2017 Tre Bicchieri Winners

On the day of our heaviest snowstorm so far this year, the annual New York presentation and tasting of Tre Bicchieri award-winning wines took place just about half a mile from where I live.

So I slogged through the flying snow and the street-corner slush to take advantage of what I hoped would be a sparse crowd and a lot of idle winemakers, thus allowing me to actually taste some wines. For the first hour, I was right, and I did have the opportunity to taste some remarkable wines – but then the storm let up and the hordes came in, and my chances for thoughtful tasting ended. I’m happy for all those hard-working winemakers that the Tre Bicchieri tasting is such a popular event, but as a hard-working journalist I do most seriously wish there was some better way to experience and evaluate these wines.

But you’ve heard that lament from me before, and are probably quite tired of it now. Besides, the key thing about this particular tasting is how many top-flight Italian wines it gathers in one room, and I don’t want to let the circumstances of the tasting obscure that. My palate and the collective palate of the Tre Bicchieri judges don’t always agree 100%, but those guys sure get an awful lot right, so a collection of almost 200 top-ranked wines amounts to an event to pay serious attention to, no matter how many people you have to elbow aside to do it.

Not that even under the best circumstances I could manage to taste all 200 in one afternoon, but I did my best to get to a reasonable assortment of old-favorite, regular prize winners and some of the new kids on the block. I was impressed by everything I tasted, without exception. I don’t get the chance to say that often, so let me repeat it: Every single wine I tasted that snowy afternoon deserved its Tre Bicchieri designation. Here are the ones I tried: first reds, then whites.

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From Basilicata

Re Manfredi’s Aglianico del Vulture Manfredi 2013, a wonderful example of a grape I love

From Piedmont

Elvio Cogno’s Barolo Bricco Pernice 2011, another masterpiece from winemaker Valter Fissore

Bruno Giacosa’s Barbaresco Asili Riserva 2011, one of Barbaresco’s finest crus, beautifully rendered

Elio Grasso’s Barolo Ginestra Casa Maté 2012, benchmark Barolo, as always from this estate

Giacomo Fenocchio’s Barolo Bussia 90 Dì Riserva 2010, macerated 90 days on the skins, with consequent depth and intensity

Oddero’s Barolo Bussia Vigneto Mondoca Riserva 2010, a classic Barolo of a great vintage

Vietti’s Barolo Ravera 2012, a lovely, beautifully balanced wine with potentially great longevity (and I also liked Vietti’s very nice but not prize-winning Barbera d’Asti La Crena 2013)

From Sicily

Palari’s Faro Palari 2012, year after year the best red wine made in Sicily, in my opinion (and the 2012 Rosso del Soprano is right on its tail in quality: It got Due Bicchieri)

Planeta’s Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico Dorilli 2014, a lovely light-bodied wine, refreshing and vigorous

From Tuscany

Boscarelli’s Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Il Nocio 2012, as always an elegant, complex wine

Castellare di Castellina’s I Sodi di San Niccolò 2012, graceful and lovely Sangiovese from winemaker Alessandro Cellai

Castello di Volpaia’s Chianti Classico Riserva 2013, medium-bodied, perfectly balanced, with the elegance that always marks Volpaia

Il Marroneto’s Brunello Madonna delle Grazie 2011, as always from this remarkable cru and maker, a very great wine

Mastroianni’s Brunello Vigneto Schiena d’Asino 2010, maybe the best Tuscan wine at this gathering of greats

Ricasoli’s Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Colledilà 2013, a luscious, juicy wine that drinks far too easily

Terenzi’s Morellino di Scansano Madrechiesa Riserva 2013, very young Sangiovese, with this maker’s trademark balance and elegance

From the Veneto

Allegrini’s Amarone 2012, already big and textured

Bertani’s Amarone 2008 and 2009, both still young and evolving, with great depth and the promise of decades of life

