Two CDP- Marcoux 1998 and Beaucastel 2005 for a wonderful wine evening (followed by dinner 🤪).
After fidgeting for a good 15 mins on whether to decant the 1998 or just open and air, decided to decant. Fully mature and integrated tannin, very little fruit, very elegant, pleasing, just the last hints of acidity, near end of life before a last hurrah. In hindsight maybe if we had let it breath instead of decanting, may have given a bit more love 💘 CDP Beaucastel was elegant, last vestige of fruit amidst silky tannins.
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The sparkle to add a sparkle to your evening.
Try the award winning Andrea Biasiotto Prosecco from @vini_biasiotto . It's a work of art and more. Rated the best Prosecco a few times over 🏆🏅 Pair it as an apertif or to refresh your palate or with light second course such as fish. Also almost universally works great with a majority of South East Asian native dishes. So next time in doubt on what to pair 🥘 your Laksa with, you know what to reach for 🍾 DM/WA 91089395 and we will round this up in no time for your long weekend celebration 🥂 📸 courtesy @vini_biasiotto My own introduction to this then emerging Bolgheri superstar was via their 2010 vintage.
In 10 yrs Orma and the wider @tenutasetteponti portfolio has achieved 🏆🏅 what every vintner probably hopes to achieve in life and more than a few who spend the lifetime waiting, unsuccessfully in some cases, for such moments. Tenuta Sette Ponti takes its name from the seven bridges🌁 connecting Florence and Arezzo towns in Italy and is located in Valdarno di Sopra. This is among the four major historical winegrowing regions of Tuscany (as identified in the edict issued by Grand Duke 👑 Cosimo III de' Medici in 1716). The estate 🏡 has been in the family for almost seven decades from the time Alberto, Antonio Moretti Cuseri's father bought this directly from Princess Margherita and Maria Cristina of Savoia. While the land always likely had the potential, it wasn't until Antonio set about to improve the suitability of wine growing in the region in general and estate in particular that things started coming together. Orma, a blend of Merlot (50%), Cabernet Sauvignon (30%) and Cabernet Franc (20 %) was first released in 2005 and caught the imagination of the wine world. The team at Tenuta Sette Ponti hasn't looked back since. You can say the vineyard vicinity next to those of Ornellaia are a major driver. I would say, perhaps the quality of Ornellaia so close to home, more than the vineyards vicinity remains the inspiration. Orma is a super Tuscan that earns the highest praise and yet, still remains beautifully & thankfully affordable. 2015 earned the superlatives of Fabulous, gorgeous, viscerally exciting across critics scoring highly. But the consistency of this bottle is such, scores are almost secondary now. DM/WA 91089395 and we will be bring these around to make your weekends fabulous, gorgeous and viscerally exciting 😀 📸 @tenutasetteponti Many thanks Brendon (@iwoodwoodu) for sharing this beautiful moment and an opportunity to serve your family.
Excellence runs in this historical family of Riojas.🏅🏆@lariojaaltasa 904 is an adaptation and a star successor of the original 1904 representing the year the winery came into being with the merger of La Rioja Alta & Ardanza Winery. Rioja, from Northern Spain 🇪🇸 has a few sub-regions with Rioja Alta, the most famous. Known for wines of elegance, La Rioja Alta Gran Reserva 904 is a blend of 90% Tempranillo and 10% Graciano. Gran Reservas by law must be aged for five years, at least two of those years in oak. La Rioja goes some considerable distance beyond this minimum by spending 4 yrs in barrels and another 5 in bottle before these are released. Apart from their bottles, I personally find their passion to improve every aspect of wine making is unparalleled. From spending heavily on R&D to modernise the wineries, to use of optical guided lasers for sorting berries to actually creating their own barrels, directly importing oak that is specially selected in the United States and naturally dried on the estate in Spain, its like the winery doesn't want to leave any opportunity to improve where they can. Some rules ⚖ are meant to be changed, some (crazy ones) meant to be broken, and some are meant to be respected and followed.
The Appellation rules ⚖ governing the main wine ⛰ regions are all of these 😅🤪 and thus do get subjected to all kinds of arguments at the same time by many enterprising and enthusiastic 🙋♀️🙋♀️ 🙋♀️ winemakers. One such argument, a vote on whether Rosso di Montalcino which is 100% Sangiovese should remain as such or other grape varieties should be allowed went a bit too far. Some driven (commercially 💰 more likely) wineries even put it to vote in the main governing body in Sep 2011. Fortunately, the vote was defeated and we still have Rosso as 100% Sangiovese (for now). Ofcourse, this is not to say one can't make a great wine by blending Sangiovese from the hills of Montalcino ⛰ with other great varieties. But the argument to still call it a Rosso and link it to the heritage 🔆 is facetious and devoid of logic. Rosso can be thought of as a second wine for Brunello producers. It brings in the 💵 with an earlier release while the Brunello ages in the cellars & is produced from younger vines from the same vineyards (well mostly, rules to classify a vineyard for Rosso are more relaxed compared to Brunello but a lot of Brunello grape for quality producers goes into Rosso due to severe selection). These are great value bottles that can be opened with a lot less guilt and a lot more frequently. What we also found was the diff in quality across top producers is a lot less compared to their Brunellos. (Only exception are situations where a producer declassifies their Brunello and calls it a Rosso. E.g. Cerbaiona 2015 Rosso which is basically their Brunello harvest). In the glass Barbi Rosso 2017 has flavors of sweet cherry, a touch of wild flowers and mint on the finish. The wine was rated 90 by Antonio Galloni and is drinking beautifully. DM/WA 91089395 and these joyous jewels will be headed your way in a jiffy. Thank you Brendon @iwoodwoodu for the opportunity and this lovely share.
