A Wine Buying Trip to Italy
September 17th to 19th
Arrival
This trip had been organised by Michael Palij and Sophie Rudge of Winetraders, the Italian Specialists, as an exercise in acquainting some of their customers with some of their suppliers in the Piedmont and Veneto regions. Six of us assembled that evening at the Hotel Tra Arte e Querce in Monchiero in the heart of Barolo, where we were joined by 2 other merchants from a manic day touring the Barolo and Max from Boroli, one of the producers we were to visit the following day. We were pleasantly wined and dined with some older vintages from Boroli and their stunning Chardonnay about which more later.
Day One
“Giuseppe’s exploding Golf”
After a pleasant but warm night and a fab breakfast at the hotel we descended on Mascarello in the tour bus, a quite comfortable Fiat MPV. We were met at their unassuming winery in Castiglione by Giuseppe Mascarello, the son, whose first act was to leap into an elderly diesel golf parked by the cellar door, rev the engine until black smoke poured out and then drive it into the door! He climbed out and ushered our rather startled party into the cellar without a word. Giuseppe proved to have a much more impressive knowledge of the winery and vineyard than of the workings of the golf. He expounded at some length on the need for total control in the vineyard to allow perfect balance within the grapes of polyphenolic ripeness and sugar levels. He explained some of the history of the family estate with Michael interjecting further details as we walked round the old cellar, which Giuseppe informed us had been built as an Ice House many centuries before. It had the dusty old-fashioned air of yesteryear, with very little evidence of modernity, though they had installed some stainless fermenters to complement their old concrete cuves, although Giuseppe was insistent that their actual methods hadn’t changed at all. Finally we were shown their latest Oak barrels, all two of them. Michael pointed out that these were the first new barrels the family had purchased in years.
If any one is getting the impression that these guys weren’t really on top of things, they’d be wrong. They have some of the best vineyard sites in Barolo at Monprivato and their vineyard management is exemplary with everything done by hand and no chemicals. Grapes are sorted on tables once picked before moving further into the cellar to prevent any bad fruit getting in. This is borne out when we get to the tasting room and go through the wines which at no level disappoint.
The Wines
Dolcetto D’Alba Bricco 05
From the Bricco vineyard, this classic Dolcetto was ripe and rich yet very soft and long on the finish. Classy but approachable.
Barbero D’Alba Scudetto 03
This had a deep elderberry note leading to a powerful long finish with complexity and weight, one of the best I tasted.
Freisa Toetto 04
From a lesser variety, the Freisa, this was quite tannic and a bit agricultural but nicely perfumed on the nose and with a dry Madiran style finish. A good food wine that would partner the local salami well.
Langhe Nebbiolo 05
Mini Barolo style with classy nebbiolo nose but lacking the complexity of the Barolos
Barollo Villero 03
This was the most feminine of the three Single Vineyard Barolos that they do; still powerful and rich but a little softer and more elegant
Barolo San Stefano 03
Blockier and a little foursquare after the Villero and perhaps the least successful of the trio for me
Barolo Monprivato 03
This had me peppering the description with superlatives! A fantastic, complex and very probably ageless glass of pure nectar! This is why these wines justify such a high price and yet when compared with many other very expensive wines from around the world they look rather good value!
Finally Monprivato 00 which was a more mature version of the 03 and equally good.
For me, Mascarello,s wines were probably the highlight of the trip and proved what I have long suspected! No amount of modern technology will make you a top class wine if you haven’t got the right conditions in the vineyard; those that do could probably knock out a masterpiece in their garage (and some do)
“The best vineyard site in Dogliani”
We left Mascarello and headed towords our next appointment, Dolcetto producer, Pechenino in Dogliano.
I was already totally confused about Piedmont. The area is very infolded with hilltop towns and steep sided valleys all covered in vines. It looks huge. As we drove Michael attempted to make sense of it all. Within Barolo only a small proportion of the vineyards are DOC Barolo, the rest might be Langhe Nebbiolo, Barbera D’Alba etc. Some producers have vineyards that can produce more than one style, eg barbera D’Alba and Barolo. Then there is Dogliano which is its own DOC only for Dolcetto. Within DOC Barolo there are two distinct styles, depending on which soil type the vineyards fall on! I wasn’t much clearer! I hoped our trip would make it all come together but I fear it will need much more research!
