Italian Wine

A hard to find place, with an even harder to find website, enoteca Le volpi e l'uva is one of our favorite hidden gems of Florence. I guess the only thing that keeps this charming spot from not being completely overrun with tourists is the fact that it is tucked away a bit off the main tourism thoroughfare that runs from the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti.

It really isn't all that secret - you will find it in most guide books and on many websites and Top 10 lists - but somehow it seems to maintain its sense of a being an off the beaten path kind of place that only certain people have knowledge of.

September is a prime time of year to taste wine in and around Florence and the rest of Tuscany - the vineyards throughout the region are busy with the harvest and the towns are buzzing with activity. There are several festivals and tastings that happen this month every year - below we talk about just a few of them in the Chianti Classico region and Florence.

We went to one of the biggest this weekend in Greve, the Chianti Classico Wine Festival or "Rassegna del Chianti Classico" - sorry I didn't write about it before it took place! It is usually the second weekend in September every year though, so you can plan on that in the future. The weather (cool and lots of rain) kept the crowd down a bit this year, but made it easier for us to get to the wines we wanted to taste. This year the tasting glass was 10 Euro, which included 8 samples - 4 from the producer stalls, and 4 from the wine bar. It was more than enough - we actually gave our tickets away with a couple of punches left, and often people won't even punch your card if you are sampling more than one wine at a stand or take the time to spend a few minutes with the producer. This event takes place in Greve's charming and historic triangular main square, Piazza Matteotti.

Next weekend (the third weekend in September every year for the past dozen years or so) is one of my favorites wine tastings - the Vino al Vino festival in Panzano. Many of Panzano's producers are at this event - the quality of the wine is very high, and the mood is festive. The event is held in the small square of Piazza Bucciarelli that is right along the 222 as you come into Panzano from the north or south - it is hard to miss and even harder to park!

And the following weekend (September 26, 27, 28) there is the newer Florence Wine Event that takes place in several locations in the Oltrarno - Piazza Pitti, Piazza Santo Spirito and Piazza della Passera. At this year's festival some of the best Italian and Tuscan wine makers will be presenting their wines from the regions of Chianti, Bolgheri, and Brunello di Montalcino, along with white wines from the northern regions. You can acquire your wine tasting glass with a brochure at one of the two "Glass Points" and spend the day wandering around and sampling some amazing wines. A few of our favorites on the list this year: Fattoria di Rignana, Petra, and Casale dello Sparviero.

The 2005 Rosso Di Montalcino from Argiano is a very nice "baby" Brunello. If you are looking for something that costs much less than a Brunelo di Montalcino but in the same style, this rosso should do fine. A little tight on the nose, with a hint of menthol - but very full flavors of red fruit and surprisingly smooth on the mid-palate and finish. 100% Sangiovese Grosso from vineyards surrounding this famous estate.

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.

Tonight we opened a bottle of what was one of my favorite Vin Santos since getting to Florence - the one from Castello Verrazzano. The new wine is the 2003 vintage, the 2001 was the last vintage and it has been gone from shops in Florence for awhile. Unfortunately on the first taste I have to say this wine is a major pass - all I could get from the nose was alcohol, and after the initial strong alcohol smell blew off, it just smelled like a weak glass of rubbing alcohol. It tasted the same, with maybe a butterscotch candy thrown in. The alcohol actually burned my throat and the finish was very hard. Nothing like the 03, no warm flavors of honey and caramel, no aromas of flowers, peaches or toasty oak. It was almost grappa like - very surprising, and ultimately disappointing.
You can find some great Italian wines for sale at The Wine Messenger:

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.

There is an excellent "slow" market set up in Piazza Santa Croce until May 1. We just had a quick lunch there (calzones), with a glass of Mossio Langhe Nebbiolo which was great (I bought a bottle for €14.50). Mossio is a small producer with 10 hectares under cultivation producing about 50,000 bottles a year. There are also many kinds of cheeses, salamis, olives and other fresh and prepared foods available at the market, to eat or take home. Definitely worth a visit and a good place for an affordable lunch or dinner.

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.

This coming weekend (March 29 to April 2) is Vinitaly in Verona. I missed it last year but am not making that mistake twice - I will be going on Friday for the day. Hopefully I will have a lot to report when I get back, including photos and some video.

Here is yet another quality Chianti Classico, this one from Fattoria di Rignana:

"Vintage 2004 - Chianti Classico D.O.C.G Fattoria di Rignana produces a Chianti Classico whose characteristic colour, body and bouquet have captured the imagination of eminent connoisseurs of wine. The Chianti of Rignana carries the seal of the Consortium of Chianti Classico."

Pleasant, spicy and fruit forward, with notes of black pepper and cherry, smooth mid palate with earth and smoke undertones, and a rather clean finish. 80/20 Sangiovese/Canaiolo, 12 months in barriques. A very nice wine at this price (about €9).

