Here is a long time bargain favourite, Pilastri’s Rosso Piceno, in other words a red wine from the Marche region near the Adriatic coast of Italy. It’s made from 70% sangiovese and 30% montepulciano, organically farmed and aged in steel.
Rosso Piceno 2014 (Saladini Pilastri)
Quite dark, purple tones. Aroma of cherries, herbs and a little spiciness. Fresh and fruity all the way, with a dry mouthfeel and a youthful acidity.
Price: Low
Food: Pasta, chicken, salads
Leave a CommentI have followed this wine for some time. In a market that overflows with uninspiring proseccos, this one has personality and a statement. This is a prosecco made today by Maurizio Donadi at Casa Belfi, just like they did all over the Valdobbiadene-Conegliano in the old days – in sharp contrast to today’s mainly industrial products.
Unfiltered, unfined, unsulphured, un-whatever… The usual glera grape variety is used 100%, biodynamically grown.
Colfondo means that it comes with the residuals. Don’t throw it away, just turn the bottle upside down and you get all the delicious taste from it.
Colfondo Prosecco 2014 (Casa Belfi)
Light yellow colour with some sediments. Pure and delicate aroma with yellow apples, freshly baked bread and scented flowers. Creamy and full in the mouth, with a taste of apples, with a long persistence and some bitterness in the back.
Price: Low
Food: Aperitif, antipasti, red fish, light meat
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With the designation Santo Spirito this wine must be said to be quite appropriate in the so-called Holy Week we are in. Now I don’t always see the importance of chosing themes and content according to the season (there is always a reason for chosing a specific wine anyway). So we hereby leave the religious aspect.
The 25-60 year old grapes are grown in volcanic soil in the eastern corner of Sicilia, north of Catania. They are mostly carricante (about 65%), but a “field blend” of several others like inzolia, catarratto and grecanico constitutes the rest. The wine is made quite naturally, with malolactic fermentation too, that contributes to its roundness.
Etna Bianco Santo Spirito 2014 (Tenuta delle Terre Nere)
Golden colour. The aroma is clearly tropical, with mango, apricot, cooked apple maybe, a bit lactic, and with a sensation of prolonged skin-contact. In the mouth it is unctuous, waxy, not very long and with moderate acidity. But nice drinking after all.
Price: Medium
Food: A full, round, and “tropical” wine, it was no big hit with yesterday’s varied cheese board. Next time I will try some Asian food, with some sweetness, maybe soy sauce. More safe suggestions would be fish and fowl, and why not a Sicilian style pasta dish with vegetables.
Leave a CommentA recent tasting of Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino showed a great variety of styles, from the classic wines of Banfi, the structured Fonterenzas, the “wild” Il Paradiso di Manfredo, some top end, and some old…
This was one of the best, but definitely not the most expensive. Located by the Sant’Angelo hill in the extreme south of Montalcino, Col d’Orcia has delivered good value organic wines on the fruity side for many years now. This is a special reserve that originates in a special vineyard in a (as the name suggests) “windy ridge” overlooking the river Orcia.
Grapes from the different parts were kept separate, the alcoholic fermentation was carried out in stainless steel and the malolactic in concrete. Then followed four years in big oak barrels.
Poggio al Vento Riserva 2007 (Col d’Orcia)
Dark, deep colour with hints of development. Fruity, quite cool with cherries and morello, some spice and balsamic notes. Full, lots of soft tannins, a matching acidity, and a long and lightly spicy aftertaste. Delicious now and, for me, the next 5 years or so. Good airing recommended.
Price: High (not for a brunello riserva, but generally speaking)
Food: Wild boar and a lot more
Leave a CommentFresh, appealing rosé wine that costs “no money”. Made from corvina (80%) and molinara, and made in the stainless steel low temperature fermentation tradition.
Bardolino Chiaretto Organic 2014 (Villabella)
Light salmon pink. Discrete notes of red fruits, apricots, and lime. Dry, yet with a smooth texture, quite full on the palate.
Price: Low
Food: White fish, delicate shellfish, salads
Leave a CommentFor this week’s edition of our private wine club the host had put together a really nice selection of Piemonte nebbiolos, including three Produttori single vineyard Barbaresco riservas, and the rest Barolo. Among these one of my favourites was Roagna 2009. This week’s selection is however Erbaluna’s barolo from the same year.
Az. Agr. Erbaluna is located in La Morra, where they own 9,5 hectars planted with vines. They work strictly organic in vineyard and cellar.
The wine is, quite obviously, made from pure nebbiolo, 35 years old vines in calcareous clay. It was spontaneously fermented, had skin contact for four weeks and was and matured for three years in large wooden vats (3000 liters).
The wine we tasted was included in the portfolio of Norwegian importer Non Dos, who has also actively contributed in the making of the wine.
Barolo Cru Vigna Rocche 2009 (Az. Agr. Erbaluna)
Cherry red. Concentrated yet light, with aromas of raspberries, flowers and some underwood. Luscious, and fruity. Though quite high in alcohol and a touch of that typical tannic structure it is a barolo on the light side, and very drinkable indeed.
Price: Medium
Food: Red meat (lamb) and game, stews, hard cheeses
Leave a CommentHere is another delight from «natural woman» Arianna Occhipinti. She makes two wines named after the local road SP68. Read about the red one here. Near the town of Vitoria and Mount Etna Occhipinti dispose of about 18 hectars of vineyards.
