Campania Stories 3: Grapes Galore!

Back at the beginning of March, I had a great time in Campania, tasting one fine wine after another in between gorging on fresh mozzarella and ricotta di bufala. I had to keep reminding myself that this was supposed to be work, and that I probably shouldn’t enjoy it so much, but I just couldn’t keep that stern admonition in mind for very long, and before I knew it I was enjoying myself again. Darn!

The serious purpose that had brought me to Campania, and the source of most of my pleasure, was a pair of events: one the new releases of Taurasi and the red wines of Avellino province, which I wrote about in my last post, the other the new releases of the red wines of Campania’s other provinces, Benevento, Caserta, Napoli, and Salerno. Such fame as Campania’s red wines have largely belongs to Taurasi, but Aglianico is by no means Campania’s only noteworthy red variety, and provinces other than Avellino, as I found out, are quickly cutting their own paths to distinction. Producers all over the region are exploiting its rich history and abundant resources to make themselves contenders for the crown.

Campania, it is claimed, contains more traditional grape varieties than all of France, and I encountered a good fraction of them during my stay. Most growers don’t specialize but raise both red and white grapes.

Nicola Venditti

My very first visit, the evening of my arrival in Campania, was to Venditti, an 11-hectare (~25-acre) estate in Benevento. The owner/winemaker, Nicola Venditti, cultivates 20 varieties traditional to his area, including some that, as he puts it, “aren’t in the catalog.” So much for Jancis Robinson’s heroic labors.

Venditti’s principal white varieties include Falanghina, Grieco (which he insists is not Greco), and Cerreto – the latter a very localized variety unknown elsewhere. From these he vinifies a Sannio bianco (Grieco and Cerreto), a round, soft wine, creamy from being matured sur lie, with pleasing wet-stone and fresh pear aromas and flavors. A bit too full for an aperitif, it is what Venditti refers to as his white wine for everyday, while his 100% Falanghina del Sannio, which is a very classic rendition of the grape, he describes as “for Sunday.” “For feast days,” he makes Bacalat, a blend of Falanghina, Grieco, and Cerreto. This too is a big wine, with scents of the sea and the Mediterranean macchia. It is pronouncedly herbal and mineral in the mouth, and to my palate calls out for a big grilled fish.

His red grapes are just as varied: Aglianico of course, and Piedirosso, plus Montepulciano (which, despite the name, is probably a clone of Sangiovese), Ulivetta, and Barbetta, which turns out to be clone of Barbera very different from anything grown in the Piedmont. He maintains a gradation similar to that of his whites: His everyday red is Sannio Rosso, a blend of Montepulciano, Ulivetta, and Aglianico, quite nice and lively, with excellent fruit, fine balance, and a long finish; it was delicious with primi. Next came Barbetta, a wine unlike any other Barbera I’ve ever tasted: big, round, cherry/berry-ish, with plenty of acidity and a very persistent, bitter-chocolate finish. A single-vineyard Aglianico, Marraioli 2008, followed next, a first-rate wine with textbook Aglianico character. After that came Bosco Caldaia 2007. This is a blend of Aglianico, Montepulciano, and Piedirosso, deep and dark in color and aroma and flavor, a wine that Venditti rightly considers appropriate to grand occasions.

So that was the start of this visit to Campania. The next morning I visited Villa Matilde, a considerably larger estate in Caserta, not far from the Mediterranean coast and near the border with Lazio, in the stretch of spent-volcano hill country that the ancient Romans regarded as the best vineyards in Italy, the source of their prized Falernum. Villa Matilde was born of a passion to rediscover that wine, and while no one can be certain that the grapes now cultivated in those volcanic soils are the same ones the Romans grew, the quality of the wines they produce can’t be questioned.

In the years since its founding, Villa Matilde has acquired properties in Benevento province and in Avellino, from which it produces Aglianico IGT and Falanghina IGT (both Benevento) and Greco di Tufo DOCG, Fiano di Avellino DOCG, and Taurasi DOCG (all Avellino), all of excellent quality – but the heart of the estate and the hearts of Maria Ida and Salvatore Avallone, the daughter and son of its founder, are still fixed on the meticulously cared-for ancestral property.

Maria Ida and Salvatore Avallone

There they produce DOC Falerno del Massico, white (100% Falanghina) and red (80% Aglianico, 20% Piedirosso), wines of great richness and power – important dinner wines both. Even more impressive are their big brothers, the white Caracci (100% Falanghina) and the red Camarato (80% Aglianico, 20% Piedirosso). These are single-vineyard wines, made only in the best vintages, and structured for long life. These are both intense and complex wines that grow in the glass as they breathe and seem to put on bulk in the bottle as they age. For all that, the 2001 Camarato tasted younger to me than the 2006 did, even though the ’01 had become huge and deep with its extra years of age – very impressive indeed.

I had more visits than this, and they were all in the same superior vein, so that I began to think I was taking part in some sort of grand triumphal procession. Di Meo, La Rivolta, Mustilli, Nifo Sarrapochiello – all offered excellent wines, in variety and in profusion. Let me just list my favorite from each, lest this post turn into a tome.

Di Meo: This estate really showed the aging ability of Campania’s white wines, especially the Fiano di Avellino (we tasted back to 2000). My favorite was the cru Alessandria 2009, a superb wine redolent of pears and minerals, live and exciting.

La Rivolta: Aglianico Riserva 2008 Terra di Rivolta – a great wine from a great vintage: leather, black cherry, chocolate, tobacco, black pepper, with a dried fruit finish.

Mustilli: This house makes all the classic wines of the zone, and they all really want cellaring, so my favorites were the two oldest wines shown: a 1988 Aglianico that was absolutely lovely and poised, and a 1978 (!) Greco di Tufo that was still live and flavorful, though fully evolved into a totally different spectrum from the flavors of young Greco.

Nifo Sarrapochiello: A family enterprise, with father in the field and son in cellar. They produce the gamut of Benevento wines, including some very pleasing whites (Falanghina and Fiano), but their strong suit is the red Aglianico del Taburno, just in the process of becoming DOCG. I liked very much both the basic Aglianico 2009 – unwooded, smooth, accessible, with lovely blackberry/mulberry fruit – and the Aglianico Riserva 2008 D’Erasmo – very big and earthy, with that same blackberry/mulberry fruit and excellent structure.

This post is already going on too long, and I haven’t even gotten to the formal tasting yet. I’ll have to hold that for another post. Arriverderci!

On the Road

I’m facing a period of prolonged travel – some of it vacation, some of it business, all of it pleasurable – but I won’t be able to put up these posts with my usual regularity. So please bear with me while I’m on the road.  The tales of my Campanian adventures will be continued in about two weeks.