Any way, Dogliani. Attilio Pechenino has a wonderful hilltop winery in this new DOC with the aforementioned vineyard. Michael explained that Pechenino was unusual in that his best vineyard sites were reserved for his Dolcetto unlike the usual practice of planting Nebbiolo at the top and Dolcetto at the bottom. All looks very new and neat although we were assured that the main building had merely been restored. Attilio was quiet and very polite and calm. He showed us around his winery which bristled with technology as is usual these days. He was the first Italian winery I had seen with Microoxegenation technology, which has been widely installed in France and Spain and probably Italy too for all I know! I,m not normally a fan, but Michael explained that it can help prevent too much reduction at the start of the fermentation process and so prevent those nasty bad egg odours that sometimes occur. I’ll take his word for it.
In the tasting room Attillio produced some scrumptious salami and cheese to accompany the wines which were as follows
San Luigi Dolcetto Dogliani 06
The nose has the ripe soft fruit of a young wine whilst the palate showed vibrant clean expressive fruit with a long dry finish. Soft tannins don’t predominate and the wine was really well balanced
San Luigi Dolcetto Dogliani 05
Lighter and more elegant than the 06 but none the worst for that – my favourite actually. Goes perfectly with the Salami!
Siri D’Jermu Dolcetto 05
This was from a single vineyard block and had more complexity and richness than the San Luigi. Still no use of oak which is reserved for his Barbera and Nebbiolo Very nice but I still preferred the 05 San Luigi
Bricco Botti 04 Oaked Dolcetto
This had the potential to be really good but for me the use of oak shoved it into the realm of many an oaked red therby losing its unique Dolcetto charm But for those who like oak it wont disappoint.
Quass 03 Barbera
This tightly constructed example showed off the barbera variety well with plenty of black fruit and savoury flavours.
Quass 04
Similar to 03 but a bit more closed
Langhe Nebbiolo 05
Classy rich Nebbiolo with ripe fruit and some tannin. Even this lowly appellation shows the power and concentration of this extraordinary variety.
“A tasting room with a view”
From Pechenini we headed back into the middle of Barolo and Castiglion Falletto making our way (at some speed) down a long dirt track to Boroli where we met up with Max from the night before. Boroli is the antithesis of Mascarello; a modern state of the art winery with vines in some of the best sites in Villero and Cerequio vineyards. Max showed us the view from the terrace across the steep valley to the vineyards of Cerequio on the far side. He also explained that the estate has another winery near Alba to the north so the whole operation was quite extensive. Round Castiglion they have 10 ha under vine. I was still very confused about the different appellations and vineyard sites within Barolo. Michael had tried to explain it thus: The DOC Barolo is like an upside down heart with each ventricle having different soil types. Castiglion Falleto is on the dividing ridge and thus has vineyard sites in both types. Unfortunately I failed to write down the two differing soil types but one was definitely chalky loam. Each produces a different style of wine, most noticeable at Mascarello.
Boroli have the two blocks described above and as you will see make a very different wine from each.
Max showed us around their new winery, with its oak stave west wall which looked funky and was supposed to be more environmentally friendly. I thought it was a bit of a gesture really.
Inside the new Cellar all was new oak and shiny stainless steel. It looked a big investment and very impressive. Similar to some of the shiny concrete palaces we visited in La Mancha in march. Very quickly we were ushered into the tasting room with a panoramic view from its glass curtain wall. More oak staves had been used to make the parquet floor, and the tables were of carbon fibre and could have withstood a crash at 200 miles per hour. If I hadn’t already had some of Max’s wines the night before I would have been suspicious! Besides, Michael is rarely wrong in his selection of producers. (he would probably say never).
So onto the wines which didn’t disappoint
We started with their Chardonnay – unusual for these parts:
Bel Ami 2005 Chardonnay Langhe
This was a revelation. Trophy chardonnay’s normally leave me cold, but this wine was complex, classy and powerful but not overstated. Peach aromas on the nose were nicely complimented by judicious oak and the wines was elegant and long on the finish. If it wasn’t chardonnay I would bite Max’s arm off for it, nevertheless it may be worth considering.
Barolo 03
This was the star wine for me and most of the others. Classic well structured Barolo with great complexity and length and real Barolo tipicity. A great wine which fully justifies its price (somewhere around half that of Mascarello’s). Great with food but can be savoured on its own.
Barolo 03 Villera
The first of the single vineyard wines was initially more intriguing. Blocky, cedary and with hints of leather this turned out to be a bit closed and dumb on the finish. It wasn’t as immediately appealing as Mascarello’s Villero but will probably come round in year or two. By contrast:
Barolo Cerequio 03 was much more feminine and approachable although still demonstrating the fine workmanship involved.