Masi’s Amarone Vaio Armaron Serègo Alighieri 2011, a stunning wine from a great site

Speri’s Amarone Vigneto Monte Sant’ Urbano 2012, another fine example of what seems to be a great year for Amarone

Tenuta Sant’Antonio’s Amarone Campo dei Gigli 2012, an infant Hercules

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I doubt anyone is surprised by the fact that Italy is producing so many fine red wines, but for me the best news of the day was how superior so many white wines showed themselves to be. Every single one I tasted had distinct varietal flavors joined to genuine goût de terroir. This for me was the most fun of the afternoon, and I kept switching from big reds to whites of every kind to keep my palate fresh. (It worked for a couple of hours, then I gave out.)

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From Alto Adige

Abbazia di Novacella’s Valle Isarco Sylvaner Praepositus 2015, a stunning, fresh, and vigorous wine from a grape of usually no great distinction, this year slightly better than the Abbazia’s normally superb Kerner Praepositus

Produttori San Michele Appiano’s Pinot Grigio St. Valentin 2014, high-altitude, rounder than usual PG – a real dinner wine

Produttori Valle Isarco’s Sylvaner Aristos 2015 – this seems to have been Sylvaner’s year; a lovely, lively wine

From Campania

Marisa Cuomo’s Costa d’Amalfi Furore Bianco 2015, a lovely, fragrant dinner wine coaxed from postage stamp-sized terraced vineyards along the steep Amalfi coast

Fontanavecchia’s Falanghina del Sannio Taburno 2015, lovely, characteristic Falanghina, invigorating and lively

Pietracupa’s Greco di Tufo 2015, medium-bodied and deeply flavored, with strong mineral accents, a fine wine, almost as good, in my opinion, as the same maker’s Fiano di Avellino, which didn’t get Tre Bicchieri

From Friuli Venezia Giulia

Livio Felluga’s Bianco Illivio 2014, a masterful blend of Pinot bianco, Chardonnay, and the native Picolit, sapid and intriguing

Primosic’s Collio Ribolla Gialla di Oslavia Riserva 2012, one of the briefly fashionable orange wines, but better than simple fashion: intense, distinctive, rich, and with the right food incomparable

Russiz Superiore’s Collio Friulano 2015, a lovely medium-bodied, deeply flavored (hints of almond) example of Friuli’s native grape

Torre Rosazza’s Pinot Grigio 2015, what PG used to be, fresh, vigorous, almost rambunctious

From Lazio

Casale del Giglio’s Antium Bellone 2015, distinctive, flavorful wine from an almost disappeared variety that merits preservation (Charles Scicolone has written about this estate here)

From the Marches

Cocci Grifoni’s Offida Pecorino Guido Cocci Grifoni 2013, a lovely wine from a variety that had been in danger of disappearing

Velenosi’s Offida Pecorino Rêve 2014, another fine example of the same grape variety, medium-bodied and mouth-filling; very enjoyable

From Sardinia

Vigne Surrau’s Vermentino di Gallura Superiore Sciala 2015, textbook Vermentino, fresh and bracing

From Sicily

Cusumano’s Etna Bianca Alta Mora 2014, capturing beautifully the volcanic nuances of Etna’s slopes

Tasca d’Almerita’s Sicilia Carricante Buonora Tascante 2015, a very characteristic version of Etna’s great white grape

From the Veneto

Pieropan’s Soave Classico La Rocca 2014, always the finest cru from this consistently great producer

Graziano Prà’s Soave Classico Staforte 2014, one of many excellent cru Soaves from this producer, all fresh, enjoyable and very age-worthy

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There were many more wines to taste, but I had about reached my limit for tasting accurately and for elbowing, so I trudged my way back home through the remnants of the snow storm. I wish I had had the capacity for more, because I’m sure there were more discoveries to be made and reported on. Ars longa, vita brevis. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Non sum qualis eram, etc. You get the idea: I’d do more for you if I could, but . . .

