wine Archives - Page 26 of 34 - Wojciech BońkowskiWojciech Bońkowski

Château Belá 2004

It’s a natural instinct for a Polish wine drinker to closely follow the vinous progresses of our immediate neighbours, Saxony, Bohemia, Slovakia, the Ukraine, as well as our pre-1939 neighbours such as Romania and pre-1772 ones including Hungary and Moldavia. Of all these countries, Slovakia has been delivering the sorest disappointments. Despite the obvious availability of good terroirs progress has been very slow. Shopping randomly in a wine shop in Bratislava or leading wine town Modra, you’re guaranteed to bump into a record-high amount of faulty and unexciting bottles.

How much Slovakia is missing in terms of quality has been consistently demonstrated since 2001 by Egon Müller, Germany’s – and for some, the world’s – leading Riesling vintner. Through family affairs Müller has taken over some 20 hectares in the south of the country, on the Danube and the Hungarian border (Štúrovo is the nearby city and wine appellation). The estate of Château Belá has been delivering a lovely off-dry Riesling, or Rizling Rýnsky as it’s called locally, with plenty of minerality and personality.

The 2004 vintage I’m tasting today belongs to the sweeter wines produced here (2005 and 2007 are nearly dry). Its structure, in fact, is very peculiar: it has plenty of sugar on the level of a German Auslese or Alsatian vendange tardive but double the amount of acidity of those styles. The result is a fabulously bold, searing style of wine that’s difficult to classify. The aromatic spectrum is very varietal – stone fruit, citrus and honey – with plenty of minerality wrapped around the acidic backbone. And with this acidity, it’s hardly surprising this wine is ageing so well. This 2004 vintage is already showing quite a mature bouquet of wax, dried herbs, cool cellar (the elusive German Firne aroma) but on the palate there is huge lemony freshness. It’s really an explosively expressive wine – technically far from perfect balanced and challenging to some palates but in the era of bland international-styled wines, the personality of this Riesling is a rare gem. Slovakia can produce brilliant wine – and hopefully it will follow on Belá’s trail.

Black diamonds

Black turnip – a great ancient vegetable. And the wines that go with it.

Apenninic wine

Rúfina is a town east of Florence that produces, on just 750 ha of vineyards, a red wine from the Sangiovese grape that is labelled Chianti Rúfina. Like many Italian appellations it invites journalists to come and taste through the new vintages and so I’m in Florence to report for you on the 2007, 2008 and other trivia.

Rúfina is a zone with many assets. It is well located on the Western slopes of the Apennines, rather high by Tuscan standards (some vineyards up the 650m mark) on very good dolomitic soils. On paper, in a good sunny vintage with a prolonged autumn (Sangiovese’s favourite conditions) it should produce an exciting medium-bodied red wine with good structure, minerality and considerable ageing potential.

Yet it rarely does. The level of bad wines here – oxidised, reduced, vinegarish, dirty – is the same as everywhere else but there’s a surprisingly high proportion of average stuff: not downright bad but just devoid of any character. Or perhaps it’s not so surprising after all when you look at the figures: on 750 ha of vines there are just 23 bottlers operating (the similarly sized DOCG Barbaresco in Piedmont has 10 times that). Rúfina is dominated by large industrial players and there isn’t enough competition between the small estates to guarantee a steady increase in quality. Viticulture in many places is still primitive.

Rúfina has two world-known names: Frescobaldi and Selvapiana. The former are producing – besides an ocean of every conceivable Tuscan wine from Chianti to Ornellaia – two definitely engaging Rúfina bottlings, Nipozzano and Montesodi, which however are so much Bordeaux-styled that in a comparative tasting, anyone would pick them out of a bunch of Rúfina Sangioveses. The 1985 and 2007 Montesodis I’ve tasted over the last two days are very serious wines with considerable concentration and a fine design to the tannins but the blueberry register is so un-Tuscan. Selvapiana, on the other hand, remains a benchmark for its 1960s and 1970s Riservas – last year I’ve had a superlative tasting of the 1965, 1970, 1979 and 1982 that were second to no other Tuscan wine – but it seems to have changed its course considerably over the last years. In 2006 and 2007 the flagship bottling, Bucerchiale, is tasting puzzlingly modern and international with big extract and lavish oak notes; the finely poised structure of Rúfina is there but it remains to be seen whether it can rise to proficiency again from underneath the oak. Given Selvapiana’s track record I trust it will. The 2004 Bucerchiale is very good indeed, too.