I wasn’t convinced though and reckoned that overall the straight 03 Barolo was the best bet. Unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to properly taste their Riserva which we had had the night before at the Hotel. From memory it was very good.
Finally
Moscato D’Asti Aureum 05
This is a 5.5% fizzy pop of a wine, but utterly delicious and moreish. Sadly its £10 price tag would probably alienate most of our customers, but lovely to taste all the same.
After the wine – food. Max took us off to a nearby restaurant for lunch. We had been expecting to sit outside as the clouds had parted and the sun was warm. Bizarrely though the terrace on which we sat had plastic marquee siding which remained resolutely drawn allowing an indistinct view of Castiglion Falletto and encouraging the place to fill up with flies. Despite that the food was delicious, local dishes beautifully prepared and served with a variety of wines, including a magnum of 95 Barolo from a producer who was supposed to be excellent but I’d never heard of! The wine was tiring which allowed Michael a rant about the complacency and ineptitude of many so called “top” Barolo producers when we were back in the car.
I was beginning to flag by now – my legendary post lunch torpor setting in, but there was no time for that – it was on to the next destination, Marco Porello in Roero.
“a dog in a cage”
Italy is like the rest of Europe for us brits, a country where animals, if you can find them, are well down the pecking order of things. Dogs are nearly always chained up or in cages and at Porello a nice looking Alsatian paced about in a small cage like a tiger. The cage had a blanket over one end to shut out the sun, but he didn’t look happy. It wouldn’t have done to comment though as this is normal and although we did see freer living dogs later on, most farming establishments keep animals in this way.
Marco Porello was a gentle chap with a roman nose and quiet smile. He showed us around his small winery at the side of the house and then into the dining room where the wines were set up for tasting. His winery looked well kept, if a little dusty and suitably up to date.
I had tasted his wines at the Winetraders tasting in January and thought they were excellent value for money. I couldn’t quite get the Arneis, the local white which this region is known for and stuck with his two reds. This time:
Arneis 06 Camestri
This was a different animal, lively crisp and full flavoured with plenty of fat citrussy flavours and the classic dry finish this variety normally shows. Really good and well priced.
Barbera Mommiano 06
This is my Porello Banker, showing all the characteristics of great Barbera, ripe fruit, clean acidity, dry finish and good tannic structure all at a price more normally associated with Consorzio wines
Nebbiolo D’Alba 05
This is classic Nebbiolo writ small. All the characteristics are there but somehow slightly muted. This doesn’t take away from one’s enjoyment of the wine, Its just that after all those Barolo’s, the limitations of the Roero for the variety are shown up.
Michael had said that he had taken some time to find even one decent producer in this area, and though Marco Porello is definitely that, his reputation rests on his white wine rather than his reds. Having said that at the prices he charges they are well worth buying and I do!
We also tasted:
Toretto Nebbiolo 05
This was a more grown up version of the previous one with more weight and intensity from more Oak ageing. Nice but closed was my comment.
Finally
Birbet
This is a fizzy pinky red 5% wine which some of us loved so much that they shipped it. I couldn’t really see the attraction, it was like a soft fruit drink with added herbs, Amè maybe.
“veal shin and little lies”
It was quite a long drive down from Roero onto the Po plain and round to Gavi, which is quite a lot further east than I had previously thought. I was getting quite confused about the geography of the area and where the vineyards lay. This is quite important to understand and Michael was at some pains to make it clear because the geography very much influences the quality. Piedmont itself, contrary to what I as an Italian neophyte thought, was to the South of the Po river in the foothills of the Ligurian Alps. I had always assumed that Piedmont was to the north of the valley in the foothills of the French Alps! To the north and west lie the French and Swiss Alps, so the area benefits from cooling winds off the mountains from all three directions. This helps to keep temperatures down in the summer. Further east, the Po valley widens to a great flat plain bordered by the Dolomites to the north and Appennines, the south. The Veneto vineyards lie on the foothills of the Dolomites where they meet the plain, with a steep southerly aspect.