 

 

Wining in Rome

Rome has many charms, but an abundance of great wine is not one of them. Once upon a time – my brother and I first visited Rome in 1964, so this is history, not fable – your wine options in most trattorias were rosso or bianco, both vino sfuso – that is, drawn from a barrel or demijohn, not from a bottle. The red was usually some form of Chianti and the white was almost always brown (from rapid oxidation, then a serious problem for Italan white wine) and usually some form of Frascati.

Much has changed for the better since then. The white wine now really is white, and almost invariably young and fresh and charming. And although now-much-improved Frascati is still ubiquitous, most trattorias – and certainly anything calling itself a ristorante – will also offer several other options from other parts of Italy. Red wine lists seem to have grown even more, now providing good choices of many varieties from all over Italy – including, at long last, a growing representation of indigenous Lazio (Rome’s region) bottlings.

The selection at the Cul de Sac wine bar

Nevertheless, really deep wine lists are still few and far between, and the lover of older wines has to search pretty hard to find a mature bottle of almost anything. So when Diane and I went recently to Rome for a week of pure vacation – I promised no winery visits, no tasting sessions – we contented ourselves mostly with the kinds of wines that provide plenty of pleasure without needing long cellaring. Rome offered many of those.

We tried many young Frascatis, of course, and all were genuinely charming, with the light floral/mineral nose and palate characteristic of the breed. One of the most interesting, which we tasted at the Trimani wine bar, was in fact not a Frascati but an IGT Lazio wine from Casale Certosa. It was a 2014 (almost all the whites were 2014, a very few 2015) Alborea, a rich, lightly golden wine of greater than usual intensity. It was blended from Grecchetto and Malvasia Puntinata, the latter grape a Lazio specialty and usually an important component of Frascati. I don’t think this wine is imported to the US.  One of the advantages (and limitations, from a wine journalist’s point of view) of drinking in Rome is the opportunity to taste wines, both kinds and producers, that don’t always make it across the pond.

Other whites that we enjoyed included a lovely light, refreshing 2015 Pigato from Liguria (Pigato is the regional name for Vermentino), a characteristic Falanghina from Benevento by Vinicola del Sannio, and a 2015 Mastroberardino Fiano – the latter, of course, in a distinctly different weight and quality class from the lighter more apéritif style of the preceding wines.

BTW, we tasted a lot of these wines by the glass at two of our favorite places in Rome to get a light lunch: the wine bars Cul de Sac and Angolo Divino. Both offer a splendid array of cheeses and salume and light dishes, though at both you can order more substantially if you wish. Either way, you can taste glasses of as many wines as you have time and capacity for, from a well-chosen list, with many, many more wines available by the bottle, should you opt to make an afternoon of it.

Everywhere we dined in Rome, our choices for red wine seemed much richer than for whites. The red wine situation, it’s fair to say, is happily more complex than the white. We drank a number of familiar standbys, of course – a 2009 Mastroberardino Radici Taurasi, for instance, though that turned out to be infanticide: That bottle had years of development before it.

We also drank a 2007 Montevetrano, which was a lovely representative of this unusual (for Campania) blend of Cabernet, Merlot, and Aglianico. It was evolving beautifully, but it too had years of maturation to go. The slightly disappointing restaurant at which we drank it provided a wonderful instance of just how thin wine knowledge is even in seemingly better places. When I asked for a bottle of Montevetrano, our waiter didn’t recognize the name, and didn’t know it was on his wine list. I pointed it out and explained it was a Campanian wine. He  looked and said “No; this says it’s from Salerno.” – He didn’t even know Salerno is in Campania. After that he disappeared for a while and, apparently after consultation with someone more knowledgeable, returned bearing the bottle and self-importantly informed me that this was one of Italy’s greatest wines – which, of course, was why I had ordered it in the first place.