Loved your follow up call bro to share how much you enjoyed it. 💕🍷🙏 @ariannaocchipinti wines are an absolutely inspired effort and in a class of their own. Siccagno Nero d'Avola, like its owner is passionate and honest with a personality of its own. The two hr decanting respect brings out the bouquet. The wine is long, juice with a spiceness of the terroir and a long lingering finish. As I said before, Arianna, doesn't just make a Sicilian Nero d'avola, she makes 'the' Nero d'Avola. She has set the standards that, to us have become a benchmark for how good and how incredibly exciting a bottle of red can be. We think if you still haven't tried her wines, your Sicilian wine pilgrimage is incomplete. Nero d'Avola Siccagno is on a great offer for this week. $69 now (Normally $85). For 6, $65/- DM/WA 91089395 and we will get this elixir your way in no time. When the night demands something extraordinary🏅
Tignanello 2016 (it has been proving harder to wait to hold these bottles in the cellar)- Tig, the dependable, always rises to the occasion. 2016 will probably go down in history as among the best till date. 🍷 Pontet Canet 2013- I think sometime in the last fifteen years, this started feeling like among the very best Bordeaux has to offer. Classified fifth growth hardly does justice to this amazing estate that has been churning 100 pointers in the best vintages and extremely well rated wines across vintages. Just the perfect bottle for such a night. Vieux Telegraphe La Crau 2012- brings the Rhone Valley to you. A classic Chateauneuf du Pape. Just about perfect to drink but could have easily been hidden for two decades to pass to the next generation. 📸 @sidpathak31. Wines from God. The bottle that started our own Brunello journey.🚶♂️
While the single Vineyard Montosoli may be a benchmark 💯 bottle their straight Brunello is rarely too far behind. A collectors bottle from the best years, these have been great irrespective of how perfect or imperfect were the years they grew up in. This one from the 2007 vintage was magnificent when it started after an hour and a half of decanting and remained as such until the last drop. Sincere thanks to a generous wine buddy. This was the last of the lot and he still agreed to open 🤪😅🕺 2007s can comfortably run another decade with the same intensity and love. 💕 We just restocked their 2010s and 2012s two of the recent exceptional vintages from Montalcino. “It’s stupid not to be organic in Sicily,” Ms. Occhipinti said. “We have the perfect climate.”
While the wines of Mount Etna have come to signify wines from Siciliy (and are a wonderful introduction to Sicily), those are not the only great wines Sicilian land has to offer. If you focus too much on Etna, you may even miss the best of what grapes such as Frappato and Nero d'Avola have to offer. Long considered to play second fiddle, wines from Vittoria in Sicily, have their own personality, not unlike the personality of star winemaker Arianna Occhipinti. As Eric (@ericasimov ) shared in the article, "back in the 1980s and ’90s, international grapes like Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay were seen as a way of proving Sicily’s ability to make fine wine despite its reputation for heavy, powerful wines sold in bulk." Fortunately, this didn't take off and all the star winemakers that we have now grown to love went back to indigenous grape varieties like the Frappato and Nero d'Avola. Arianna started at age 16 in her uncle Giusto Occhipinti's cellar and loved the whole winemaking so much she decided to pursue oenology to pursue her own wine production. She began with a mere one hectare of abandoned vines attached to a family vacation house. Fast forward to 2006 when she bottled her first commercial vintage and in less than two decades, what Arianna has achieved has few parallels. Her 25 hectares are certified-organic she practices biodynamic farming, featuring only native Sicilian varietals-Frappato, Nero d'Avola, and other white varieties Albanello and Zibibbo and her wines are among the best the land has to offer. Her Nero d'Avola, made from vines with an average age of 35 years and aged in big Slovenian 25hl oak barrels for 22 months followed by 2 months of bottle ageing is class defining. As Arianna puts it, Nero is the grape that unites Sicily from end to end. We just finished a family celebration opening this bottle.The nose was perfumed, the wine was lively, full of fruit, juicy and spicy. DM/WA 91089395 to order. Morellino di Scansano from Fattoria dei Barbi is born and raised in Maremma (a region famous for its own, relatively untouched rustic beauty 🏔⛰) in Southern parts of Tuscany.
A blend of 85% Sangiovese and 15% Merlot and coming from vines with an average age of 14yrs, it is meant for early drinking to 4-5 yrs of ageing. So we were a bit surprised when the 2013 vintage became the most sought after at a wine dinner we hosted a few years ago for Raffaela from Fattoria dei Barbi. The bottle earned the third spot after the Brunellos displacing its more illustrious cousin Rosso di Montalcino and was the choice of almost every table considering its value appeal. 2016s seem to have taken that same attitude and moved forward. Infact, a bottle we opened early last year almost seemed upset with us for doing that for the first hr before it settled down. Morellino shows the refinement of a well crafted bottle yet at a price of extreme affordability. 2016s are matured and in the best possible drinking window. The wine has notes of small red fruits mixed with ripe cherry, hints of myrtle and Mediterranean scrub as the winery describes it. In the glass 🍷 the wine is medium ruby red with a medium- body and polished tannins. Goes well with meat 🍗dishes, particularly roasts, savory meats and cheeses. Excellent combination for fish 🐟soups and in general any type of fish cooked with spices or tomato sauce per the winery recommendation. WA +65 91089395 for a piece of this Tuscany native. |
AuthorWine Scholar, seller of quality wines that reflect the terroir and the passion of the winemaker. Love to share a glass of great wine. Archives
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