On the side of uncompromised tradition there is really a single name: Cológnole, belonging to the same family that used to own the well-known Chianti brand of Spalletti. From an impressive estate of 700 ha in the highest crus of the appellation come structured, ungiving, mineral, majestic wines that need a long time in bottle, though the 2007 Riserva del Don is approachable now and, by a margin, my best Rúfina of this very good vintage.

There are some other dynamic estates including the modern-oriented Lavacchio and Castello del Trebbio, whose owner Stefano Casadei is doing some impressive work in the vineyards and whose Riserva Lastricato has been consistently good in 2006 and 2007, with fair weight, balanced oak and very good potential. I’ve also been happy with Fattoria di Grignano that is a bit more traditional-oriented, especially with its basic Chianti Rúfina that’s perhaps the most consistent of the bunch.

From the other 16 estates that I’ve tasted this year and last, the impressions are mixed but 2008 Chianti Rúfina from Frascole, Il Pozzo, Il Lago and Dreolino are recommended, as well as the 2007 Riservas from Travignoli, Fratelli Bellini and Il Capitano. These estates are still rather inconsistent in quality but they remain a good source of reasonably terroir-driven, continental-profiled, structured, mineral, ageworthy wine. In your diet of Chianti Classico, do make room for Rúfina from time to time. It’s well worth a detour.

The wines of St. Andrea

Hungary is an exciting wine country with great potential for all sorts of wine but it’s been a little slow in improving its red wines. While the days of overcropped oxidised ancient régime reds are gone, Hungarian vintners have contracted another disease: overextracted, overoaked international-style wines that show little in terms of terroir expression or even regional definition. (See here for an earlier discussion of this).

It’s also been the case of Eger, arguably the country’s most promising red region, where the volcanic tuff soils can yield wines that are both minerally structured and alluringly elegant. Yet the fashion has been to plant Merlot and Syrah and reach for 15% alcohol with a creamy, vanillish, soft-tannic, Chilean-lookalike mouthfeel. The recent scandal with Béla Vincze adding glycerol to entertain this style is quite telling.

Owner and winemaker György Lőrincz (photo taken June 2005).

Although of recent extraction (the first vintage here was 1999), the St. Andrea estate in Egerszalok near Eger city has quickly risen to fame – largely because it’s been able to detach itself from the above-mentioned nouveau riche tendency. Throughout the rather extensive range here the keywords have been balance, finesse, freshness and terroir character.

It was exciting, therefore, to have a look at the new releases here. Take the inexpensive 2008 Rosé: usually in Hungary it’s a way of doing away with surplus grapes rather than building a wine with full identity and justifiability. St. Andrea’s pink is ambitious and uncompromised: based on Pinot Noir it even sees a brief passage in oak. The result is a bone-dry, structured, minerally tense, ageworthy effort that however remains a real rosé, not an underextracted red. The 2007 Pinot Noir is also successful. Hungary has been looking for its own style of Pinot, combing the vegetal and earthy overtone of German Spätburgunder with a more generous Mediterranean fruitiness and, rarely, real Burgundian minerality and finesse. Here the first element dominated (a saline, almost cornichoney backbone) but there’s also quite a bit of Pinot Noir’s elusive poise and crystalline fruit.

Although not my style, I have positive feelings about the two oaked whites here: the entry-level 2008 Napbor (Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc) and the single-vineyard but reasonably priced 2007 Ferenchegy Chardonnay show good (if low-acid) fruit and balanced oak of a quality that’s still rarely encountered in Hungary (where many wines are marred by poorly seasoned and manufactured local oak barrels).