Most of the reds we enjoyed were younger than those two, however. One stand-out was a 2013 Villa Simone Cesanese – a native Lazio grape – that was soft, fresh, and fruity, with some real depth and excellent varietal character. We liked that so much we ordered a second bottle and made that dinner last. Another very distinctive regional wine, this one from the Amalfi coast, was 2012 Quattro Spine Costa d’Amalfi Rosso from Tenuta San Francesco. Again, I don’t know if this wine is available in the US, but it’s definitely worth seeking out, whether at home or abroad. It was an intriguing blend of Aglianico, Tintore, and Piedirosso, very dark, rich and deep, powerful and elegant. I’d love the chance to taste an older bottle.

The oldest bottles we had on this trip we enjoyed at Fortunato del Pantheon, and at Checchino dal 1887. At the former, our waiter walked me into the attached enoteca (a new development since we’d last dined there), where the sommelier unearthed a 2007 (not so old, but hey! we’re in Rome) bottle of Maurizio Zanella Rosso del Sebino. A blend of 50% Cabernet sauvignon, 25% Merlot, and 25% Cabernet franc, and almost inky dark, it was big, round, and soft, with very soft tannins, and tasted of mature black fruits. It proved an excellent companion to our dishes of tagliarini with white and black truffles.

By far the most interesting red wine of our trip was the sommelier’s suggestion at Checchino. This was no surprise, because it has one of the best wine lists in Rome, and when asked for a more mature wine, Francesco Mariani (one of the brothers who own Checchino) suggested a 1983 Colle Picchioni Rosso (as it turned out, the same wine he had served my friend and colleague Charles Scicolone just a week before ).

This is a Lazio wine, grown and vinified not many miles outside of Rome. It’s probably – firm data is hard to come by – a blend of the native Cesanese with Merlot and maybe Sangiovese, maybe Aglianico, maybe Cabernet; in 1983 things were still pretty loose in Lazio (Charles thinks it’s all international varieties; I’m not so sure). Francesco knows his stock: Whatever grapes are in it, this wine turned out to be perfect choice with our food, initially delicate but growing in strength as it opened. Pale garnet with an orange edge, it looked and smelled like a mature wine, the nose almost delicate. On the palate, very balanced, and even lively, with still fresh fruit suggesting dark berries that lingered into the elegant finish: a really lovely bottle of wine.

Diane has blogged about the meals we ate in Rome, so the palatally curious can see what kinds of food went with the wines I’ve been talking about by clicking here.

One final word: None of these wines was expensive, especially not by New York standards. The older wines cost far less than new vintages sell for at retail here, which gives you some sense of just how outrageous the price-gouging is in American restaurants. And in even the busiest, most touristed Roman restaurants, the sound levels were such that the two of us were able to speak in normal tones, which gives you some idea of what a deliberately manipulated environment most American restaurants are providing. As one of my old teachers used to say, verb. sap. sat. Save your money, and dine out in Europe.

Another Name to Remember: Montcalm

Autumn weather and the autumn wine season have arrived, and a busy time it’s being. Among the flurry of events I’ve been attending, I particularly enjoyed the tasting offered by Montcalm Wine Importers, a smallish New York-based firm that, despite the vaguely French-sounding name, is building a significant portfolio of first-rate Italian wines.

That, I found out, is not accidental, because Montcalm turns out to be the wine importing arm of Genagricola, which in turn is the agricultural arm – including, of course, viti- and viniculture – of one of the largest Italian insurance firms. Originally Montcalm seems to have been set up to distribute Genagricola’s own products here in the States, but it has grown well beyond that mission by acquiring some excellent small estates from all over Italy. One lovely fall afternoon in mid-September, I – along with several other wine journalists and a good many knowledgeable retailers and sommeliers – had the chance to taste through Montcalm’s line.