Campania Stories 2: Taurasi and Aglianico

Initially, the event that most drew me to Campania, back at the beginning of March, was the tasting of new releases of Taurasi and Taurasi riserva. This has for decades been one of my favorite wines, though it has suffered the fate of most southern Italian wines: It just doesn’t get the attention or respect it deserves. As I’ve said before, I rank the Aglianico grape from which it’s made right up with, and in some vintages above, Nebbiolo. While most of Italy is content to think of Taurasi – when it thinks of it at all – as the Barolo of the South, in Campania they are more likely – and more correctly, given the historical diffusion of viti- and viniculture in Italy – to think of Barolo as the Taurasi of the north.

All that prologue is to explain the excitement with which I approached the blind tasting of 48 examples of Taurasi and Taurasi riserva of the 2006, ’07, ’08, and ’09 vintages, plus 16 more bottles of Aglianico of the 2008, ’09, ’10, and ’11 vintages. I hoped this broad swathe of Aglianico production from its heartland, Irpinia, would give me a good picture of exactly what was happening in this important zone. For sure, it did, and for sure it made me one happy camper. I found many wines to enjoy and not a few to relish.

That wasn’t the only Taurasi vertical I was fortunate enough to squeeze into my hyperactive week in Campania: I talked about one last month, and I’ll talk about another further along in this post. But first I want to focus on the new releases, which I tasted blind (I always opt to do that when I can: it cuts out all the prejudices of familiarity and label-consciousness and gives me as close as a single taster can get to an objective assessment of the wines).

The tasting was very intelligently and helpfully organized. We started with four vintages of Aglianicos from areas outside the Taurasi DOCG: Campi Taurasina, Irpinia, and Campania IGTs: 16 wines in all. The 2011s were very pleasant, the 2010s very tight right now, the 2009s a mixed bag, and the 2008s really fine. Among the wines I thought showed best were several names that will be familiar on the US market: Mastroberardino, Donna Chiara, Villa Raiano. But smaller producers less widely distributed also performed very well: Antico Castello, Antichi Coloni, Caggiano, Di Marzo, and especially Luigi Tecce, whose Campi Taurasini Satyricon was outstanding.

All these wines exhibited excellent Aglianico character – black cherry fruit and tobacco and marked minerality, along with lovely balance and, in the 2008s especially, some real elegance. These IGT wines tend to be quite reasonably priced, and you don’t have to be in a hurry to drink them: They will take some bottle age nicely – even the already-five-year-old 2008s. They are the quality equivalent of village Burgundies, at the price of Borgogne Rouge.

The tasting then moved on to the Taurasi DOCG wines: first the 2009s, then 2008 riservas, then 2007 and 2006 riservas. Within each vintage the presentation was divided into geographic sections: first wines blended from grapes originating in two or more subzones, then wines made in the northern quadrant of the Taurasi zone, then the western zone (which overlaps with the Fiano di Avellino zone), then the central valley (bearing no resemblance at all to the similarly named site in California), and finally the southern zone, indicated as alta valle – high valley. I confess that I couldn’t consistently discriminate between these subzones. There may well be specific characteristics that identify the wines of each, but I’d need more experience to be able to spot them.

One thing I did notice: in the ’09 vintage, I really enjoyed the Versante sud/alta valle wines: They had a juiciness and freshness that really set them apart. These are the examples I tasted:

• Masseria Murrata Passione
• Fratelli Urciuolo
• Tecce Poliphemo
• Amarano Principe Lagonessa
• Villa Raiano
• Colli di Castelfranci Alta Valle
• Bambinuto

Overall, the 2009 vintage at this early stage of its development is quite pleasing, whatever subzone it’s from – more accessible and less austere than young Taurasi can often be, with nice fruit, good balance, and classic Taurasi elegance.

The 2008 vintage on the other hand showed the powerful side of Taurasi, both in regular bottlings and in riservas. Dark flavors dominated – deep black cherry, earth and mineral elements, tobacco, leather. Big, full-bodied wines with still-firm tannins, they will greatly reward cellaring for even a few years. In short, textbook Taurasi, which is no mean compliment. I liked many of the 48 I tasted, but since many of the small producers aren’t available on the US market, I won’t tantalize you with them here. Of the widely distributed producers, I particularly admired these:

• Donna Chiara riserva
• Feudi di San Gregorio Piano di Montevergine riserva
• Terredora Pago dei Fusi 2008 and Fatica Contadina
• Villa Matilde.

Among the older riservas, I would single out both Mastroberardino’s Radici 2007 and its Naturalis Historia 2007.

I’ve posted earlier about Mastroberardino’s magnificent, six-decade vertical of Taurasi, but I was also lucky enough while I was in the Irpinia zone to experience one other impressive vertical. Sabino Loffredo, owner of Pietracupa and a fine winemaker in his own right (his 2009 Taurasi stands among the best of that vintage, and his white wines – Greco di Tufo and Fiano di Avellino – are top-notch) organized a vertical tasting of his friend Luigi Tecce’s Taurasi Poliphemo. This covered the vintages 2008, ’07, ’06, ’05, ’03, and 2001, all of which were absolutely classic Taurasis, with clearly delineated dark fruits (I kept tasting mulberries in addition to blackberry and sour cherry) and tobacco flavors, lovely soft tannins, and admirable earth-and-mineral notes.

Luigi Tecci
photo © Tom Hyland

Tecce describes himself as a “less than minimalist” winemaker, insisting that he does nothing to the grapes. “Soils are everything,” he says, and his are high – at or above 500 meters – and a mix of volcanic and marine layers. He ferments his Taurasi in chestnut before moving it for some months to used barriques and then finally to botti to repose for some time before bottling. He harvests late – in ’07, in the snow; in ’06 he finished harvest on November 26th – and he doesn’t even use temperature-controlled fermentation: in short, winemaking the way it used to be in Italy before the impact of California technology, with all the advantages and disadvantages that implies. In Tecce’s case, his meticulous attention to his five hectares of vines makes it work magnificently. These very limited production wines are worth searching for. (For another enthusiastic review of this tasting, go here.)

But so are many – probably most – of the wines I tasted all week long. In all honesty, I didn’t taste a bad bottle the whole week I was there, so you should be willing to at least try any Taurasi of these recent vintages that you come across. The market is in some flux: Italy seems finally to becoming conscious of the vinous treasures it has in the south, especially in Campania, and my guess is that the US market will not be far behind in awareness. So with a little luck, we will start seeing more examples of Taurasi here, soon. Speriamo, eh?

Campania Stories 1: Rare Grapes and Surprising Wines

My stint in Campania during the first week in March was one of the best wine weeks I’ve spent anywhere, ever. It alternated anticipated pleasures with enjoyable surprises. One of the biggest surprises, and biggest pleasures, came in my encounter with three great rarities, the rediscovered grapes Pallagrello nero, Pallagrello bianco, and Casavecchia.