Another stellar Chianti Classico from the Castellina area - just a special place on earth for producing wine. Beautiful ruby color with nice clarity, and no bricking at the edges. A fruity and intense nose with a subtle sweetness - solid flavors of cherries, black cherries and plums burst on the palate at first taste. A surprisingly smooth mid palate but with decent structure (the wine spends 8 months in French oak), this is a wine that should last a bit. A really solid Chianti Classsico with just a little something different - I would have thought it was a touch of Merlot in the blend, but the blend is 90/10 Sangiovese/Canaiolo. I liked this wine very much and have a bottle of their highly regarded IGT (or "Super Tuscan") "Bruciagna" laying in wait.

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."

I can't believe I haven't written about this wine yet - it is one of our favorites and I have probably had more of this than anything except the Artimino Chianti since we got to Florence. I was a huge fan of the 2001, a remarkable wine and a great value at about €14 a bottle. The new release is the 2003 and at only €10 and change it may be an even better bargain than the 2001 (if not quite as a superlative wine). We had a bottle tonight with dinner and it is just sublime. You can't believe it is a €10 wine when you are drinking it. Casale dello Sparviero is a small producer in the Castellina area, and the riserva is made from hand harvested 100% Sangiovese. It is fermented in stainless steel and cement vats and then put into oak for 18 months, followed by 6 months in the bottle before release.

Tonight we drank a bottle of Aureo with our friends. This is an IGT from La Castellina, who are located directly in Castellina. I got this a month or so ago when we had lunch at La Torre, a good restaurant in the main square there.

The blend for the 2001 is Sangiovese 30%, Cabernet Sauvignon 35%, Merlot 35%. We didn't let it open up much and my first taste was all alcohol, but after a while the fruit came through and it was big with a lot of berry and jam flavors and a very smooth mouth feel. Personally I thought the Merlot was a little too dominant and a little too sweet, but it went very well with our pasta with onion sauce (a reduction of onions cooked for hours with a little meat broth and cinnamon). Overall a very nice bottle of wine fairly priced at about €16 a bottle.

If you don't have a TV and/or get most of your news and information from the Web, then you may be interested in this site: http://tv.winelibrary.com

Jet fan, wine lover, New Jersey guy and liquor store Director of Operations Gary Vaynerchuk has been making these videos as a viral marketing campaign and to open up wine to a new audience. His personality may not be for everyone (like the elderly), but he has a solid, self assured (if not muscular) palate and really lays it on the line with his tastings (which is refreshing). I was entertained, and I think his goal of demystifying wine and reaching a younger generation is great. Below are a few links to episodes on Italian wines - his Chianti episode I thought was way off, not because he didn't like most of them, but because of the wines he choose - large producer, super commercial "brands" that I would not suggest to anyone. I think he needs another trip to Italy to taste some of these smaller producers that we have been enjoying. I would like to see him do a show with a few bottles I send him - maybe I will contact him and see if he has any interest.

• Chianti - Episode #91
• Barolo and Brunello wine tasting of Italy - Episode #65
• Cheese and Wine Pairing from Italy and Burgundy - Episode #152
• Barbaresco, the truth behind these Italian wines - Episode #85

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.

I like to think of this place as half a wine blog, but I really have not been writing enough about wine lately. Tonight we are going to try what I think is a new Brunello di Montalcino - Poggio Castagno. I can not find anything about this wine on the web - but the producer seems to be a large commercial concern - so my theory is that it is a new bottling/label, perhaps invented by them as a marketing strategy to cash in on both the popularity and quality of the Brunello name. Why do I think this? Because this is a new release Brunello that was on sale at Esselunga for about €13 (most good Brunello starts at around $40 a bottle!). We will see how it holds up with the roast beef.

We have not been writing a lot about Italian wine lately - although we have been drinking plenty. I recently received an email from the Arosio family. They are the owners of Azienda Agricola La Banditaccia and the makers of Montecucco Aquilaia, a Tuscan red that I wrote about last year. They have been kind enough to send a picture of the bottle, and also to tell us some more about their wines:

"The Azienda Agricola La Banditaccia produces 3 red wines: Aquilaia, Rosso dell’Olmo and Templari (this last one is a Riserva). Aquilaia and Rosso dell’Olmo recently had a Certificate of merit at the 7th Selection of Tuscan Wines held in Siena on October 20th-22nd, 2006."

They also told us that in mid December at Enoteca Vitae, Borgo la Croce 75/R (near St. Ambrogio) their Rosso dell'Olmo will be available. I think that is where I got my bottle of Aqualaia. We are looking forward to that and hoping to make a visit to the winery soon.

Alder at Vinography.com has a post up announcing the Tre Bicchieri winners for 2007. This is also the 20th anniversary of the list. The press release, with the winners, is on the Slow Food website.

The list of wines from Tusany for 2007 is below the fold (including 9 Chiantis and 14 Brunellos!).

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.

