ever there were a wine made with 100% Sangiovese grapes, I would say this were one — tasted covertly or overtly.

According to WineSearcher.com, the average retail price for this wine in the U.S. is $65. I can’t honestly say that I recommend the wine: it’s not a wine that I personally look for at that price point. I did not find this to be a great or original or terroir-driven wine but I will say that it is an honest expression of Sangiovese from Montalcino.

Anyone who reads my blog (or follows news from the world of Italian wine), knows that Banfi has been the subject of much controversy over the last year and a half. But fair is fair and rules are rules and I cannot conceal that I enjoyed the 04 Brunello by Banfi. (Btw, Italian Wine Guy, who is Glazer’s Italian Wine Director, recently posted on 04 Brunello, including a YouTube of Banfi media director Lars Leight speaking on the winery’s current releases at a wine dinner in Dallas.)

Above: Facing south from Il Poggione’s vineyards below Sant’Angelo in Colle, looking toward Mt. Amiata.

Despite the will of some marketers to make us think otherwise, 2004 was not an across-the-board great vintage in Montalcino. In my experience with the wines so far, only those with the best growing sites were able to make great wines in the classic style of Montalcino and wines that really taste like Montalcino.

Btw, in all fairness, it’s important to note that the Banfi vineyards lie — to my knowledge — primarily in the southwest subzone of the appellation, one of the historic growing areas for great Sangiovese. When you drive south from Sant’Angelo in Colle, you see signs for the Banfi vineyards on the right. Earlier this year, my friend Ale over at Montalcino Report posted this excellent series on understanding the terroir of Montalcino using Google Earth. It’s one of the best illustrations of why the wines from that part of the appellation are always among the best, even in difficult years. (Ale’s killer Il Poggione 04 Brunello, which I tasted for the first time at Vinitaly in April, received such glowing praise from one of the world’s greatest wine writers that it caused near pandemonium in the market, prompting wine sales guru Jon Rimmerman to write that it “may be the most offered/reacted to wine I’ve ever witnessed post-Wine Advocate review.”)

Above: Facing north in Il Poggione’s vineyards, looking at the village of Sant’Angelo in Colle (literally, Sant’Angelo “on the hill”).

Franco recently tasted 93 bottlings of 04 Brunello at the offices of The World of Fine Wine in London and wrote of his disappointment with the wines delivered by even some of the top producers. Here are Franco’s top picks and straight-from-the-hip notes, posted at VinoWire.

In other news…

One of the greatest moments of personal fulfillment in my life was when my band NN+’s debut album reached #6 in the college radio charts so I guess that stranger things have happened: a colleague in Italy emailed me last week to let me know that my blog Do Bianchi was ranked #9 in the official (?) list of “top wine blogs.” Who knew?

Thanks, everyone, for taking the time to read Do Bianchi. The blog has been such a rewarding experience for me and it means so much to me that there are people out there who enjoy it.

Fiorano 94 Malvasia and Il Postino

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The story has been told many times but was first recounted famously in English by Eric: somewhere in the 1960s and 70s, the eccentric Italian noble, Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi, prince of Venosa, developed what are still undeciphered methods of vinification and aging that allowed him to create unique, powerful, nuanced long-lived expressions of Malvasia di Candia, Sémillon, and Sauvignon Blanc. The secret at the Fiorano estate (located in the region of Latium, just north of Rome)? Mold… mold on the covering the aging casks, mold covering the bottles aging in the cellar.

I’ve had the great fortune to taste the wines many times. The first occasion was when they arrived in the U.S. in 2005. They had been rebottled and relabeled expressly for sale in the U.S. market and they commanded and continue to command a price that reaches beyond my means. But, man, they were good and they still are.

Yesterday, my friend Susana Partida, owner of Salute Wine, who brokers the wines in Texas, generously brought a bottle of the 94 Malvasia to lunch in Dallas (she and I became friends because her sister Felice cuts my hair at the James Allan Salon in Austin!).

Above: We lunched yesterday at Adelmo’s in Dallas, the see-and-be-seen wine industry hangout, where the simpatico proprietor Adelmo allows trade to bring wine. Adelmo is originally from San Vincenzo in Maremma (along the Tuscan coast) and he grew up in Florence. It’s always great to taste with him and glean wine knowledge from his many years in the business. He sent over some pâté and crostini after he tasted the Fiorano with us — his recommended pairing.

Would the prince have called these natural wines? Probably not. But are they? I believe they most certainly are. When you drink these extraordinary (and extravagant) wine, you taste the hand of an Italian aristocrat who recognized the nobility of the grape and the place, who got out of Nature’s way and let her do her work.

This was a wine, as Tracie B put it last night over our dinner of quesadillas, that “speaks of a place, of tradition. It’s real and it’s a product of its environment and of the culture, not of technology and manipulation.”

Susana generously sent me home with a half a bottle (we each had a glass with our lunch) and Tracie B and I lingered over the wine through dinner and a movie: Il postino, also from the 1994 vintage. In my more militantly Marxist university days, I might have dismissed this poignant romance as cloyingly engagé. But now that I’m a “Brunello socialist,” I can openly say that I found the movie irresistibly charming and ingenuously touching. Maybe it was because I remembered what Brunetta said about Troisi’s performance, in his History of Italian Cinema (translated by yours truly). Troisi, he wrote, gave “the world his career’s most heartbreaking hymn to life and love.” Maybe it’s because Tracie B’s generosity of heart and her wonderful spirit are rubbing off on me… The answer probably lies somewhere between a glass of 94 Malvasia and a kiss…

In other news, more mazel…

Mazel tov, Ale! His Wine Advocate scores and reviews are in and Il Poggione’s current releases are enjoying high marks from Antonio Galloni. Any one who reads Do Bianchi knows how much I love Il Poggione’s traditional-style Brunello and it’s great to see the winery get the recognition it deserves. These reviews and notes are testament to Antonio’s love of terroir-driven Italian wine. Chapeau bas, Antonio. I’ve been a fan since the days of your Piedmont Report and I love what you’ve done with the Italian notes at WA.

Another Italian wine guy, whose palate I respect immensely, Tom Hyland, also posted recently on a vertical of Il Poggione here.

Guilty pleasure: Brunello and Burritos (and mazel tov, Ale!)

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guilty pleasure

Above: Mexican food ain’t always pretty but it sure pairs well with traditional-style Sangiovese from Montalcino. The 2004 Brunello di Montalcino by Il Poggione is killer — its tannin, natural fruit flavors, and bright acidity a great match for the rich, intense flavors of cheap Mexican. Popping a top bottle like that with a pork burrito is one of my guilty pleasures.

The other night when Tracie B let me indulge in one of my guilty pleasures — Sangiovese and greasy Mexican food — I had no idea that I was drinking Antonio Galloni’s favorite bottling of 2004 Brunello di Montalcino.

I was very geeked this morning to read Antonio’s high praise for Il Poggione’s 2004 Brunello di Montalcino at Ale’s blog this morning. Not everyone made a great Brunello in 2004 (remember Franco’s editorial?) but of all the 04s I’ve tasted, Il Poggione’s has been a true stand-out.

    One wine stands out… The 2004 Brunello di Montalcino from Il Poggione is awesome. This finessed, regal Brunello flows onto the palate with seamless layers of perfumed fruit framed by silky, finessed tannins.

    —Antonio Galloni

Mazel tov, Ale! Your 2004 Brunello is killer and I’ve also been digging your series of posts on understanding Brunello terroir using Google Earth.