Two big reds to finish; both labelled as Egri Bikavérs (Bull’s Blood: read more about it here) although the 2007 Hangács is based on Merlot with lesser amounts of Cabernet Franc and the local Kékfrankos (a.k.a. Blaufränkisch) while the 2006 Merengő has 50% Kékfrankos and 20% Syrah. The former is a dense, earthy wine with finely integrated oak and a reassuringly continental, authentic style: it nods not to Chile but to northern Italy if anything. The fruit is perfectly ripe with no vegetal deviations but the alcohol remains a reasonable 13.5% and there is good freshness. This wine be had for 10€ retail in Hungary and if you ask me, is a seriously good bargain.

The 2006 Bikavér Superior Merengő retains broadly the same style but packs in quite a bit more concentration, and fruit is riper, taking on an almost Tuscan air. Despite its unarguable weight the wine is finely balanced, and 14% alc. must be seen as admirable self-restraint among modern Hungarian ‘icon wines’ (the equally famous Ferenc Takler’s 2006 Bartina Cuvée, tasted alongside, is 15% and more than a bit port-like in profile).

First produced in 2003, Merengő is a serious contender for the title of Hungary’s best red wine. Two years in a row when I judged at the Pannon Bormustra competition, it came an obvious 1st among 30-odd Bikavérs. This new 2006 is really a non plus ultra.

Niepoort Vintage Port 1987

Looks like the same wine:

And it is. But tasted three years apart, it
couldn’t show more differently.

Wine is strange. I had two bottles of this 1987
in October 2006 and January 2007 (see review in Polish here, and pictures here), and thoroughly loved it. 1987 as a vintage doesn’t
enjoy a spectacular reputation for vintage port, and many producers did not ‘declare’
their flagship wine, released single-quinta wines instead (notably the
Symington estates, Fonseca and Taylor; the latter’s Quinta das Vargellas has
consistently shone in recent years). Niepoort didn’t hold back and I’m glad
they didn’t. Three years ago this wine was showing in absolutely top shape with
little agedness to it, citrusy freshness, stupendous balance and an absolutely
delightful ‘vinousness’ to it: it was tasting like a serious, brooding dry
Portuguese red with a few years of age, less sweet and liqueury than most ports
(a style I sometimes refer to as ‘Burgundian’ port). I really loved that
character and I loved the quality.

I tasted this again from two bottles for the WINO Magazine awards. No aroma, no
flavour. High alcohol and a muddy, pilly kind of sweetness. An unattractive
herby bitterish dryness on palate; medicinal. Not that it has evolved since
2006/7: in fact it was showing just as youthful. It was just flat and
inexpressive. But clean and longish on the palate, so the theory of a
low-threshold TCA taint is rather to be rejected. It was not bottle variation,
and not a ‘root day’ (I drank up the remainder of the bottle over three days:
no improvement, in fact rather deterioration).

Wine tasting is slippery territory. There are lots
of variables, and impressions are fairly volatile. One minute it’s
raspberries over citrus in your Beaujolais, and the next minute it’s
strawberries with lower acidity. I challenge anyone to produce exactly the same
tasting note from the first and last glass of any given bottle. When you think
you’ve finally grasped it, summarising your impressions in a satisfying synthetic
description, the next bottle will be vastly divergent. After my 2006/7 tasting
of this 1987 Niepoort I spent quite a few €€€ on three bottles of this wine.
Now I’m nonplussed. Should I open one to see if it’s the same disappointing
wine of a week ago? Or save them in hope the wine will reemerge from its dumb
phase?

In Praise of Water

I opened this bottle at a recent WINO Magazine panel tasting. It’s from the Adriatic region of the Marche in eastern Italy, made from a typical local grape called Verdicchio. Sartarelli is one of the very best producers there. Although Verdicchio has been increasingly catching the public’s attention of late, with its mineral expression of terroir and versatility with food, it remains a somewhat rustic white wine, and the appellation still has some way to go towards consistent quality and personality.

This Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico 2008 weighs in at 12.5% and is delightful from the very first aroma that reaches the nose. It’s quite unfruity but has a wide mineralic panorama that’s really a delight to watch unfolding. A democratic mix of saline, peppery and crystalline notes, it vaguely reminds me of the granite-grown Muscadet wines of the Loire. I’ve long not encountered a more purely and directly mineral aroma in a wine – even in the recent bunch of Rieslings reviewed here.

On the palate, the impressions are equally positive. There is a light to medium body with fine balance and a hint of appley flavour, again offset by a distinctive, salty, mildly alkaline minerality. It’s a clean, consistent and engaging wine. It’s really very, very good but…

It’s obviously diluted. Thin. Watery. The flavour is rather light, and the finish is non-existing as the mild mineral flavour is washed away with dilution. This is initially quite puzzling. With a wine of such high quality of both grapes and vinification, it’s rare to see such a drastic lack of concentration. It tastes a little as if you added a part of water to four parts of wine in your glass.

The back label largely clarifies the mystery. The producer declares a yield of 120q (12 tonnes) per hectare, with a planting density of 2300 vines / ha. This translates into around 5kg of grapes per vine. That’s a lot! Fine wine is usually made with 1–1.5kg / vine, while a commercial white can climb to 2.5–3kg but I’ve never heard a vintner confessing 5kg. (Incidentally when I visited Sartarelli in 2001 the owner, amiable Mr Chiacchiarini declared they used a maximum of 80q/ha, as opposed to the outrageous appellation cap of 140q).

This wine had me reflecting on my (and our) attitude toward wine. Our perception is directly derived from our expectations. We have a range of pre-set criteria to assess the quality of a wine. For the unseasoned drinker, it might be soft tannins and intense sweet fruit (and so they pick a New World Merlot or Shiraz). Wine aficionados usually have a wide array of personal preferences that might go from strongly mineral Rieslings to lavishly perfumed Viogniers and iron-cast Tannats. However, we universally expect a wine to be concentrated. Dilution is almost always a vice (there are few exceptions: Portuguese vinho verde, French Muscadet, bottom-range German QbA Riesling might be forgiven for being ‘light’). We don’t so much like water in our wine. Even a Soave or a Beaujolais are expected to show, if not high concentration, at last ‘consistency’.

But there’s another side to the coin. Overconcentration is a serious problem in many wines around the world. Not least in the New World where climatic conditions contribute to increasingly thick wines. Palate density and lushness of texture work against what should be one of wine’s major assets (in my opinion): a sense of refreshment. I rarely, if ever, want to feed on a wine.

Thinking why Sartarelli would have decided to allow such a high yield for their Verdicchio, there’s one obvious explanation. Verdicchio might not be the most exacerbated example but it’s a grape that can reach quite some concentration of sugars. In some later harvested examples I tasted the alcohol exceeded 14.5 or even 15% (see Coroncino, for example, or the top bottling from Santa Barbara). We all complain about rising alcohol levels in wine. Among the proposed solutions are reverse osmosis or spinning cone column techniques to remove the alcohol from the solution (invasive and with an impact on flavour), harvesting earlier (for some, raising issues of ‘phenolically unripe’ flavours) or mixing a normal and earlier harvest (as above). It’s no secret many wineries in the New World and even some in Europe (where it’s strictly illegal) simply add water.

It’s easily forgotten that the least invasive and controversial way of bringing sugars (and consequently alcohol) down is to increase the yield. Less concentration in the grapes means you can easily bring the figure down by 1 or 1.5%. This Sartarelli Verdicchio has 12.5%. Sealed with a plastic cork, it’s meant to be drunk within a year or two (for something more ageworthy the same winery makes a single-vineyard Tralivio and an off-dry Balciana). And I really don’t so much mind a bit of water in my glass. At the price of a pizza (8€) this wine is a perfect solution, if you can forget your prejudice against dilution.

