If you are in Florence this weekend there is a wine tasting event centered around the Piazza Pitti and other locations of the oltrarno (the other side of the Arno). €10 for the glass will get you 16 tastes from many popular wineries. We suggest trying the following: Casale dello Sparviero (a small producer from Castellina), Castello del Teriiccio, Il Borro and Villa Mangiacane. There is more information here.
An article about house wines and food - it made me hungry!
"In my favorite no-frills eatery in Florence, Trattoria Mario, you sit at communal tables with workers and tourists and they bring you Tuscan bean soup, rigatoni with meat ragu and a massive bistecca all fiorentina. They pour a sturdy red wine that goes well with the beef. I have no idea what it was, probably Chianti, but nothing could have been better with the blood-rare beefsteak."
The full article is here, and the restaurant's website is here.
I had a great time Friday at VinItaly - what a show. I can't wait for next year already and hopefully I will get to spend some more time there. I got to meet several wine makers - the first one I am reporting on here is Casa Emma:
I sat down with Fabrizio Benedetti of Casa Emma for a tasting on their wines. Their 2003 Chianti Classico Riserva got a score of 91 points from the Wine Spectator and Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV gave it 96 points (you can watch the video here). That caused the wine to become very scarce in the U.S. - they have about another 25 cases at the winery but that is it for the 03 (which in general was a very good vinage in Chianti). Fabrizio told me that in his opinion the 2004 Riserva is actually a better wine - I guess we will see what the critics say soon enough. Casa Emma Riservas spend 18 to 20 days on the skins, and are not put in small barriques but in the larger traditional Chianti oak casks - the oak is French but the casks are made in the north of Italy (interesting to note that several people I spoke to are using American oak to age their Chiantis). Fabrizio stressed that Casa Emmas likes to make wines that are ready to drink now - and their Chianti Classicos (the 04 and 05) were definitely the lightest and least tannic of all the Chiantis I tasted. The 05 was just recently bottled, and is a particularly light wine due to the rainy summer. Casa Emma recently acquired an additional 10 hectares very near their property, 5 of which have been planted with Sangiovese (and are several years away from production), and 5 which are still not planted. Like many of the other wine makers I spoke too they are definitely planning for growth.
Good article from the NY Times about Amarone:
"CONTRARY to a widely held belief, big, powerful, almost monstrously concentrated wines are not a California invention. No, before the first California wines sent the alcohol meter reeling toward 17 percent, Amarone from Italy was setting the standard for dense, lush red wines that were routinely 15 to 16 percent alcohol.
But unlike some of those newfangled California wines, which have the comic, pumped-up character of professional wrestlers, a good Amarone has the more refined muscularity of a naturally robust athlete. It's a wine that you can't imagine any other way.
Amarone, or Amarone della Valpolicella, to give it its more formal name, is the flag-bearer of a special class of wines that are made from dried grapes. Amarone uses the same blend of grapes as Valpolicella, its lighter red sibling in the Veneto region: mainly corvina and corvinone, along with some lesser grapes like rondinella."
Also on Friday during my visit to Montespertoli I made a quick stop in the new cantina of Castello Sonnino to buy a couple of bottles of wine. The Montespertoli DOCG is one of the newest in Chianti, and Sonnino is one of the areas largest producers. You can walk to the castello from the old square of Montespertoli in a couple of minutes. Their Castello Sonnino Chianti Montespertoli is €4.20 a bottle at the cantina, and at that price, it is definitely a drinkable wine (I have seen it for €6 and more in shops in Florence). They also have some fancier IGTs, one a 100% Sangiovese, and another using a blend featuring the Uvaggio grape among others. Check out their site and stop in if you are ever in Montespertoli.
Here are some quick notes about a few things we have had lately:
Castello di Ama Vin Santo 1999 and Chianti Classico 2003
Castello di Ama is very highly regarded and it is obvious after tasting these bottles. The Vin Santo is very complex and rich, with vanilla, oak, spice, and nut flavors (to name a few!). One of the best I have tasted. The 2003 Chianti Classico is a recent Tre Bicchieri winner. While it may be a little pricey for a Chianti Classico (easily costing more than many Riserva at around €25 a bottle) it is probably one of the least expensive Tre Bicchieri wines you can buy, and well worth it. This will probably improve in the bottle for a couple of years, but right now it is a pretty big fruit forward wine - a real mouthful, and quite delicious. It does spend significant time in barriques, and is probably one of the most complex and cared for Chianti Classicos you will ever find.
Visit the Castello di Ama website for more.
Fine wine auction in Florence on October 19th, from WineNews.it:
There will be, for example, the three lots that will be put up for charity by the Marchesi Antinori, who have created a case in larch wood with six bottles of multi-prized Solaia 1990, 1994, and 1999, created exclusively for this auction; another larch case containing twelve bottles of Tignanello 1990-93-94-97-99 and 2001; as well as a lot made up of four Magnums of 1997 Solaia, Tignanello, Brunello di Montalcino Pian delle Vigne Guado al Tasso.
Vinitaly date is set, March 29th to April 2, 2007, in Verona again. I missed this in 2006 - definitely planning to attend this time around.
This Querciavalle is another bottle I picked up at the Consorzio in Siena - I am not sure why - either I recognized the label or the name or had it confused with Querciabella (a better known producer). Either way it looked good and the price must have been right. There isn't much to be found about the winery or the wine on the web, which makes me think the production is probably not that big. What this all leads too is that I was not expecting much, so I was more than pleasantly surprised by this wine. I decanted it for over an hour, and it was a beautiful, brilliant, bright and clear ruby-sapphire when poured. The nose was a little light (my wife wanted to know if she was crazy to say "honey" - I didn't answer her), but on the palate it was full of ripe fruit - not as peppery or black cherry as many of the Chianti I have had recently, with a hint of earth, smoke and jam (strawberry, raspberry?), and quite smooth. It seems to have plenty of life left and would probably last a good while longer in the bottle. Very good overall and I would recommend it if you can find any in the states (probably around $25 to $30 a bottle).
I think I bought this bottle at the Consorzio in Siena. Pretty good prices there - I had remembered the shop from a month spent in Siena in August 1998 when Ellen had a summer semester for Architecture school. I know this producer and have enjoyed their wines before. The wine was a beautiful color in the glass - clear ruby to sapphire. I could't get much of the nose. A little light and thin in the mouth. Complex, refined flavors, cherries dominate but the fruit lags behind a bit - after it was open for a couple of hours there was a hint of juniper berry but it was fleeting. It did go well with the pork roast we had with it, but the alcohol prevailed too much for me overall. This wine spends 24 months in casks of French and Austrian oak of varying sizes, followed by a period of at least four months in the bottle before release. A nice wine but I wouldn't search it out again before trying others. About $30 US a bottle. Here is the Badia a Coltibuono website.
(This review was originally published in 2006)
Find more up to date info on Italian wines at Florence Wine Merchants
