The Talking Cricket
Forget flabby, low-acid, jammy, oxidative wine from Sicily. Here’s something really fresh and elegant. Plus a nice 19th-century drawing.
Forget flabby, low-acid, jammy, oxidative wine from Sicily. Here’s something really fresh and elegant. Plus a nice 19th-century drawing.
I’ve got a great idea for Brunello di Montalcino producers to ease themselves out of the sales crunch. Make rosé. Not only because it’s fashionable, but because Montalcino pinks can be seriously good.
Montalcino – formerly one of Italy’s most prestigious wine locations – has become an evil place with plenty of bad energy and hidden agendas. No wonder many wines taste completely charmless, including from the newly released 2006 vintages. Expectations were high but many wines are disappointing. Click to find out which aren’t.
Is Chianti becoming Italy’s Roussillon? Sounds absurd but a string of recent hot vintages such as 2007 is driving alcohol levels higher than ever. I don’t enjoy Chianti at 15%. Luckily there’s an amount of very good – and refreshing – 2008s too. Click to find out the best ones out of 80 tasted.
In the last article of my series on Croatia, my best hits out of 200 tasted at the Zagreb Vino wine salon: Plavac and Babić from Dalmatia and a stunning skin-contact Malvazija from Istria.
Four vintages of one of Tokaj’s very best dry wines: Dobogó Furmint.
I’ve long wanted to taste a wine from this estate, but somehow it has always eluded me. Finally I got hold of a bottle. Expectations were high. It’s an excellent wine but I don’t like it.
Knoll Ried Loibenberg Grüner Veltliner Smaragd 2002: the heights of traditional winemaking in Wachau. Drinking superbly now – still lots of power left. And far better balance than many more recent superalcoholic Loibenberg Veltliners.
My next stop in Croatia: Plešivica, a cool inland hilly zone close to Zagreb, the Croatian capital. Very individual wines including one from amphora!