We reached Gavi an hour or so later, climbing back up into the Ligurian foothills and arrived at La Zerba which is on top of a ridge on iron rich soil and high up allowing plenty of exposure to the sun. Paola and Luigi Lorenzi have ten hectares of Cortese the varity used for Gavi, which they bought along with the house as a holiday cottage before deciding to go into wine production. Their exemplary winery is in an extended double garage on the side of the house where they vinify two wines, Gavi and Gavi Terrarossa
We tasted both and whilst I was a little underwhelmed by the straight Gavi, could see some merit in the Terrarossa. It wasn’t till later, however that the wine’s personality began to appear. Paola Lorenzi had cooked us supper, Michael having expounded at length of her legendary cooking abilities. We were not disappointed. The meal was superb, including the shin of veal slow-cooked and served with crunchy fried potatoes and the “little lies”; sweet pastry crisp-like biscuits that Michael had preordered somehow as being his favourite food! At this point I began to appreciate the wine’s versatility. We drank no red, but continued all evening with the same wine which developed and complemented the food superbly. Luigi produced a bottle of La Zerba Grappa to finish the meal, which rounded it all off nicely.
La Zerba 2006 Gavi Terarossa
Crisp, well-flavoured wine with plenty of zippy acidity and some richness on the palate leading to a dry finish. Closed at first but opening up with the meal.
WE had a further hour or so to drive to our hotel outside Monleale in the Colli Tortonesi district where our next appointment awaited us in the morning.
On arrival at the hotel we were the only vehicle and the place had a deserted air. There was an ominous delay before the door opened in which I had visions of spending the night in the car. These weren’t dispelled by the face of the man who opened the door – You aren’t expected till tomorrow night he said. Aargh!
However, they managed to rustle up enough rooms for us all without too much hastle even though it was after 11.00pm
After a warm mosquito plagued night we arose in good time to a sumptuous breakfast. Michael had suggested the night before that we might get coffee and a bun if we were lucky. Luckily he was wrong and we had the treat of local home made peach juice with plates of ham and cheese and delicious fresh Madeleines. Great.
Day two
“the harvest is too easy”
We arrived late at Monleale Alta a few miles away and parked up next to Walter Massa’s cellar in the village. He wasn’t there, but his diminutive mother who appeared said that he was in the vines – it was harvest after all – so we decided to inspect his vineyard first. This proved to be a few minutes drive from the village across a narrow valley to an amphitheatre of steeply sloping vines looking across to the village. Michael had explained that Massa was one of very few people still growing the temperamental, high acid timorasso variety, where yields were very low but the wines of extraordinary concentration and complexity. He also grows a red of similar obscurity which proved to be interesting and rather good.
It was a beautiful clear morning and we wandered about looking at vines and sampling the sweet grapes before driving back to Massa’s cellar. He showed up after a minute and suggested we look at the cellar. He was an odd seeming chap – Michael had said he was barmy- and his cellar was quite the scruffiest I had seen in years – old cement cuves, piles of rubbish lying around and an air of neglect hung about the place. Someone backed a trailer full of Barbera and half tipped them into the collecting bin. We looked at the grapes which were very clean and sweet – it was obvious that all Walter’s efforts were concentrated on the vineyard.
Back in the dining room Walter had put out some smeary but clean glasses and Tuc biscuits. This was apparently a first, previously they had had to wash the glasses themselves, Michael said, as well as typing up the invoices.
Walter produced the wines, a white and two reds. They were all delicious and very individual and fully justify Michael’s faith in them. They completely prove the axiom that if you get it right in the vineyard, everything else just follows on.
“The best Soave in the world”
Whoever had drawn up the itinerary, Sophie probably, had obviously thought that we being ferried around in a helicopter. We were late leaving Massa and had a three hour journey east across the Po valley to Verona to complete in an hour and a half. Frantic phone calls ensued between Michael and Stefano, our next producer, and time slipped, not helped by numerous road works and very heavy traffic. Michael managed to put his foot down though and we made up enough time to make lunch at the Enoteca … by 1.30. Sadly this meant we weren’t able to look round Inama’s winery, but Stefano met us at the restaurant with a range of his wines to taste with the meal.
I had met Stefano at the Winetraders January tasting in London and been very taken by his wines. He is an ebullient almost larger than life character with greying hair and grey-blue eyes. He turned out to be in his late forties and was obviously impassioned by his vocation.
The food at the Enoteca was very good, complementing his range well. This includes two reds, a Bordeaux blend, Bradissimo, and a Carmenere. I wanted to know how carmenere had got to the Veneto; it seemed an odd variety to grow. Stefano told me that until recently it had been assumed that it was Cabernet Franc, as the leaves are apparently similar. I asked where it came from and he said that returning emigrants from Bordeaux had brought it back many years ago. Anyway, he rather liked it and was able to make an extremely good red with it.(see below). After lunch and an impassioned digression onto Italian politics we piled back into the car and drove up into the hills to see his vineyards.