I was visiting Campania for two related wine events – one, new releases of Taurasi and its kindred Aglianico wines of Avellino province (more about this in another post), and the other, an event called “Campania Stories – I Vini Rossi”: essentially, the other red wines of the other provinces of Campania: Benevento, Caserta, Napoli, and Salerno (more about this too in the future).

My focus in this post is one of the most extremely other: a tiny subzone of a subzone of Caserta province, the area until recently referred to as Terre del Volturno IGT, which is in the process of receiving smaller and more precise designations for its three principal grape varieties, Pallagrello nero and Pallagrello bianco, whose exact IGT area is even now being determined, and Casavecchia, now Casavecchia Pontelatone IGT. These grapes, scarcely known to me before this trip, constituted the biggest eye-opener of the week.

My major exposure to them came in the form of a mini-vertical tasting presented by the winemakers of three estates, Selvanova, Nanni Copè, and Terre del Principe. Each winery showed three vintages:

• Selvanova: 2010, 2008, and 2006 Pallagrello bianco

• Nanni Copè: 2008, 2009, and 2010 Pallagrello nero

• Terre del Principe: 2005, 2006, and 2007 Casavecchia.

Every single wine was stunning, and every knowledgeable Italian wine journalist present was absolutely bowled over. This is a new dimension in great Italian wine, a whole new set of flavor profiles to explore. Need I say, Great fun!

Giovanni Ascione

“Pallagrello nero is a grape extraordinarily noble.” So says Giovanni Ascione, owner of the Nanni Copè estate and one of the variety’s most passionate partisans. I agree with him wholeheartedly, just as I share the enthusiasm of Peppe Mancini and Manuela Piancastelli, the owners of Terre del Principe, for all three varieties. The latter couple rediscovered and began reviving these grapes when they set out, slightly more than 20 years ago, to find the vines and wines that Peppe remembered from his childhood. In that short time, they have recreated an ancient wine zone and created, within Italy at least, a modern reputation for wines famous in antiquity. Though still rare, these wines are steadily gathering support: There may be as many as 20 wineries now working with them.

Winemaker Gennaro Reale of Selvanova led off the tasting with three vintages of a single-vineyard, 100% Pallagrello bianco labeled Acquavigna – probably because the vines are planted on a slope lying within a wide meander of the Volturno river. These were lovely and intriguing wines, with aromas of citrus, pineapple, and honey (the 2010), orange peel (the 2008), and pineapple, banana, and citrus (the 2006). On the palate they were equally exotic: the ’06, for instance, had lovely balance, with fresh acidity enlivening soft pear-and-orange fruit, with a long, dried-orange-peel finish. Despite what all those fruit elements might seem to indicate, these wines were fully dry, and they were big – definitely dinner wines, not aperitifs. Pallagrello bianco can never be mistaken for another Chardonnay-wannabe: This is a distinctive wine, occupying a very special niche within the panoply of Italian white varieties.

Giovanni Ascione followed with Sabbie di Sopra il Bosco, his traditional field blend of roughly 90% Pallagrello nero, almost 10% Aglianico, and a sprinkling of Casavecchia. He showed 2008, 2009, and 2010 – his first three vintages, of which the ’09 and the ’10 both got Tre Bicchieri from Gambero Rosso and Cinque Grappoli from the Italian Sommeliers Association. This Pallagrello nero is the only wine he makes, from slightly more than three hand-tended (mostly by him) hectares. He has every single vine entered on an Excel spreadsheet, and he follows each one as if it were his only child. His production is tiny – 620 cases – and exquisite.

Here are my notes on the 2008: “Nose: chocolate, tobacco, black cherry jam. Dry chocolate/cherry on the palate; round, with soft tannins and bright acidity. A meaty finish, with leather undertones. Overall, intense and fine, with seemingly a long life in front of it. The aroma opens over time to leather and dried beef. A chewable wine, textured and rich.” I’ll spare you the rest of my notes on the ’09 and ’10: They’re in the same vein. My final comment says it all: “These are amazingly complex wines – intense, complicated, and quite wonderful.”

Go here for a different but equally enthusiastic take on these wines.

(By the way: despite the names, there seems to be no relation between Pallagrello nero and Pallagrello bianco varieties. There may be a connection between the nero grape and Casavecchia, but even that is uncertain: These three varieties are not close kin to any other known grapes.)

The tasting was closed by Peppe Mancini and Manuela Piancastelli of Terre del Principe. They presented three vintages of Centomoggia, a 100% Casavecchia that has won its share of Tre Bicchieri and Cinque Grappoli awards. Some 15% of this wine derives from vines that are between 100 and 150 years old – the mother plants that Peppe uncovered in his original researches, back in the 1980s, which are the source of almost all the Casavecchia vines now in production.

We tasted the 2005, 2006, and 2007 vintages of Centomoggia, and to call them big and distinctive is an understatement on both counts. Even the youngest of them was huge, a strapping baby Paul Bunyan of a wine, and the 2005 was almost monumental, despite seeming to have years of maturation still ahead of it. The aroma was almost a dinner: cacao, black pepper, spices, and beef jerky. In the mouth, it was soft, round, dry, and big, tasting of beef, black fruits, and black pepper, with a pleasing and absolutely fitting leathery finish – and nevertheless intense and fresh. A quite astonishing wine, and its younger sibs all showed clear family resemblances to it.

Subsequently, I had the opportunity to visit both Nanni Copè and Terre del Principe. Giovanni Ascione drew for me barrel samples of his 2011 and 2012 Sabbie del Sopra il Bosco. These two vintages shared the same level of quality, the same elegance, and the same allure that I tasted in his three bottled vintages – so I have been lucky enough to experience the entire range of Ascione’s production. For the record: His whole cellar is about the size of a two-truck garage – in fact, his colleagues enjoy teasing him about being a garagiste.

At Terre del Principe, Manuela and Peppe poured five vintages of their unoaked Pallagrello bianco Fontanavigna (2011, ‘10, ’09, ’08, 07), six vintages of their Pallagrello nero Ambruco (2009, ’08, ’07, ’06, ’05, ’04), and the 2008 vintage of their blend Piancastelli (75% Pallagrello nero, 25% Casavecchia). I’ll spare us all the many repetitions of superlatives that punctuate my tasting notes. All you really need to know is that every sample was excellent, with even the whites (marked by almond and pear flavors throughout) taking bottle age very well. The Ambrucos smelled and tasted of black fruit – especially blackberry and mulberry – and tobacco and leather through all the vintages, with the oldest, the 2004, showing the loveliest balance and elegance of the lot. The Piancastelli blend too was richly endowed with sweetish dark fruit and a whole bouquet of herbs, “a wine,” as Manuela remarked, “that you can eat.”

In short: This was an extraordinary concentration of great wines from a very tiny zone – a zone I’m sure the wine world will be hearing more of in the future.