The good, the bad and the sulphury

I have been drinking through a series of ambitious Rieslings recently, and it’s interesting what a mixed bunch they’ve been. Riesling is the wine lover’s puppy, having a unique ability to convey a sense of place and a natural tension between fruit, minerality, acidity and sugar. But it’s also a fairly demanding and capricious grape: the margin of error is smaller than when making Chardonnay or Syrah. Leave a bit too much sugar and your acidity will not balance the whole; pick the grapes a bit late for dry wine and alcohol will soar: while 13.5% in a Sauvignon Blanc is no big deal, it often spoils a good Riesling. Riesling is also one of the grapes, in my experience, with the highest incidence of corked bottles (the proportion of TCA taint is the same with other wines but it’s a lot easier to perceive in a filigree Riesling). And it’s extremely sensitive to tasting conditions.

I was reminded of this adage when I opened two bottles of Heymann-Löwenstein’s within a few days. The Schieferterrassen Riesling 2004 is Löwenstein’s entry-level bottling but proved extremely satisfying, with wonderful minerality, crystalline fruit and a great sense of balance. The Röttgen Erste Lage Riesling 2005 is a prestigious grand cru bottling that should show superior to the Schieferterrassen but didn’t. Sure, there was the same mineral signature of Löwenstein’s (ripe minerality reminiscent of warm sea: imagine a juxtaposition of Chablis and Santorini) but the wine seemed flat and overly sugary, with little fruit expression. It was purely a matter of momentary perception: on a cloudy, rainy day that was a ‘root day’ in the biodynamic calendar (the worst type of day to taste wines; look for flower days and fruit days for the best results) the wine just tasted opaque and fruitless.

The Egon Müller / Le Gallais Wiltinger Braune Kupp Riesling Spätlese 2002 and Joh. Jos. Prüm Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Auslese 1996 tasted alongside shared the same fate. They’ve now eaten their sulphur (of which the Prüm surely contained heroic amounts) and are showing some nice minerality but were neither very rich or expressive and for such prestigious bottlings, simple and underwhelming.

A few days later on a ‘flower day’, a bottle with far more modest pedigree just shone. The Winninger Uhlen Riesling Spätlese trocken 2006 from Reinhard & Beate Knebel in the lower Moselle was all a dry slate-grown Riesling should be: powerfully expressive, substantial, mineral and tense. It’s a fairly boisterous style with some botrytis grapes used for this wine, a deep orange colour, plenty of spice on nose and a broad, rich palate. Much an Auslese trocken in style, it’s a little unbalanced and perhaps controversial on less luckily bio-influenced day, but today it just tasted right.

Deep-coloured Riesling.

Hímesudvar Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos 1993

As I mentioned in my earlier post on puer tea, autumn is the time to pop the cork off some sweet botrytised wines. The chilly, misty mornings and low afternoon sun we’re currently experiencing in Central Europe are a clear reminder of the conditions in which the world’s greatest sweet wines are made. Morning humidity combined with sunny, warm daytime weather allow the development of so-called noble rot. Botrytis cinerea is a microscopic fungus that if proper conditions are maintained over several weeks, will gradually dry the grapes to raisins, concentrating sugar, acidity and flavour.

Botrytis wines are made throughout the world but three European regions are responsible for the best examples: Bordeaux’s Sauternes, Northern Germany (the Rhine and Moselle where wines are made from the Riesling grape) and the Hungarian region of Tokaj. (Some might want to add the Loire Valley, Alsace, and the Austrian Neusiedl Lake to this list).

I’ve already given an introduction to Tokaj here. For the first bottle of this new wine season, I was tempted to open some of the best stuff from my cellar such as István Szepsy or Királyudvar but went for this modest wine instead. The Hímesudvar Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos 1993 comes from a small estate run by the Várhegyi family that is better known for its delightful wine shop and tavern located in the centre of Tokaj town. Over the last years their wines have been somewhat erratic with volatile acidity and unclean flavours especially in the dry and semi-dry Furmint, but this sweet Aszú comes from a legendary vintage that many still consider the best of the modern Tokaj era. (1999, 2000, 2002 and 2006 are serious challengers). It’s a bit like 1982 in Bordeaux, or 1990 in Tuscany – everybody made great wine and drinking these bottles today, provided the price is reasonable, is a consistent delight.