The white SP68 is made from albanello and moscato di allessandria, from a vineyard 280 meters above sea level. The plants are just over 10 years old, and they are not subject to any chemical treatment. The fermentation is done with natural yeasts, the maceration 10 days with the skins, and the wine is then aged 6 months in inox and bottled unfiltered.
SP68 2013 (A. Occhipinti)
Light golden orange colour (appearance almost like a fino sherry). Big aromas of white flowers, almonds and orange peel. In the mouth it is quite full with a touch of dryness, some tannin from the ten days with the skins, moderate acidity and dry finish. Just a little more skin-contact, and I would have called it an orange wine.
Price: Low
Food: Some cheeses and salads. Think of it as a moscatel wine when pairing with food.
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There is more in Sicilia than Etna, much in fashion these days. The southwestern coast faces the ocean, and there are beaches with beautiful sand dunes and a fresh breeze. On these beaches there are flowers, and there are beetles, turtles, and all sorts of birdlife. And close to the ocean there are vineyards that take in the salinity from the ocean breeze and warmth of the Mediterranean sun, and the temperature changes between night and day brings both ripeness and a cool acidity to the grapes.
The small town of Menfi is located on this coast, some 3 kilometres inland, and not far from the Marsala growing area. And here is Cantine Barbera, that makes wine from local and regional white grapes like inzolia, grillo and zibibbo, and reds perricone, nerello mascalese, nero d’avola, and some occational international intruder like merlot (in fact a very interesting wine, and the first one I tasted from this winery around 10 years ago).
Marilena Barbera has a “more than organic” approach to winemaking, these wines are made in an artesan way, handmade. This week’s special wine is just that: handmade and truly special. Ammàno means handmade in local dialect. But it’s more: In Marilena’s own words, “it’s totally hand made, and by totally I mean it”. This statement implies that no electricity operated machines are used, the grapes are hand harvested and hand crushed, and all winemaking is carried out only with manual tools. Bottling and corking is also manual, and even the labels are handwritten by Marilena herself (as you may want to see here).
It’s made from old zibibbo grapes. There are no industrial additives, the wine is not filtered, and bottling and corking is done manually too. No industrial additives are used during winemaking, and sulphur is used only to disinfect the barrels. Free SO2 is a mere 13 mg/L.
Ammàno #2 2014 (Cant. Barbera)
Light golden with a greenish hue, bordering of being unclear. Extremely aromatic with strong tones of grapefruit, and some rhubarb, gooseberry and a salty touch. Full in the mouth, cidery. Yes, it has grapefruit taste too, but it’s a well-rounded, almost ripe and highly attractive bitterness coming through towards the end. Great personality!
Price: Medium
Food: White fish, cooked and grilled, tuna and sword fish, light meat and, I believe, many of the Arab influenced dishes of western Sicilia
1 CommentOne of the most memorable wines from RAW fair a couple of years ago was this one. Emilio Foradori of Trentino, Italy presented it at a kvevri seminar. I had serious trouble to describe it, but the title of Kundera’s famous book came to my mind, in the opposite meaning though, because this was absolutely bearable, not to say “uplifting”.
This one was different from the other wines presented. It was lighter, it had another texture – and it was aged in a clay container – from Spain! I had to investigate this further, and I will tell you more about this soon.
Nosiola is a grape variety without a very distinct character of its own. The name is thought to have something to do with hazelnuts (‘nosiol’ in local dialect), and it sounds likely. In the past it was usually made with long skin-contact, and it’s associated with the production of dessert wines. I imagine that this is a grape variety that is applicable for expressing terroir. More about the producer and the techniques behind the wine later. Here is a brief description.
Fontanasanta Nosiola 2012 (Elisabetta Foradori)
Light yellow. Aroma of flowers (jazmine), orange peel, peaches, nuts (closest to hazelnuts, in fact). Quite dry texture, integrated acidity, and an unbelievable combination of lightness and concentration.
Still in the same vintage as presented at the fair, but there’s no wear and tear about this true, true wine.
Price: Medium
Leave a CommentOn the north eastern side of Vittoria Arianna Occhipinti’s family has 10 hectars of vinyards and 15 of olive groves, all of it grown organically. The road SP68 is, in Arianna’s words, a connection between the paths that the growers and producers use every day to come to their vineyards and towns. Here the wines travel too, in amphorae and bottles. The people here regard the SP68 as the oldest wine road in Sicilia still in existence.
The vineyards are 280 meters above sea level on red sand and some chalk, and the vines used for this wine are approximately 10 years old. The leaves are kept on the vine to maintain freshness. Only natural yeast is used, the ageing is carried out in cement for 6 months before the wine is bottled, unfiltered. Frappato and nero d’avola are used as monovarietals in other wines, but this one is a blend of 70% frappato, and the rest is nero d’avola.
(You can read about the white version here.)
And yes, we opened another bottle of this delicious wine in this year’s holy week.
SP68 Nero d’Avola e Frappato 2013 (A. Occhipinti)
It was quite light red with a blue tinge. Nice red berry fruits (raspberry, strawberry), flowers and some spicy notes. Moderate weight, fine tannins, with slight carbonic sensation, and a refreshing acidity dancing on the tongue.
Price: Low
Food: Pizza, pasta, light meat, risotto, antipasti
Serve a little chilled