Two Useful New Books

Two recently published books deserve every wine lover’s attention. Beyond Barolo and Brunello: Italy’s Most Distinctive Wines, by Tom Hyland, and The World of Sicilian Wine, by Bill Nesto, MW, and Frances Di Savino, take very different approaches to their subjects, but both offer abundant and valuable information for anyone curious beyond the most obvious level of Italian wine lore.

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Tom Hyland is a Chicago-based freelance wine writer and photographer who fell in love with Italy, its people, and its wines more than a dozen years ago and has been immersing himself in them ever since. His Beyond Barolo and Brunello organizes itself in what seems a familiar pattern, but then quickly moves off in unexpected directions. It treats all of Italy’s regions, north to south and the islands, an arrangement that will be familiar to anyone who has done a little reading in Italian wine – or in Italian travel, for that matter. But within each section, Hyland’s treatment is very different from the conventional.

He begins each regional section with a simple listing of the most important grape varieties grown there, and then presents cameos of his favorite producers of each variety. This means that each chapter offers a survey of some of the best producers of each region in particular relation to what Hyland considers their best wines. For most readers, this will create some comforting recognitions, and a few surprises. For example: Massolino’s Barolo Vigna Rionda Riserva is an expected and appropriate entry – it’s a famous wine, after all – but how delightful it is to find entries as well for less familiar appellations and makers, such as the Boca from Le Piane, or Sella’s Lessona “Omaggio a Quintino Sella” from Piemonte’s northern wine zone.

Similarly, in his treatment of Campania, all the famous varieties – Aglianico, Greco, Fiano – and all their famous makers – Mastroberardino, Terredora, Feudi di San Gregorio and so on – are handled thoroughly, but there is also respectful treatment of lesser-known varieties (the whites Falanghina, Coda di Volpe, Asprinio, Fenile, Ginestra, and Biancolella; the reds Piedirosso, Tintore, and even Merlot) and their producers. So Pietracupa’s and Ciro Picariello’s Fianos are presented right alongside their more famous compatriots. In the same way among the red wines, along with the famous Taurasis and Aglianicos, you find such fine small producers as Monte di Grazia, whose Costa d’Amalfi Rosso harbors the rare Tintore grape. For the wine lover who wants to explore the spacious world of Italian wine, Beyond Barolo and Brunello opens a very wide door to a treasurehouse of wines and their producers.

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The Nesto/Di Savino book, The World of Sicilian Wine, approaches its more traditional subject in a more traditional way, starting with several quite interesting chapters about the long – and for its protagonists, too often frustrating – history of winemaking in Sicily, a process too often directed more by external events and foreign interests than by Sicilians themselves. There follow equally interesting sections on the geography, geology, and climate(s) of Sicily and how all of these affect winemaking. Three large chapters deal in detail with the contemporary wine situation in Sicily’s three main geographical sections, the Val di Mazara, Val di Noto, and Val Demone. All three chapters feature interviews, long and short, with producers, great and small, yielding a fascinating overview of the important trends in Sicilian wine right now, as well as informative perspectives on some of the principal players.

This clearly a heartfelt book: The authors’ affection for Sicily and its people – especially its devoted wine people – shines through everywhere, though it never gets in the way of their clear-eyed view of Sicilian winemaking’s possibilities and pitfalls. Of course in a book that covers as much ground as this one does, there are bound to be areas where my opinion differs from the authors’ – for example, I’m much more enthusiastic about the Carricante variety and the Etna wines made from it than they seem to be. But that’s a minor point: The key thing to remember is that this is a very carefully done, thoroughly researched production, packed with information and detail that will be very hard to find anywhere else. If you want to know about Sicilian wine, this is your book.

Mastroberardino: The History of Taurasi

Antonio Mastroberardino is one of my oldest friends in the wine business. Our first meeting, now shrouded in the mists of many memories, took place sometime in the ‘70s. He was already then a first-rate winemaker and a warm human being, with an unexpectedly scholarly turn of mind. Over the decades, the two of us have watched each other weathering.

So it was an emotional moment for me, just two weeks ago, when he – now almost 85 – entered the room at the end of a six-decade vertical tasting of Mastroberardino Taurasi. Five of the wines – vintages 1952, 1961, 1970, 1985, and 1996 (the other was 2006) were of his making, and his appearance at the moment that all of us in attendance were registering astonishment and admiration at their phenomenally high quality and freshness was a perfect cap to the occasion and, in a way, to his and my long acquaintance. It had the feeling of something special, something grand and celebratory, a little like a Pavarotti farewell concert.

In addition to its emotional impact on me, that tasting also crystallized for me some fundamental truths that I had been gradually realizing over many years of drinking Taurasi. To wit:

• Campania’s Aglianico stands among the world’s noblest red wine grapes – in my opinion the equal of, and perhaps the superior to, Piedmont’s Nebbiolo.
• Taurasi is, at this moment in Aglianico’s long history, its supreme manifestation.
• The Mastroberardino family embodies Taurasi’s modern history, as central to Aglianico’s existence and its excellence as Biondi Santi is to Brunello.

These are truths that need to be proclaimed to every wine lover everywhere.

What had initially brought me to Campania were two events, the presentation of new releases of red wines from the provinces of Benevento, Caserta, Napoli, and Salerno, and the presentation of new releases of Taurasi. Along with the many visits to wineries that were dotted through the week (you’ll hear more about them in future posts), I was among a small group of international journalists invited to attend this important vertical tasting at Mastroberardino’s winery in Atripalda.

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Piero Mastroberardino, Antonio’s son and now the head of the firm, presented the wines. After a few remarks about the history of the family and their involvement with Taurasi – his great-grandfather started exporting Taurasi in 1878, for instance – he let us taste the wines without comment. His confidence in the wines was such that he clearly felt no need to guide anyone’s response. And he was absolutely right. At first, no one spoke as we sipped the wines in sequence – we started with the ’52 – and looked at one another “silent, with a wild surmise” (apologies to John Keats). After that came what can only be described as excited babbling as we all tried to verbalize what we were experiencing.

It was like no other tasting that I’ve ever been at for the extraordinary level of excellence of each wine, for their stunning typicity, and for Mastroberardino’s consistency of style over the past 60 years. Each wine looked, smelled, and tasted archetypically Taurasi. Each showed a balance, an elegance, a silkiness that clearly marked the house style. And at the same time, each was clearly distinctive in itself and distinct from its siblings, reflecting the character of the different vintages. I know this is a lot of superlatives, but what I’m trying to describe was felt by every person in the room. Here’s the saddest thing I can say to my readers: To fully grasp the greatness of these wines, you had to be there.

Here are the particulars. Quoted remarks and details of each harvest’s weather are drawn from information Piero distributed at the tasting.

