Tag Archives: Bea

Sagrantino: Italian grape name and appellation pronunciation project

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Today’s episode of the Italian Grape Name and Appellation Pronunciation Project is devoted to Sagrantino, a grape grown in Umbria where it is used to make the eponymous Sagrantino di Montefalco. I asked one of the appellation’s leading producers, Giampiero Bea, to contribute a video to the series and he did so with his signature showmanship.

giampiero bea

It seemed appropriate to feature Sagrantino this week in the wake of my post on Giampiero’s 1998 Sagrantino, 98 Paolo Bea Sagrantino: Holy Shit!, which received a lot of comments here and over on the Facebook. The playful title was partly a play on the name of this grape, Sagrantino, most likely from the Latin sacrum, something holy or sacred (the ampelonym is probably owed to the fact that Sagrantino was used in Umbria as sacramental wine).

Yesterday, I called Giampiero who told me that he believes the 1998 to be one of his greatest vintages. “It was part of a string of excellent vintages,” the remarkable and now legendary harvests that ran consecutively from 1995 to 2001 in Italy. “Many thought 97 was going to be the greatest vintage of these,” said Giampiero, “but ultimately 98 turned out to be the better vintage: it wasn’t too hot or too cold, there was ample rainfall but it wasn’t too humid nor too dry.” In other words, it was the classically balanced vintage that renders unto Italy wines that resonate with the people who make them, id est, Italians. (As many of you know all too well, a handful of American wine writers championed the warmer 97 vintage as one of the best of the century, a harvest that has been come to be called, with no lack of irony, the great “American vintage” in Italy.)

The inimitable Ken V noted in the comment thread that “The 98 is an unusual vintage for this wine. It has drunk well since release.”

When I asked Giampiero about this observation, he told me, “you’ll see a lot of variation from vintage to vintage in our wines because we let Nature — not our work in the cellar — determine what the wine will be. If we get it wrong, it’s because we didn’t do a good job of interpreting Nature.”

I’m here to tell you that the 1998 Sagrantino by Paolo Bea is one of those grand occasions when humankind and Nature sang and continue to sing in perfect harmony.

Why I love Italian wine in flyover country (my Palate Press post)

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Above: I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Gaia Gaja, Angelo Gaja’s daughter, was super fun to hang out with. I interviewed her over Chicago redhots for my PalatePress piece on my encounters with 3 iconic Italian winemakers in “second-tier” American cities.

Alfonso likes to call it “flyover” country: that glorious swath of land, that sweep of the scythe, those amber waves of grain that span from Chicago to the Rio Grande, the Middle West, Mittelamerika, the Third Coast, the Second Cities. In other words, the America that the Left and Right banks often ignore when it comes to the purveyance of fine wine and dining.

I’ll concede that I probably drank more old wine, thanks to the generosity of collectors, when I lived in cities like New York and Los Angeles. But, honestly, my food and wine life has only become more stimulating and rewarding since I moved to Austin, Texas. (Well, everything has become more stimulating and rewarding since Tracie P née B came into my life.)

Above, at dinner in Austin, from left clockwise: Tracie P, Dave Meyer (Banfi, Texas), Mark Sayre (my super good buddy and wine director Trio, Austin), Wes Marshall (The Austin Chronicle) and wife Emily, Lars Leicht (Banfi, whom I’ve known forever), and Rudy Buratti (winemaker, Banfi).

When I realized that I would be having dinner and tasting with 3 iconic Italian winemakers in 3 different “flyover” cities, over the course of just 5 days, I thought it would make a good piece for PalatePress (and thankfully so did the editors!).

Gaia Gaja of Gaja in Chicago, Rudy Buratti of Banfi (and newly elected member of the Brunello producers association 15-person advisory council) in Austin, and Giampiero Bea of Paolo Bea in Houston.

Above: Another pleasant surprise was the 1999 Banfi Brunello (top vineyard) Poggio all’Oro, a wine I would not typically reach for (nor could afford). It was honest and delicious and it tasted like Montalcino. Great wine.

The fact is that top Italian winemakers are traveling more frequently to markets they’ve neglected in the past. I recently found out that Giorgio Rivetti (producer of the infamously created-just-for-the-American-market, jammy, syrupy, ridiculously concentrated Spinetta wines) visited Austin last month. “It’s not often enough that a true gentlemen like Giorgio spends time in Texas,” wrote one wine blogger/merchant.

This is certainly one of the reasons I’ve been lucky enough to have some interesting wine encounters lately.

But then again, as the jingle for the ol’ So Cal franchise Love’s Wood Pit BBQ used to go, when you’re in Love’s, the whole world’s delicious.

Special thanks to Palate Press editor Meg Houston Maker for believing in the piece and eagle-eye editor Becky Sue Epstein for whipping my piece into shape! :-)