Purchased in 2001 for something like 20€, this wine is wonderfully preserved and showing the sheer class of that unrepeatable vintage. A slowly maturing amber colour with hints of red. Classic Tokaj nose, very mineral, not so sweet, though with a brown sugar edge of botrytis; also mixed spices, poppy seed (a common aroma with aged Tokaj) and quince. Lots of allure and depth here; a very good surprise. Medium sweet on palate with that wonderful balance of aged Tokaj (especially in the 5 puttonyos category), almost dry on the finish. Broad without really being very opulent, this is rather restrained and classic but with plenty of intensity, complexity and interest. Acidity is not so high perceptively (until recently, many 1993s were quite sharp); there’s minor bitterness on end but no VA. A brilliant wine and a fitting start to the autumn.

Tokaj town, not far from the Hímesudvar winery.

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Those who followed the blind tea tasting exercise in the previous post can now see the teas’ identity revealed at the bottom of post here.

The wines of Tenute Folonari

The Polish wine magazine WINO where I’m one of the editors recently published a special edition on Chianti, summarising a four-day visit in situ (read about it here) and a number of tastings both in Italy and Poland. Soon afterwards I was contacted by fellow Italian writer Stefania Vinciguerra, now also Export & PR Manager for Tenute Ambrogio e Giovanni Folonari, who offered to send some wines for review to complete the latter series of articles. Who am I to turn down an offer to taste some good Sangiovese?

Ambrogio Folonari was manager for the large wine company of Ruffino where among others, he contributed to the creation of Cabreo, one of the early ‘supertuscans’. In 2000 he left Ruffino to create his own group of estates in several subregions of Tuscany. Here I look at four of these.

Toscana Cabreo Il Borgo 2006

This is a classic Tuscan label with a long record of enthusiastic reception since the mid-1980s, historically one of the early Sangiovese/Cabernet Sauvignon blends aged in small French oak. In 2000 the 46-hectare Cabreo estate in Greve remained with the Folonari family when they left Ruffino, and the bottling’s style was continued. While there’s no doubt this Franco-Italian Concorde can produce outstanding results (Querciabella’s Camartina is perhaps the top example), in recent years the concept has lost much of its appeal as its stylistic limitations became obvious. The best wines of Tuscany are Sangiovese wines that manage to combine perfume, elegance, minerality, freshness and longevity into a package full of allure. Ageing in much new oak and, especially, adding Cabernet Sauvignon with its imposing tannic presence and heavier texture inevitably compromises elegance and freshness. Increased structure and longevity is not, in my opinion and that of many Italian writers, worth the sacrifice. Sangiovese is a capricious and delicate grape and even 10% Cabernet can seriously inhibit the Tuscan grape’s personality.

This lengthy introduction is to explain my prejudice and, generally, the limited interest I have in such blends. That being said, Cabreo Il Borgo 2006 is obviously a good wine. Not such a very dark colour for 30% Cab, it is sweeter and pushier in style than the other wines here, with notes of blueberries and blackberries, but not over the top and in fact attractively perfumed with a flowery allure after airing. Quality of fruit is very good indeed and on a purely sensual level the blend works well, though it’s hardly very deep at this stage and suffers a bit from lower acidity. It’s in the mid-palate texture and on the mildly overextracted, rigidly tannic finish that the 18-month small oak regime (30% new barrels) is showing somewhat contradictory with the natural expression of Sangiovese. Yet this develops well with air and with the track record it has, I’m confident it’ll drink better in two or three years: it retains a certain evening-dress elegance of Sangiovese to be worth your (and my) while.

Tenuta di Nozzole Chianti Classico 2006

2006 is a ripe, round, wonderfully fruity vintage that I’ve greatly enjoyed in the Chianti normale (non-riserva) bottlings. This wine is consistent with the excellent vintage, and is honestly traditional in style. Showing a transparent medium ruby colour that’s typical of Sangiovese, the first impressions are good. Ripeness is fine and there’s already a mere hint of maturity (stewed plums; macerated cherries). Although this is only aged in traditional Tuscan large 3000-liter casks (botti) there’s a bit of roasted coffee in the background. A medium-bodied wine showing the ripeness and warmth of the vintage on palate. Flavours centering on Sangiovese red fruit. Good length, firm finish with some natural grapey tannins and freshness. By all means this is a serious wine, well-made and balanced if perhaps not so adventurous.