Taurasi 1952

Great color: brilliant garnet heart edged in orange. Ethereal nose of blackberry, cherry, tea, and tar, complex and delicate. The same on the palate. The wine still tastes fresh, and carries all its complexity into its finish. The wine gave more and more as it opened – spice, tea, incense – with no sign of fading. The harvest in those days started in mid-November and ran to mid-December. (Piero showed some photos of grape-laden vines with snow on them.) In 1952, rainfall had been scanty during most of the year, but the middle of August was very wet, slowing the maturation of the grapes and causing a late harvest with good acid levels and soft tannins in the grapes.

It’s worth noting that the Mastroberardinos rated 1952 a four-star, not a five-star, vintage.

Taurasi Riserva 1961

This vintage they rated five-star. Very wet spring followed by very dry summer and autumn brought on an early harvest, marked by sharply reduced quantities and small berries “with higher sugar content and lower acidity than the average. There were some fermentation difficulties,” but overall “the harvest was characterized by the exceptional quality of the grapes.” This wine had a huge aroma, with similar elements to the 1952, but bigger and fresher, and on the palate it followed suit. This was a perfectly precise, perfectly ready wine – just gorgeous – and it got better and better as it opened.

I and several other tasters were surprised that the wine the Mastroberardinos chose to represent the decade of the ‘60s wasn’t the 1968 Taurasi Riserva, which a goodly number of Italian wine aficionados consider a leading candidate for Italian Wine of the Century. If their point was to show that they had more than one string to their bow, they certainly succeeded.

Taurasi Riserva DOC 1970

Another four-star rated vintage, and the first one under the newly installed DOC regulations. Cold winter, hot spring, with growth slowed by rains in June. “Summer was hot. Autumn, mainly dry and sunny, allowed good grape ripening. Vinification started on October 20 and ended with excellent results in mid-November.” Overall: “a great vintage.”

Aside from the merest whiff of acetone at the beginning, everything about this wine was in perfect order, from the precision of the varietal flavors to the delightful juiciness of the fruit. The berry flavors – blackberry, mulberry, sour cherry – just kept getting brighter and richer as the wine opened. If my memories of drinking this wine in the ‘80s are accurate, it was initially a pretty formidable wine, with very firm tannins. If so, they have softened beautifully, and the wine now is a complete delight.

Taurasi DOC 1985

Five-star rating for the vintage. “This was a great harvest, one to remember. Average rainfall. A very favorable seasonal pattern, alternating hot and rainy May, hot and dry June and July, hot and rainy August, warm and dry September with a strong temperature differential of about 15 degrees Celsius between day and night.” Early harvest, “about 15 days before the average.”

1985 was a great year for wine through most of Italy, and I have vivid memories of many of these wines, because as new releases they were hard work to taste: big, concentrated wines, with firm – in some cases aggressive – tannins and masses of fruit lurking underneath. The bottle in question was still tight in its aroma, still very firm on the palate, and clearly very, very young. It showed wonderful sweet, berry fruit, dark and intense, and it opened very slowly in the glass, still not ready to give itself freely. What showed now was already big and generous, but for my palate it needs years yet to show fully all that it has. How many 28-year-old wines can you still regard as adolescents?

Radici Taurasi riserva DOCG 1996

Four-star rating. If the ’85 was an adolescent, this wine was an infant – gorgeous, but an infant. A somewhat irregular growing season – rain in August, during veraison, and very low temperatures in September – slowed down maturation and gifted the wines with what the Mastroberardinos describe as “a perfect aromatic profile.” Harvest lasted until mid-November, “with some snowfall.”

The aroma was unquestionably intriguing, marked with earthy, mineral elements and rich dried fruit scents – very youthful. The palate was all sweet berryish fruit, lush and generous and at this point undifferentiated. The dried fruit returned in the long, intriguing finish. This was a thoroughly lovely wine, but so evidently young that you almost feel like a pederast for enjoying it so much. It will be hard to cellar this wine, hard to keep your hands off it long enough to let it mature properly.

Radici Taurasi riserva DOCG 2006

Four stars. According to the Mastroberardinos, “the fresh climate and well-distributed rainfall allowed a great vintage.” Because the grapes matured slowly, harvest was late, ending in mid-November. “The wines are characterized by an elegant aromatic expression and a good longevity outlook.”

I found the aromas earthy and rich and slightly tannic. In the mouth, the wine showed a blend of sweet berries, tar, and tobacco, with an initially long finish that extended itself even more as the wine breathed. Balance and structure are ample for long life, but I don’t think this beauty will even begin showing its best for 10 years yet.

*   *   *   *   *

The consistency of style and quality that these wines showed across 60 years of vintages is simply amazing. That is an incredible accomplishment, made possible by the fact that, as Piero told me, the family has more than 100 years of Taurasi in their cellars, and they use selected bottles regularly in their in-house tastings precisely to ensure that continuity of style. It is a style that in mature wines achieves the level of elegance and harmony that had wowed us all.

Antonio, Tom, and Piero
photo by Tom Hyland

It struck me, sitting there with my six gradually emptying glasses in front of me, that the many other impressive wines I had been tasting all week were lovely instrumental solos, but that each of these Mastroberardino wines was a whole symphony in itself – not a great metaphor, nor a very clear one, but the best I can do to convey to you the richness they conveyed to me.

Bertani: The Old Shall Be New Again

The prestigious Bertani firm, famous as a pioneer of Amarone, has recently undergone a major reorganization. A large part of the operation has been acquired by Tenimenti Angelini, which holds several important properties in key wine zones in Tuscany. The Bertani family, headed by Gaetano Bertani and actively led now by his sons Giovanni and Guglielmo, has retained the famous Villa Mosconi and key vineyards in the Valpolicella, Amarone, and Soave zones of the Veneto. These amount to some 124 acres, making them not only one of the largest single landowners in the Veneto, but also one of the few winemakers in the region able to supply all the grapes they need directly from their own vineyards. That – along with their 300 years of winemaking experience – guarantees that they will continue to be major players in the northern Italian wine scene.

Left to right: Giovanni, Gaetano, Guglielmo

Giovanni Bertani was in New York recently to explain the new arrangements and to introduce some of the family’s new labels and wines. The Bertani family wines will now appear under the Tenuta Santa Maria alla Pieve label, and they will continue to be overseen by consulting enologist Franco Bernabei and his son Matteo, an arrangement that now extends into its third generation the links of the Bernabei and Bertani families.

Giovanni explained that his father has long been in love with Merlot and other French wines, so the vineyards around the Villa Mosconi winemaking facility are planted with more French varieties than Veneto natives – Garganega for Soave, but also Chardonnay and Merlot, as well as small amounts of Cabernet franc, Sauvignon, and even Syrah. The Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella, and Molinara necessary for Valpolicella, Ripasso, and Amarone come from their vineyards in the heart of the Valpolicella zone.

