If any of the wines in this week's Featured Wines column tickle your fancy, you can order them directly from Jordan by email (JCarrier@everythingwine.ca) or find him in the Vintage Room of Everything Wine's Morgan Crossing location in South Surrey.
A Salad of Italians
As I was trying to
recommend a wine to someone last week, he told me something extraordinary: “I
don’t really like Italian wine”. My mouth opened but I said nothing. It must
have looked like I was blinking Morse code at him, because I had no response to
a statement that broad, it’s like saying “I don’t like leaves”. Surely you like
some leaves? If you think hard enough? Tea? Mint? The Maple leaf? There’s too broad
an assortment of items to dismiss the group categorically, and in practice
there’s really no such group as “Italian Wine”.
We can mistake Italy
as a culturally homogeneous Super-Mario-Land, but in truth Italy has been a
unified country for less time than our own. Before the late 19th century
Risorgimento going back to the fall of Rome, the Italian peninsula was a quilt
of city states, Duchies and little Empires, all of which were intermittently at
war with each other. If you travel 200km in any direction, you will find
different architecture, cuisine, dialect and entirely different styles of wine,
made with different grapes. Amarone has as much in common with Barbaresco as a
Slinky has with a Ford Explorer, even though the two regions are separated by
less than the distance between Vancouver and Princeton.
From Tuscany to
Piedmont to Trento, allow me to present 3 wildly different “Italian wines”:
Nada Giuseppe Casot 2008 Barbaresco Riserva (Piedmont)
A deliciously drinkable Barbaresco for an
outstanding price, brand new to our fair province. A tiny winery from Treiso,
one of the 4 villages within the Barbaresco boundaries, run by the Nada family,
who will be here in the Vintage Room tomorrow (Sunday) at 1:30pm, pouring this
and two other wines. Classic nose of flowers and red fruit over quite a full
package, and the acidity is balanced and in check, which isn’t a given for a
Barbaresco this young. 3 6-packs available, $60.49 +tax
Biondi-Santi 2009 Brunello di Montalcino (Tuscany)
We wouldn’t be talking about Brunello if
it weren’t for Biondi-Santi, who was making world-class Sangiovese a century
ago when everyone else in Montalcino was just making happy-juice. They led, the
region followed, and it’s nice to finally be able to offer the (unofficial)
First Growth of Montalcino after years of trying to obtain it. Traditionally
austere (even in the ripe 2009 vintage), medium bodied and designed for the
cellar, we get earthy licorice and restrained darker fruit in a serious frame.
It drinks like history, and I’m super stoked to carry it. 93 points Robert
Parker, $215.99 +tax
Giulio Ferrari 2004 “Riserva del Fondatore” (Trento)
One of my favourite finds from the recent
Wine Fest, this was one of the “buzz booths” of the floor tasting, always
crowded and noisy. A sparkling wine made with Champagne grapes using the
Champagne method that would easily cost twice as much if it were actually from
Champagne. Made from Chardonnay vines imported by Giulio Ferrari when northern
Trento was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this is lush, layered
bubble with stone fruit, minerals, smoke and brioche, both generous and
focussed. So good, it’ll easily hijack any conversation you were previously
having. 98 points Decanter, $109.99 +tax
UPCOMING EVENTS
Masterclass: Kings
of California, Thursday April 7 6:30pm - 8pm, seats $50
Another horizontal
tasting of sorts, this time focussing on the 2012 vintage in Napa and Sonoma,
the first of 4 outstanding back-to-back vintages from California. Yasha makes
the tasty nibbles, I make the bad jokes, the wines make everything awesome. What
wines? Oh, these ones:
2012 Stonestreet
Upper Barn Chardonnay, 97 points Robert Parker, $121.49
2012 Hartford Court
Far Coast Pinot Noir, 96 points Robert Parker, $121.99
2012 Grgich Hills
Cabernet Sauvignon, $107.99
2012 Vineyard 29 Cru
Cabernet Sauvignon, 92 points Robert Parker, $51.99
2012 Clos Pegase
Cabernet Sauvignon, $74.99
2012 Cade Reserve
Cabernet Sauvignon, 98 points Robert Parker, $282.99
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