What do you do when you have a 1995 Gaja Sperss and no decanter? Well, in our case, we decanted it into the only glass container available:

The 1995 was not as good as the 96, but it was still a Gaja Sperss.

We had a great time last night at the "100 Wines of Italy" or "Centovino D'Italia". The tasting was at the Relais Certosa Hotel, outside, around their pool area. There was olive oil, some fantastic Tuscan meats, and - 100 different wines, from all over Italy. 10 € got you a glass, a program and a pen. Of course I gravitated to the Barolos, Chiantis and Brunellos. I did learn about many other regional grapes, but at this point the tastes are so different that I have a hard time appreciating them. I tasted about 30 wines altogether, including a spumante and a vin santo.

I think my favorite was the Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate Le Coste, 2001. At around 40 € a bottle it seemed one of the better deals of the tasting. There are some more photos here.

Couple of interesting wine events this weekend around Florence and Chianti. The first starts tonight and also runs Saturday and Sunday - we are planning on going so I will to try report back later and post some photos. It is the fourth annual "100 Wines of Italy" and will be at the Hotel Relais Certosa just outside Florence. 10 € for a tasting glass and 100 wines from all over Italy. For more information I would call 055 237 3267 - I went to the website, but it is very outdated and wasn't much help.

The second big event is "Cantine Aperte" or "Open Cantina Day" - the official day is Sunday, but some wineries will be open on Saturday too. Over 100 wineries in the region will be open and there will be wine makers on hand to talk about their wines. I know that Castello Verrazzano is participating, and we hope to drive down on Sunday and visit there and a couple of others. Here is a link to a PDF file with a map and the list of participating wineries.

Cin Cin!

News from Florence:

Frescobaldi Establishes 'Tenute di Toscana,' a Partnership in the Fine Wine Business

Three prestigious wine estates: Tenuta dell'Ornellaia (Bolgheri), Castel Giocondo (Montalcino) and Luce della Vite (Montalcino), all owned by Marchesi de' Frescobaldi, join together in a new fine wine partnership with SPI Group and Michael Mondavi.

FLORENCE, Italy -- Marchesi de' Frescobaldi, leader in the Italian wine sector, announced today the grouping together of three internationally renowned wine estates, Tenuta dell'Ornellaia, Castel Giocondo and Luce della Vite, in a new holding, Tenute di Toscana which has entered into a partnership with two prominent international corporations.

Yesterday I got my copy of the Italian wine bible, better known as "Italian Wine 2006" by Gambero Rosso. This is the first English language version of this now famous tome featuring their "Tre Bicchieri" or "3 Glasses" system of scoring wines. This is a huge, thick book (912 pages!) with tons of information on more than 2,000 producers (background info, website addresses, phone #'s, etc.) and over 15,000 Italian wines. It is also a very nicely done translation that reads beautifully in English. A must for Italian wine lovers, restaurateurs, and sommeliers - you can get yours here - I highly recommend it.

We rented a car for the first time this week and took a couple of day trips - one through Chianti and the other to Lucca and Viareggio. Having a car for the Chianti countryside is great, it gives you a lot of freedom and let's you explore at will. Just going to Lucca for the day is probably done by bus or train just as easily and perhaps cheaper than with a rental car.

Our first day in the country started with a drive down the S222 from Florence, the picturesque road know as the "Chianti Way".

Tenuta di Trinoro Le Cupole di Trinoro 2003

James Suckling of the Wine Spectator says:

"A lively rich red, with plum and berry character, medium body and a silky, fresh finish. A bit tight. Best after 2007."

I agree, this is a very nice wine. Here in Florence this wine seems overpriced in all the shops (over €30!). I found it on the Wine Club website (they have a few shops around San Francisco) for $23.99.

Here is an interesting and I think new(er) wine from the Montecucco region (specifically from Monticello Amiata), Aquilaia Montecucco Rosso D.O.C. Montecucco is one of the younger D.O.C.'s, receiving the official status in 1998. The region forms a rough crescent around Montalcino which lies to the north east. In the past most of the grapes would end up in the brunellos and rossos of Montalcino. I am still trying to find a label or bottle photo. The producer is (I think - if I am reading the label correctly) is La Banditaccia - they have a website http://www.labanditaccia.com, in Italian only at this point.

As a Rosso, this wine has to be a minimum 60% Sangiovese. The label says it spent 5 to 6 months in wood. My tasting notes:

Lush, fruity, ripe and delicious - a touch sweet for me personally, but still very enjoyable. Young, with hints of earth, juniper, thyme, leather, tar and cigar box. 14% alcohol and you can tell, but very drinkable, and the tannins seem soft - I don't know enough to say how it will age.

We recently became a wine.com affiliate. In the future whenever we talk about a wine we will include a direct link to the wine.com site if the bottle is available. Right now, you can find two of our favorites - Allegrini 2001 La Grola and Antinori 2002 Villa Toscana IGT.

Anthony