Nine Tenuta Santa Maria wines were presented at the event, starting with a very nice and quite characteristic 2011 Soave Lepia, a wine that gave the lie to the claim that a Soave must be a Classico to show real typicity. In its modest way, this wine demonstrated the quality of Bertani’s vineyards and vinification.

Then followed a 2008 Chardonnay Pieve, medium-bodied, round and soft. Despite time in barriques, the wine happily showed no wood at all, but instead a concentration of pleasing white fruit and citrus flavors, suggesting a rather Burgundian approach to Chardonnay.

The red wines started with 2010 Rosso Veneto Pragal, a blend of Merlot and Shiraz. The Shiraz definitely showed in the slightly peppery finish, but what I was mostly aware of in tasting this young wine was the kind of elegance that only generations of experience can give.

The second red was a much more traditional and regional wine, 2009 Valpolicella Ripasso, and it was excellent, a lovely, soft wine with a big and very long dry fruit finish – black cherry and funghi porcini. It wouldn’t be wrong to describe it as a modestly scaled Amarone – and I definitely mean that as a compliment.

Next came a mini-vertical of Gaetano’s pet project, Merlot vinified in a modified version of the Amarone method – grapes picked ripe and allowed to dry for some months before crushing, and then fermented long and slow at low temperatures. The wine is called Decima Aurea, and the 2007, 2004, and 2002 were offered. I’d say the experiment was a glorious success. The Amarone process makes Merlot into a more substantial wine than one usually encounters, and does so without losing character, fruit, or softness. These three were fine wines across the board, with the ’02 impressing most – in part because it was the most mature, and in part because it was such a fine wine from what was a pretty dismal, wet year throughout Italy.

Giovanni also showed a 2007 Amarone, about which I’ll reserve judgment. It’s very difficult to tell how so young an Amarone will develop. This one was quite accessible, but didn’t seem fully balanced – a problem that may resolve in a few years, or a few decades.

The final wine of the day was a rarity that showed the continuity of Bertani tradition – a 1928 Acinatico. Acinatico is the old name for what is now called Recioto, a wine ancestral to Amarone. The wine offered at this tasting was one of a small trove of bottles hidden behind a farmhouse wall during WWII – when the wine was already 15 years old – and forgotten until rediscovered during restoration work in 1984. Its storage conditions turned out to have been ideal: the wine is live and fresh and completely mature without any sign of tiredness. It was the tawny brown color of old Madeira, and had a huge aroma of cherry liqueur. The palate was rich and intense – semi-sweet black cherry and chocolate – followed by a very long finish of the same flavors. Lovely and very much alive, it was a pleasure and a privilege to drink.

When a family can make a benchmark wine like that Acinatico, you have got to hope that the genes and the genius, in the vines, the land, and the people, persist for many generations more. Good luck, Giovanni.

Bertani Family’s Villa Mosconi

Avanti, Sardegna!

Sardinians have been making a brave showing here in New York in recent days. First Sella & Mosca, the large, 114-year-old firm that has been named Gambero Rosso’s “Winery of the Year” for 2013, presented a selection of its line of wines in a luncheon at Ai Fiori restaurant. Then the consortium of producers of Carignano del Sulcis offered a whole slate of Tre Bicchieri winners during a luncheon at Eataly’s Scuola Grande. All told, probably too many calories for my ever-growing middle, but a very fine and interesting collection of wines.

For an island that has been invaded, conquered, and owned over the centuries by so many diverse peoples, from Phoenicians and Carthaginians to Arabs, Genoese, French, and Catalans, Sardinia remains the most isolated region of Italy. It’s a land where in some respects time stands still. The island’s language – it’s an injustice to call it a dialect – sounds like late Latin. Neolithic monuments dot the countryside. Pre-phylloxera vineyards of grapes still on their own roots are numerous, as are indigenous varieties.

For wine-lovers, those last two facts should be enough to attract attention, but until recently that hasn’t been the case. The quality of the wines I tasted on these two recent occasions promises to change that, however. Sardinia has been making notable wines for some time – and as the flurry of Gambero Rosso awards should indicate, somebody is finally noticing.

Consulting enologist (and talented Piemontese winemaker in his own right) Beppe Caviola presented the Sella & Mosca wines. They started with two whites: 2011 La Cala (100% Vermentino) and 2011 Terre Bianche (100% Torbato). Vermentino can be considered a Sardinian specialty, and Torbato a Sardianian almost-exclusivity.

The La Cala is a very decent, inexpensive (about $12) example of Vermentino. Light and bright, with herbal, floral, and sometimes citrus notes, it is a very pleasing thirst quencher and partner to fresh seafoods. Caviola detected rosemary and oregano in the aroma; I have to confess those went right by me, without detracting from my enjoyment of the wine.

The Torbato variety is a rarity, and Sella & Mosca one of the very few bottlers of it. The grape was down to a nearly invisible 10 hectares in all of Italy in 1970. Now it boasts a strapping 143 (!), of which Sella & Mosca controls 100. It makes a delicate white, a touch shy until it has a chance to breathe a bit, when it begins showing more forward floral and mineral qualities. Some lunchers tasted white fruit in it, but I was more struck by its flinty qualities, perhaps the result of its ancient-marine-sediment vineyards. An intriguing white wine, and one that may reward aging.

Caviola then moved to the reds:

• 2007 Terre Rare (100% Carignane)
• 2008 Cannonau Riserva (100% Cannonau)
• 2006 Tanca Farra (50% Cannonau, 50% Cabernet Sauvignon)
• and a mini vertical tasting of 2004, 2005, and the Tre Bicchieri-winning 2006 Marchese di Villamarina (all 100% Cabernet sauvignon).

The Villamarina, as the Tre Bicchieri award might indicate, is the showpiece of the Sella & Mosca line. The firm made a serious commitment to Cabernet some decades ago, and it has followed up with meticulous vineyard care and attention in the cellar: small French oak casks for 18 months, then a year in larger oak, and then another 18 months in bottle before release. Villamarina is expensive (about $75) but worth it: All three vintages showed soft tannins, with an excellent balance of acid and soft, dark fruit. They also displayed cedar elements in the aroma and on the palate, reminding me of good red Graves – which is distinctly a compliment. I am no great fan of Italy’s versions of French varieties, but this one is very well done, with a nice blending of Bordeaux and Mediterranean qualities.

The ’06 Tanca Farra was for me the least successful of the reds. The combination of Cannonau and Cabernet seemed to my palate simply to emphasize the tannins of both. Maybe these will soften with time in bottle, but at the moment they seem to me excessive. The 100% Cannonau had no such problems. It was very true to the variety – Cannonau is what the Spanish call Garnacha and the French call Grenache – and fine: Earthy, mushroomy aromas preceded similar flavors on the palate and a fine, sapid finish. Interestingly, the grape – long thought to be native to Spain – may well have originated on Sardinia.