For sure, someone with an excellent palate is choosing its wines. Their range is pretty much geographically complete, from Sicily right up to Piemonte and the Veneto, with a fine roster of estates all along the trail. Some names will be very familiar to the US market – Poderi Colla, for instance, about which I posted just a while back. Some are not as well known here as they deserve to be: Cennatoio, for instance, is a first-rate Chianti Classico maker.

A good many of Genagricola’s own wines fall into the latter category. They come from properties all over Italy and each bears its own name, so you may well have already tasted some of these without realizing they were part of a larger enterprise. These include far too many wines for me to comment on in this post, but here are a few I found above-average interesting:

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Solonio Cesanese Lazio IGP Ponte Loreto
Cesanese is the Lazio region’s native red grape, and vintners there are finally starting to exploit its potential. Examples remain all too scarce here in the States.

Poggiobello Friuli Ribolla Gialla
Ribolla gialla is another variety that remains relatively rare here. It makes a substantial and distinctive dinner wine – definitely not a cocktail sipper.

Tenuta Sant’Anna Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso
I don’t want to give the impression that Genagricola specializes in only esoteric varieties, but the firm’s growers do make conscious efforts to preserve and propagate native varieties. Refosco is a Friulian native – one of the few native red varieties cultivated there – and another wine deserving of a much wider audience.
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Among the independent wineries that Montcalm imports, a few really stood out for me, so I’ll just briefly tally them here.

Sant’Agata
A Piedmont estate, producing good Barbera d’Asti and the much less common Ruché, a red variety of potential distinction. I tasted both the 2013 Ruché di Castagnole Monferrato “Na’ Vota” and the 2010 “Pronobis.” Both were very fine, rich, and intense, characteristically smelling and tasting of chestnuts – excellent examples of yet another grape variety that deserves more attention.

Poderi Colla
A classic Alba-area estate, making all the zone’s classic wines: Dolcetto, Nebbiolo d’Alba, Barbaresco, Barolo, and the superb blend of Dolcetto and Nebbiolo, “Bricco del Drago.”

Manzone
Another Piedmont estate, making pretty examples of Dolcetto d’Alba, Barbera d’Alba, and Nebbiolo Langhe. The stars of its show are three Barolo crus: Bricat, Castelletto, and Gramolere.

Lunae
This is a Ligurian winery that produces really lovely Vermentino, especially its Black Label. It also makes a very interesting and unusual red wine, Colli di Luni Rosso DOC “Niccoló V.” A blend of 70% Sangiovese, 15% Merlot, and 15% of the local Pollera Nera, the 2010 I tasted drank all too easily and was just beginning to show what promises to be interesting complexity.

Cavalierino
A certified organic winery headquartered in Montepulciano. Its Rosso di Montepulciano was delightful, soft, with a deeply Sangiovese character. The Vino Nobile di Montepulciano was an excellent example of the breed, elegant and pleasing.

Il Marroneto 
This is a brilliant Brunello estate, which seems never to make a wine less than fine. All I tasted were even better than that – the 2011 Rosso di Montalcino, the 2009, 2010, and 2011 Brunellos, and most of all the infant but already intense 2011 Brunello di Montalcino “Madonna delle Grazie.”

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I didn’t get to taste everything that afternoon, and a few wineries that I missed I very much regret. Le Caniette, for instance, a Marche winery, makes whites from the indigenous (and reviving) grapes Passerina and Pecorino that I would have liked to have tasted. So too the Pecorino from the fine Abruzzo estate Illuminati, the red Negroamaro from the Puglia winery Apollonio, and the Etna red and white from the Sicilian Vivera. But you can’t – or at least I can’t – do everything. As the man says, Ars longa, vita brevis.

Fine Wines from Off the Beaten Path

Neither the province of Cortona nor the calanchi country where Umbria and Lazio collide figures largely in the notional map of the wine world that most of us carry in our heads. Yet excellent wines flow from both of them, though seldom encountered here – a situation importer/distributor Tony di Dio is hoping to change. Over a lunch at Gotham restaurant, he introduced me to his newest protégés, Baracchi, from Cortona, and D’Amico, from the UNESCO-protected calanchi district. Both make very drinkable and enjoyable wines, from quite different grapes but in similarly elegant styles.