Fattoria di Gracciano Svetoni
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Torcalvano 2001

It’s natural for a Tuscan collection of wine estates to include on in Montepulciano too, but the Fattoria di Gracciano Svetoni has been mildly underperfoming over the last few years compared to Nozzole or La Fuga. The style is similarly traditional: the Vino Nobile and the Riserva are both based on 100% Sangiovese (locally: Prugnolo Gentile) and aged in large oak. This 2001 is a good surprise. Clearly evolved and slowly maturing now, the nose shows reasonable complexity with an autumnal bouquet of dry leaves, mixed spices (anise?) and meat, plus an initial whiff of classic ageing Sangiovese almondiness. On the palate this is really rather classic in style, again mildly meaty, unfruity, herby and almondy. Acidity is subdued but balances the whole. All in all this is rather light in body now and showing a certain limitation of this bottling but I like the unforced, classic profile. This is à point now or even a year or two past prime, so drink up.

Tenuta La Fuga
Brunello di Montalcino 2001

La Fuga is located in the warmer parts of the Brunello DOCG, south-west of the town itself with a strong Mediterranean climatic influence. Unlike many of its neighbours in this sub-zone, however, the style of La Fuga has consistently been one of balance, integration and elegance rather than sheer power and record ripeness, and in recent vintages I have repeatedly placed their wine among my top 15 or 20 Brunellos. The basic Brunello sees 3 years of large oak and though tasted in the same vintage as the above Nobile, is considerably more youthful and tight, showing the ripeness advantage of Montalcino in a similarly restrained, ‘reformed traditional’ style. Ripe cherries and berries with a hint of aged Brunello herby tautness, ripe balanced tannins in a wine of good mouthfeel and structure. Can continue to age for another 5 years perhaps. This is really very convincing. With airing the restraint gives way to a bit more meaty, almost marmitey power. Really an excellent wine, and excellent value too at the 30–35€ it retails for in Italy.

Brunello di Montalcino Riserva Le Due Sorelle 2001

I don’t often get to taste this Riserva which sees no less than 5 years in cask. It’s the least obvious wine on this tasting. Initially, despite the denser and less evolved (though still transparent) colour than the Brunello normale above, I found it a little light and simple, if fruit-focused with some nice volume and weight. There was also a certain weakness from mid-palate on and a mildly diluted finish bringing no expected climax. Then with airing there’s substantial improvement with the whole gaining a proper riserva dimension while keeping a good traditional Sangiovese elegance here. It’s obviously a little (old-)woody and in a very classic Brunello style, with no aromatic fireworks. At 50–55€ it’s not so much competitive against the normale here but likely to improve with further ageing.

It has been a happy tasting. In the universe of Tuscan wine Folonari is a biggish brand, though one with a qualitative image, focusing as it does on single estates and ‘premium’ wines. What I found most comforting here was the unashamedly traditional style of the Chianti, Nobile and Brunellos. Respect for tradition, quality and fair pricing sound like a happy combination.

On the Etna (3)

Salvo Foti.

My last day on the Etna was a vineyard tour guided by Salvo Foti, a leading local viticulturalist and winemaker. Foti is consulting for some large wineries such as Benanti but is today dedicating himself chiefly to the I Vigneri project. Named after a ‘vintners’ guild’ founded in 1435, it’s an association of small estates from the Etna and some other zones in Sicily that are all cultivating bush vine (alberello) vineyards under the guidance of Foti.

We had a look at some of these vineyards in two of Etna’s distinctive vine-growing district: the eastern and northern slope. The former has a mild, maritime, fairly humid climate (precipitation is 1500–2000 mm annually, which is quite a bit), resulting in red wines that are a little lighter and fruitier; this is also the source for most of Etna’s distinctive, mineral, salt-scented white wine (mostly based on the local Carricante grape). We saw a vineyard of Mick Hucknall’s Il Cantante estate. Bush vines are planted very densely (10K vines / ha), trained on a single pole; most are terraced (few vineyards on the Etna are planted directly on slopes). Eastern Etna is a very green landscape, and if ‘biodiversity’ sounds nice to you, you’ll find plenty here: vines alternate with olive, citrus, peach, fig, hazelnut and almond trees, and lots of chestnuts (we saw a 1700-year-old example).