The ’07 Terre Rare was a DOC Carignano del Sulcis, which leads me logically enough to the second luncheon and its impressive line-up of five different producers’ Tre Bicchieri winning Carignano del Sulcis:

• Cantina Mesa’s Buio Buio (Carignano del Sulcis Isola dei Nuraghi IGT 2011)
• Calasetta’s Tupei (Carignano del Sulcis DOC 2010)
• 6Mura’s Rosso (Carignano del Sulcis Vecchie Vigne IGT 2008)
• Sardus Pater’s Is Arenas (Carignano del Sulcis DOC Riserva 2008)
• Santadi’s Terre Brune (Carignano del Sulcis DOC Superiore 2008).

Carignane is a variety that almost everywhere except Sardinia is used for blending. Only in the island does it get the kind of attention it deserves. The Sulcis zone comprises the south-eastern corner of Sardinia plus a few tiny offshore islands. Here, Carignane seems to do better than it does anywhere else in the world (there is in fact a chance that the variety originated here about 4000 years ago). Because there are so many sandy soils, Carignane here often grows on it own roots. And because of the very dry, hot summers and the strong winds, it is almost universally grown as alborelli – short, upright bushes – rather than on wires.

The producers vary enormously, from co-ops like Sardus Pater and Santadi to large firms like Sella & Mosca and small ones like 6Mura. But the wines they make share many similar characteristics. Carignane in the Sulcis zone makes a paradoxical wine: It is at the same time soft and also lean and muscular, simple and rustic at first and increasingly elegant and complex as you sip.

The first three wines at the Eataly lunch – Buio, Tupei, and the 6Mura Rosso – all stressed smoothness and depth, with dark earthy flavors and long-lasting finishes. Sardus Pater’s Is Arenas differed in displaying more obvious acidity, leanness, and muscularity, while Santadi’s Terre Brune showed the most complexly of them all, with dark fruits, nuts and earth first appearing in the aroma and then increasing in intensity and complexity right through to the finish. Interestingly, while all the other wines were vinified from 100% Carignane, this wine – on whose creation the almost legendary master blender Giacomo Tachis, of Sassicaia fame, has consulted for years – blends 5% Bovaleddu. That grape may be the same as the Spanish Graciano, which once upon a time was very important in Rioja blends, and might just be contributing that extra little touch of complexity to Santadi’s Carignane.

Sardinia’s wine production is amazingly varied – these two tastings presented just a fraction of it – and well worth exploring, before it attracts more prizes like the Tre Bicchieri and the price rises that inexorably follow them. This is not a case of caveat emptor, but of carpe diem – to speak in almost-Sardinian.

Rocky Mountain High

Aging wines and Italian native varieties have formed the themes of my last few posts, and this one will combine both. During the Slow Wine/Vinitaly event in New York City, I attended a seminar on and vertical tasting of Sfursat, conducted by Casimiro Maule, long-time technical director at the Nino Negri winery and Gambero Rosso’s 2007 winemaker of the year. Nino Negri’s Sfursat Cinque Stelle is a consistent Tre Bicchieri winner: Gambero Rosso named its 2001 vintage Best Red Wine of Italy the year it was released.

Despite all those credentials, I suspect a lot of you are saying Huh? What is it? Sfursat is not exactly a household name, even among those who know Italian wines well.

What it is, is well worth learning about, because Sfursat is a distinctive wine, powerful and nuanced and very ageworthy. How could it be otherwise? It’s vinified from 100% Chiavennasca, which is the name of the local clone of Nebbiolo in far northern Lombardy. This area holds Italy’s northernmost Nebbiolo vineyards and is the only place in Italy outside of Piedmont where Nebbiolo achieves significant production.

According to Maule, Chiavennasca is related to Barolo and Barbaresco’s Lampia clone of Nebbiolo, but over the centuries it has mutated and adapted to its special, local circumstances. And special they are: Sfursat originates in Valtellina, a steep, rocky valley along the Adda river, about as far northeast of Milano as the Barolo/Barbaresco zone is to its southwest. (Wildman, the US importer, has a website about the Nino Negri firm with maps and video that dramatically show exactly where – and how steep – Valtellina is.)

This precipitous valley lies right up against the Alps and the Swiss border – so close that for many years, most of Valtellina’s production went straight up the mountain to red-wine-starved Switzerland. Only in the closing decades of the last century did any appreciable amount of any Valtellina wines reach US markets, and Negri, as the largest producer in the zone, is responsible for most of them. “Large” here means that the firm owns 31 hectares – about 75 acres. Most of the vineyards belong to small growers, and there are many of them, so a lot of the production here – what doesn’t go to Switzerland – is still consumed locally.

Vine growing and winemaking here are not for the faint-hearted. The slopes are extremely steep, with carefully created terraces supported by dry stone walls. All field work must be done by hand, except the transport of the harvested grapes to the winery – which is done by helicopter to get the grapes there still fresh and cool. The Valtellina has been one of the beneficiaries of global warming. According to Maule, “We used to have trouble here reaching 12° of alcohol (the minimum required for the DOC): Not any longer.” Sfursat has probably benefited most from this climate change.

So what exactly is Sfursat, and what makes it so special? First, it is not a single-vineyard wine. Rather it is made only in the best years from selected grapes from all the communes of the Valtellina zone: Inferno, Grumello, Sassella, and Valgella. Each of these has its own DOC and produces a “normal” wine just about every year.

According to Maule, “The grapes for Sfursat come from special clusters, small and loose. These are picked before the regular harvest by specially trained workers.” The grapes are then placed in crates in open, airy sheds on the hillsides, where they will slowly dry – a process known as the appassiamento – until January.

During this time they are twice picked over, and about a third of the bunches are discarded each time. In January, the remaining third is pressed and fermented – slowly, starting at about 4° centigrade and gradually rising to 13° over 15 to 20 days. The wine is then aged for 18-20 months in new French oak barrels.

The result is a big, concentrated wine, its feel on the palate reminiscent of Amarone (not surprising, given the similarity of their vinification) but more austere, with an initial reticence and an underlying structure eloquent of its rocky origin. The regular wines of Valtellina are considerably slighter – very enjoyable and frequently elegant, to my mind resembling the Donnaz of Val d’Aosta, but lacking the body and underlying power of Sfursat. In good years, Sassella and its kin can age quite nicely: In almost every year that it’s made, Sfursat can last long.

The wines Maule presented in New York showed that nicely. The vintages represented – 2009, 2007, 2004, 2002, 2001, and 1997 – all displayed fine freshness and fruit, as well as increasingly apparent (with bottle age) muscularity and evolving mineral and earth tones. All seemed to have years of life before them yet, though the outstanding wine of the day for me was unquestionably the 2001 Sfursat Cinque Stelle – an extraordinarily rich and balanced wine that combined the kind of youthful fruit that promised years of life to come with the kind of maturing flavors – nuts and tobacco, chocolate and mushroom – that proved its remaining life would be interesting indeed. This was the wine that won “Best Red Wine of Italy” from Gambero Rosso the year of its release, and it was very easy to see why.