Inama’s vineyards are all on the slopes of Monte Foscarino, a dramatic ancient volcano that rises up above the Po valley steeply behind the fortified town of Soave. The southerly slopes are all vineyard and the sea of vines stretches down and well onto the flat plain below. Michael had previously explained that the DOC Soave had been created after the war when large areas of alluvial plain had been planted with vines to fill an ever growing demand for cheap white wine. This should never have been allowed as the resultant product, now often rebadged as Pinot Grigio, bore no relation to the Classico Soave that came from the hillside. Now that much of the demand has been soaked up by the New World this overproduced stuff is an embarrassment (hence the Pinot Grigio!). The rich soil of the plain was better suited to cereal production and can produce grapes at cropping levels 4 times greater than can be achieved on the Monte Foscarino.
Stefano, however, like most good producers, isn’t interested in quantity. His grapes, the Garganega variety
are grown on mineral rich but otherwise poor volcanic Tufa. This makes the vines struggle and gives complexity and minerality to the wine. The vineyards looked good in the bright sunshine, but Stefano explained that a hailstorm two weeks before had cost him 20% of his crop. Hail is a real problem in the Veneto. All the vines on the volcano are of the white Garganega variety; his reds come from a range of hills about 10km across the plain, another outcrop of the Dolomites, where the soils are morainic rather than volcanic.
Tasting wines at a meal is less than optimal so I only have an impression, however the 06 Soave Classico stood out as usual, complex, fine and expressive. A world away from cheap grocers’ Soave.
“Cherry jam and cow dung”
Valpolicella has always ranked alongside Don Cortez and Hirondelle in my mind – a seventies drink of little merit that was wheeled out at bring a bottle parties or cheap Italian restaurants, along with the chianti in a basket. Thin, sour and utterly devoid of flavour. Part of the reason for this is that the Corvina, Molinara and Rondinella varieties are high in acid and if overcropped lack fruit. The other part is that for reasons explained above, the majority of Valpolicella was and still is grown on the flat alluvial plain, rather than the hillside from where it originated.
Marinella Camerani was a name that I had come across a year so ago in an article in Decanter Magazine on the renaissance of fine Valpolicella production. She sounded intriguing, so it was with interest that I approached her wines at the Winetraders January tasting. There, I selected the Ca’Fiui, her basic unoaked Valpol to put on the list. I also very much liked her Ripasso but as put off by the high price.
I was, therefore, looking forward to visiting Corte Sant Alda, her hillside winery high up on the steep slopes of the DOC. On arrival, I was not disappointed; a precipitous dirt track led up from the village below to a house with stunning views over the vineyards and out onto the plain. The soil all around looked poor and stony, a good sign - and we were met by Marinella herself, a small middle aged women with smiling dark eyes. Immediately we were taken to the drying shed where grapes from this years harvest were being sorted by her husband, Cesar, and a young lad. Michael had explained that the air drying process that shrivels the grapes for the Amarone production was normally done using dehumidifiers in large closed sheds. Marinella merely stacked the grapes in plastic trays and attached screens over the large entrances of the room. Large fans waft the air through and the grapes dry naturally. Unfortunately, this process requires that each bunch is completely devoid of any rot, which would spread very rapidly if not detected. Hence the hand sorting.
From the drying sheds we were led down under the house into the cellar. This was the most picturesque we had yet seen. Apparently Valpolicella means “the valley of little cellars”. Marinella had wooden foudres for fermentation, mostly oval shaped – she didn’t like the round ones, they were too “fat” – and ordinary barriques for maturation as well as some stainless steel where she makes the Ca Fiui. In the middle of the cellar she led us to a large wooden coffer. On opening this proved to have a copper bucket set into which contained the mature cow dung which was diluted and spread on the land according to her Biodynamic principles – “like homeothapy” she said – I wasn’t convinced.
From the cellar we repaired to the tasting room and her wines as listed below. Generally I was slightly less impressed than I had been in London but still rate the Ca’fiui especially in this her latest bottled vintage.
Marinella also has a substantial cherry orchard from which she makes cherry jam of a high quality. She gave us each a pot to take home. Perhaps that’s why good valpolicella has the taste of cherry amongst its many flavours. My pot had to be put in Sophie’s luggage in the hold of the plane – apparently it constitutes a deadly weapon – which could have resulted in much delay back at Gatwick. Fortunately the delay at immigration was such that all the baggage had been unloaded so I got my pot back and am looking forward to it with anticipation.