The Cortona DOC territory lies in extreme eastern Tuscany, just south of Arezzo. Its western end butts right up against the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano vineyards. Not far from the city of Cortona, the Baracchi family runs a total Tuscan enterprise: vineyards and winery; olive groves; a Relais and Chateau Hotel with a Michelin one-star restaurant and spa. Their wines reflect an emphasis on elegance, which started with a surprising-to-me brut spumante made from 100% Sangiovese, Brut Rosé Metodo Classico 2012. This was crisp and fresh and, yes, elegant on the palate, with excellent perlage and delightful wild berry and sottobosco scents and tastes – a lovely aperitif.

The other Baracchi wines we tasted:

O’Lillo 2012:  The Cortona zone was originally designed as a home for international varieties, and that remains its primary vocation. This balanced, elegant, and fine wine results from the blending of equal parts of four varieties: Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet sauvignon, and the native Sangiovese. No wood at all here: The wine is fermented and aged six months in stainless steel.

Smeriglio Sangiovese 2012:  By contrast, this wine is aged 12 months in new barriques. The good news for me was that I and it weren’t overwhelmed by wood. In fact, it was quite lovely on the palate, with good Sangiovese character and fine structure.

Ardito 2010:  The Baracchi family regard this wine as their masterpiece. It is a 50/50 blend of Syrah and Cabernet sauvignon, aged for 24 months in barriques. The latter fact caused me some serious – but as it turned out,groundless – apprehension before I tasted. The Syrah was evident in the peppery nose; the barriques weren’t, nor were they on the palate, which was fine and deep, with complex fruit and earth flavors. Surprisingly restrained and fine.

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The D’Amico properties lie in extreme northern Lazio, right near the border with Umbria and the Orvieto DOC zone. As I noted above, the vineyards lie with within the UNESCO-designated zone of calanchi, stark vertical hillsides of eroded lava and tufa, both of which form large components of the soil throughout the area. That’s not ideal for many other crops, but it can be wonderful for grapes, because of the intense mineral/earth traces that the vines absorb and transmit to their fruit.

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The four D’Amico wines I tasted all showed that marked minerality and an easy, elegant palate that matched well with our various luncheon dishes. These are truly food-friendly wines.

Seiano Bianco 2013:  This is a blend of Grechetto and Sauvignon blanc, a round wine, soft on the palate, with excellent white fruit and – happily – none of the too-often-encountered extreme grassiness and cat’s pee that Sauvignon can be guilty of. Here the Sauvignon is under control, so the Grechetto’s fruit and the vineyard’s minerality predominate.

Calanchi Chardonnay 2012:  An interesting wine, and it’s been a long time since I’ve said that about a Chardonnay. Here, while there are some tropical fruit notes in the nose, the flavor is dominated by intriguing mineral flavors – limestone and slate, for instance. Medium body, round, and companionable with food. It kept opening in the glass, getting richer as the lunch went on.

Seiano Rosso 2013:  Another interesting wine that continued to open and change in the glass. A blend of Sangiovese and Merlot, very fresh in the nose and on the palate, with soft tannins and a good acid balance to keep it supple.

Atlante 2011:  This was the most unexpected wine of the day for me, a 100% Cabernet franc. Great nose, with tobacco and cedar predominating. The palate followed suit, and although that may sound as if this was a thoroughly French wine, it wasn’t: Its bright acidity and equally evident minerality marked it as totally Italian. A quite successful adaption of a French grape to an Italian zone.

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This was for me an eye-opening sequence of wines, showing some of the best adaptations of international grape varieties to authentically Italian styles of winemaking that I have encountered in a long while. Don’t you just hate it when someone challenges your prejudices?