Wine Age, Our Age, Dotage

A pair of provocative articles, published recently by a pair of old pros whose work I respect and admire, Alfonso Cevola and Matt Kramer, questioned the value of cellaring wines nowadays. As one who dotes on the taste and complexity of mature wines, I was naturally intrigued by their consideration of the pros and cons – largely cons, it seems – of aging wines.

I’ve long thought Matt’s pieces almost the only thing in The Wine Spectator worth reading, and as long as I’ve known Matt I’ve known him to relish as much as I do the glories that mature wine can offer, so when I hear him saying that it’s hardly worth cellaring wine anymore, I pay attention. Here’s the core of his argument, in his own words:

In recent years it’s become obvious that an ever greater number of wines that once absolutely required extended aging no longer do.

Simply put, most of today’s fine wines—not all, mind you—will reach a point of diminishing returns on aging after as few as five years of additional cellaring after release. Stretch that to a full 10 years of additional aging and I daresay you will have embraced fully 99 percent of all the world’s wines, never mind how renowned or expensive.

He is careful to point out that this doesn’t mean today’s wines are better or worse, just different. He credits the difference to, or blames it on, the now-universal practice of green harvest (and also climate change, I would think), which assures (?!) a concentrated crop of perfectly ripe grapes nearly every harvest. That means that today’s wines are accessible sooner (by and large, I agree) and that they mature sooner, reaching their peak, beyond which they won’t improve, in five or ten years at most (here’s where I disagree). Again, I’ll let Matt speak for himself:

My hard-won experience with aging wines has now answered to my satisfaction the question about the absolute need for long aging; namely, that the great majority of wines today, in the great majority of vintages, don’t really reward that “expensive” extra five or ten years beyond the five or ten years of aging you’ve already bestowed.

I am now convinced that today’s wine lover is well advised to buy fine wines, cellar them in a cool space for five years—ten years, tops—and then drink them in secure confidence that the great majority of their full-dimensional goodness is available to you.

After that, it’s all just fantasy—and the very real likelihood of an increasingly diminishing return on your already delayed gratification.

To this argument, Alfonso adds a stress on the subjective side: We too have changed. Our palates have changed – we want younger, fresher wines now – and we want to drink different wines than the kinds we stored away years ago.

I go into my little walk-in closet and look at all the things I thought would be important to drink in 10-20-30 years and I often find myself walking out and going to another rack of newer wines; fresher, lighter, unencumbered by the dust of time. Oops.

In looking over my little tribe of wines that huddle together in the closet, there are all kinds of strange bedfellows. What are all those sweet wines doing in there? Will it ever get cold enough to drink all the Port that has been gathered? Are those Super Tuscans really prettier when they age, or were they at their best when they were young and willing and tight and bright?

A lot of this is incontrovertible. Our palates and our desires do change over time. Not all wines, even under the best cellar conditions, cooperate by aging and maturing in an interesting manner. And winemaking most certainly has changed, and very dramatically, in ways that must have an effect on the age-ability of wines.

For instance: I recently tasted a very large number of classified growths of Bordeaux, vintage 2010, and found myself vastly underwhelmed. This is a vintage that Parker and others have hailed as great: I believe the Bordelais consider it the third “vintage of the century” so far in this young century. It is already remarkably accessible, compared to the initially tough but long-aging Bordeaux vintages of half a century ago, on which I learned my vinous ABCs.

Parker and others think 2010 will be very long-lived, because it has big tannins, lots of acidity, and pretty high alcohol (at least compared to vintages such 1955 and ’59, ’61 and ’62, ’64 and ’66 – my vinous elementary and high school). Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn whether 2010 Bordeaux ages well or not: I found most of the wines I tasted unbalanced and unintegrated (leading me to think that in fact they won’t age well) and – most damning for Bordeaux – inelegant, bordering on vulgar. These wines certainly show the effects of the green harvest that Matt talked about, and in a thoroughly deleterious fashion: not wines I’d want to keep around at all.

Maybe for many wines ripeness isn’t all? Maybe – for Cabernet sauvignon especially – ripeness can easily be overdone, and a little under-ripeness, with consequently initially tougher tannins and higher acidity and a lot less forward fruit, can be better? Vinous heresy for sure, and be careful who you say it to, lest you be declared pariah and driven out of your tasting club.

I’d certainly agree that there are many occasions on which I actively desire a younger, fresher wine. But that hardly means that there aren’t times when only a mature wine will do what has to be done: charm, seduce, overwhelm, overflow our sensory apparatus and our store of synonyms for great.

I’ve been putting wines away as long as Matt has. Many are from the ‘90s and before, but also with a healthy selection from the first decade of this century (especially from Burgundy and the Piedmont, the Veneto and Campania). Yes, over the years, a few bottles have disappointed, but many have been glorious – and the ones I cellared in the 1990s are doing just fine, thank you. I have equally high hopes for my wines from the first decade of this century: I just hope I’m still around to enjoy them.

A few weeks ago, Diane and I shared a celebratory meal with old friends Betty and Livio at Danny Meyer’s Roman-style restaurant Maialino. To mark the occasion – two of us were turning 75 – I brought a 1986 Masi Amarone Campolongo di Torbe, which we decanted as soon as we were seated and drank about an hour later. I’m not even going to try to describe it, because its complexity was so great and so steadily evolving through the meal. It was, simply, a one-bottle proof of the wisdom of cellaring wine. I only wish I had more of it, and that I might live long enough to experience it at its peak. People do change, and wines do change – and many times, both are for the better.

There are still many kinds of wine that respond very well indeed to aging. Whether the 2010 bottles of Bordeaux will last 20 or 30 years, I doubt, and I’m not going to be around to find out – but I’m willing to bet that a large number of recent vintage Châteauneuf du Papes will, and an equally high percentage of Barolo and Barbaresco (Conterno and Mascarello are shoo-ins), Amarone and Aglianicos and even a few Sangioveses (Biondi-Santi! and Selvapiana’s Chianti Rufina Riserva Bucerchiale). I’m probably not going to cellar any of them myself, but that’s a decision based on the actuarial tables, not the quality of the wine.

Postscript, February 11:

Yesterday I opened a bottle that I had lost track of, 2001 Selciaia, a simple Rosso di Montepulciano from Fassati. I never meant to keep it so long, and I didn’t know what I’d find when I pulled the cork. I more than half expected it to be dead. Well, it wasn’t. In fact it was fine: mature and claret-like, very drinkable and enjoyable. Just goes to show: Some high-end wines can’t cut the mustard, while some simple ones age beautifully. It depends more on the combination of grape, vintage, and maker than any simple formula.