The wines:
Corte Sant Alda 2006 Ca’Fiui
Lovely ripe cherry fruit on the nose leading to a ripe soft juicy wine with the typical dry finish. A great improvement on the still good 05
Valpolicella Superiore 2004 Ripasso
This has far more weight and length than the Ca Fiui. It spends time in oak and develops complexity on top of the cherry fruit flavours. This is my favourite.
Amarone 2003
Dense fruit on the nose. Rich off dry style with masses of fruit with dry tannins and a hint of caramel on the finish. A great Amarone, although I’m not convinced by the style – I expect it works better with rich food.
Recioto Amarone 04
This was an absolute star of a wine. Sweet yet not cloying, full and complex with marzipan notes underlayed by coffee and herbal hints. Rich and very very good. A classy alternative to port that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.
A bit about these unfamiliar terms.
Ripasso is made by a second pressing of the dried grapes from which the first press has already been taken for Amarone. This juice is added to the free run juice of undried grapes to make a fuller style.
Amarone is made entirely from dried grapes and is fermented out to dryness.
Recioto is made from the very driest grapes and therefore retains some sweetness after the fermentation process is finished.
These are authentic practices almost unique to Valpolicella and are worth seeking out.
I came away still unsure about Corte Sant Alda. Certainly a great place to visit and some interesting wines. But worth all the money she charges? I’m not sure yet.
“Red wine and Pregnancy”
I think its the French medical profession that used to say that pregnant women should drink lots of red wine for their blood. I have a friend who was assured by her (french) doctor that a bottle a day whilst pregnant would be most efficacious. Most English doctors would disagree. Our next and last grower would appear to have little choice in the matter.
Giovanna Tantini runs a small, not to say bijoux, vineyard in the heart of Bardolino a little further to the west and downhill from Valpolicella. Michael explained on the way over that she had originally trained as a lawyer before deciding to take on her family’s run down estate. After a lot of hard work and a program of replantation she now has about 4 hectares of grapes that go into her own Cuvees. The rest of the grapes produced there go to the local Cantina. Mostly Corvina, she also has some Merlot, Cab Sauv and chardonnay.
On arrival it was clear that Giovanna was heavily pregnant, but this evident handicap didnt stop her marching off into the vineyard to see her corvina, commanding us to follow. The Corvina had all been retrained from the high yielding trellis to the guyot system. This has allowed her to reduce yields from over 180 hectolitres per hectare to a respectable 45. Green harvesting and hand picking only the cleanest bunches allows her complete control with only clean fully ripe fruit coming into the winery. This, when we got there, turned out to be little larger than La Zerba’s double garage. Nearly all steel, she fermented all her varieties separately with the juice for her rosé allowed a short 8 hour skin contact before fermentation. We tasted some fermenting must to see the astonishing natural sugar levels for ourselves. Finally we were led into a tiny cellar like tasting room where we tasted the wines. Giovanna had rustled up a snack supper which would have done a gourmet proud with which we could try the wines afterwards.
Chiaretto 2006 Rosé
This was Michael’s favourite and it had been well reviewed elsewhere. Very nice, it had a perfumed nose with light very fresh flavours with a dry long finish. It was elegant and charming but for me, whilst personally liking it, it lacked weight and I think it would struggle at its potentially high price.
Bardolino2006 Tantini
This wine swung it for me: A lovely floral and red fruit nose leads onto a delicious medium bodied wine with exuberant ripe fruit leading to a dry finish. There aren’t enough wines like this around – the nearest approximation would be a good Gamay, but this was streets better. Really good.
Ettore 2005 Tantini
This oak aged wine had more merlot and was well made with spicy fruit and some complexity. Very good but it was a bit like lots of other Oak matured reds and therefore lacked the immediacy of the Bardolino. It was also quite closed and needed more time to develop.
For me, Giovanna’s winery was a revelation. bardolino had always been a very third rate wine in my eyes, but this was up there, not only in quality, but in its unique charm. So good, reader, I listed it.
After supper, Giovanna’s husband kindly offered to guide us the back way to the airport as time was running short, only to find when we got there that dear old BA was delayed. Still - a worthy end to two action packed days, for which many thanks to Michael and Sophie of Winetraders.
Anybody planning to holiday in that part of Italy would do worse than fit in the odd vineyard visit; you will be well received.
