 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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 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.  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. For the love of food pairing
When food loves the wine and wine loves the food. 💕🍷🥘
Perfect pairing, thanks to the perfect pair Andy (@andy33wong & Liqin (@liqinong82 ) Italian wines are an easy couple on the dinner table (mostly 💕😅 unless you really push their buttons). Some can be pretty demanding on their own. But when you call in the right partner, like magic they transform. If the food is too loud, they sit down and listen, if the food is quieter, they gently step up and play the romantic cord. Just remember, interesting pairings 💃🕺can be exciting (once in a while), outrageous ones may cause a mini revolt on your dinner 🥣🍴 table 📸 from our customers @andy33wong& @liqinong82 Many thanks for sharing the moment  Sassicaia 1980-when you are looking for the perfect birth year gift Want to gift the perfect 40th birthday gift? Sassicaia 1980 may be what you are looking forHow to impress a loved one who is celebrating a personal milestone of 40th in 2020?
The perfect gift for someone's 40th is the spectacularly brilliant and yet respectfully and unassumingly, carrying its charm and all that praise casually, Sassicaia 1980. Sassicaia obviously is not new to the fame but back in 1980 it wasn't in every collector's wine cellar, where it should have been. (If it was in yours, you are a star ⭐ 🍷🙏) Although it had started gaining the just recognition a few years ago in 1978 when, as we mentioned in a prior post it triumphed over a field of "great clarets" of 33 wines from 11 countries to earn that international reputation. So, by the time the 1980 came, Sassicaia was already well known to a great extent. . We started first looking for 1980 bottles at the end of last year for a customer and chanced upon this one. . What excited me most personally was how this bottle, which came from a seemingly ordinary vintage has developed and flourished over its long tenure. Aside of the critical reviews from famous critics📝 (and even more important in some way), is how it has caught the attention of the wine lovers the world over. Some are those who were lucky to buy in the days when wine wasn't an investment but more a love affair. Others are those who were willing to dig deeper (in pockets 😃). But the virtual world is awash with ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ reviews and reviewers who can't seem to get enough of this wine. A customer opened it recently to mark such a moment and another one is holding onto it for their special moment later this year. Four more left each @ $650 for you to have a similar opportunity to make that great day even more memorable.
Sassicaia 1975 -another great birth year gift wineSassicaia stories.📝
Everyone has probably heard of the legendary status of the 1985 Sassicaia? The one that was first rated 100 points by Robert Parker. Why? Because it seems he mistook it for a 1986 Mouton-Rothschild. Thanks to that tasting, the wine now trades at a premium of about 5-6x of any other great vintage of Sassicaia. Damn you Robert Parker! But did you know 🤔, before the legendary 1985 stole the show, it was actually the 1975s which enjoyed that same legendary status and were considered among the best ever? It seems, in 1978 Decanter held a tasting called "Great Clarets" of the world's elite wines. This consisted of 33 wines, including Bordeaux First Growths. It was here, that the 1975 Sassicaia vintage took the first place 🏆 among all these legends. As Jancis Robinson, who joined the heir Niocolo Incisa for a tasting of back vintages a decade ago put it, "heady, quite amazing colour. And just lovely silky, racy complex palate with all the tannins melded. Lovely fresh stuff. So racy, Just perfect now! This has lasted magnificently - much better than most red bordeaux. 19/20 points." So not only the people born in the year 75 are absolutely the most amazing 😜, even the wines 🍷🍷 from our birth year are equally awesome! Have a lovely weekend all.  Wine delivery on a Saturday morning Saturday Morning Wine DeliverySaturday morning wine delivery. 🚚
Thank you @markieong for the opportunity. These wine deliveries were among the best parts of this business. A chance to meet, greet and share a glass of wine 🍷 With the contact-less 👏🚫 wine delivery as standard, now we are just voices, delivery a bit of a transaction 📤📥 to get the job done. (Though I must admit some of the security teams 🔐 in various🏫 estates do add a bit of adventure. 😅 I really think we could train some of them on how to implent safe distancing measures and contact-less safe deliveries 😅😂🍷) These reposts are now some much needed reminders of the common wine passions shared by all of us. Please keep them coming. Look forward to the times when we can get together and share some of these gems 🍷🍷 |
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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