Palmento: step in to foot-tread the grapes here.

Il Cantante also have a nicely restored palmento, the typical winemaking structure of the 19th century when Etna was producing no less than 100m liters of wine (most of that period’s Barolo and Brunello was in fact blended with wines from the South, Etna included). Palmento is a ground floor vinification building with stone basins for foot treading, similar to the lagares of Portugal. By gravity, foot-trodden musts would pour into fermentation basins on the lower floor. Palmenti often have no cellar: the wine being shipped in the spring season following the harvest, there was never need to keep any in cask or bottle.

La Fruttiera vineyard in northern Etna, surrounded by lava outcrops.

It’s roughly a 45-minute drive on a scenic road, perched at 800m of altitude, to reach to northern slope of the Etna, where most vineyards are now concentrated in the towns of Castiglione, Linguaglossa and Randazzo. It’s quite a dramatic change in climate. Sheltered from Mediterranean influences by the Nebrodi mountain range to the north, these vineyards only see some 600mm of rain per year, and the temperature differences between day and night can reach 30C. The grape maturation period is extended, and with vineyards at 800–1100m above sea level, the harvest often takes place in late November – the latest of any Mediterranean region. Here, red wines reign supreme, with the Nerello Mascalese grape reaching qualitative heights. The wines have high acidity and fierce tannins and are apt for long ageing. Vineyards are also much older: we saw a 1-hectare parcel of 130-year-old vines, partly ungrafted: phylloxera cannot survive on the very active volcanic ash sand.

The landscape of northern Etna is very different from the flamboyant vegetation of the east. There are huge lavic outcrops everywhere, and most of the land is covered by scrub and cacti. We saw a spectacular vineyard east of Randazzo named La Fruttiera (belonging to the Tenute Romeo del Castello on which I reported yesterday) which was menaced by an Etna eruption in 1981. In the end, the lava deviated just meters from the vines, and can now be seen in the shape of a 3-meter-high wall of black stone. Scary.

The wines of Salvo Foti all share a distinctive style. They are fairly punchy with abrasive, somewhat overextracted tannins, which I felt were not supported by sufficient fruit. The yields of some bush vines we saw were surely looking excessive (typically a dozen bunches per vine, totalling an estimate of 3–3.5kg of grapes) but Foti said the vines are sturdy and can manage that. On the positive side, the wines show little or no oak and have the obvious mineral personality you expect from an Etna red. We tasted a red called Aitna from the Edomè estate: the 2005 is suffering from a bit of brett but is showing opulent fruit too; the 2006 is better, more floral on the nose, tannic and a little simple but characterful. Salvo Foti’s own label is called I Vigneri: the Etna Rosso 2005 is tonic, juicy and driven with not masses of body, the 2006 again a bit more convincing but the tannins are fiercely drying; this will need 3 or 4 years in the bottle. Then there are two special bottlings: Vinudilice 2008 is a curious rosé made from co-pressed red and white grapes from the 130-year-old vineyard at 1300m above sea level. Unsulphured with high malic acid and some 10g residual sugar, it’s wild stuff, with a touch of vegetal, foxy character to the nose and a rustic, mineral palate that I found a little raw – but many of my journo colleagues seemed to like it quite a bit. Vinupetra is Foti’s top label in red. Clearly the best wine we tasted on the day, the 2005 is floral and cherryish with some fruit sweetness on the nose, coupled with Etna’s distinctive spice. Lots of presence on the palate, still a little overtannic and rigid as per the Foti style but shows good natural concentration and expression of fruit. The 2006 is similar with perhaps a bit more harmony. Vinupetra is a good example of a mineral, unoaky Etna red with lots of potential.