Tag Archives: Italy

Price: 11-15 bucks, Tasting Notes

A $12 Sicilian Red With Some Attitude

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Here’s an inexpensive, widely-available wine that hits the sweet spot for my palate:

It’s worth noting that I found the 2006 a few weeks after tasting this 2007 and didn’t like it nearly as much. Look for the 2007.

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Image credit: Illuminaut via Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/illuminaut/3996050349

An offering to the SEO gods: PLANETA La Segreta Rosso 2007 IGT Sicilia | This wine says f*ck you to bullshit $12 fruit punch wines from the New World. | Red berries, spicebox, dry leaves, earth, leather, badassitude | B+

Price: 11-15 bucks, Tasting Notes

Oddball Wine of the Week: Lagrein

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This is the first post of a new series I’m starting on oddball wines. I thought I’d start in Italy, which is full of indigenous grape varieties that are produced in a small region and hardly anywhere else. This is one of those: Lagrein. Have you ever had one? Ever heard of it?

LaVis_Lagrein_LabelshotLa Vis Dipinti Lagrein 2007

Producer: La Vis

Grapes: Lagrein. La-what? It’s a red grape variety from the Trentino-Alto Adige region of Italy that is related to Teroldego. It’s pronounced Lah-GRAYN (hear it here).

Appellation: DOC Trentino, in northeastern Italy up near the Austrian border. Thirty years ago, red wines accounted for 80% of Trentino’s vineyard land, but today it’s down to 40%, with Merlot being the most common red grape (Chardonnay is the most planted white). However, the indigenous grapes are hanging on. [Info from The World Atlas of Wine.]

Winemaking: Spends only 2 months in oak.

Alcohol: 12.5%

Price: $11.77 at Spec’s in Austin

My tasting notes: Dark color, though not opaque. I get dusty plum and cherry fruit on the nose, with a substantial Old World swampy/barnyardy stink. There’s something a bit wild to the fruit aromas, too. Interesting. On the palate, it’s medium-bodied and starts off sharp and angular (though not necessarily in a bad way), with under-ripe raspberry flavors, light minerality and grippy tannins. A cranberry tartness and prickly acidity linger on the finish. I came back to this wine after it was open for about 48 hours and it was drinking very nicely. The acidity and tannins had softened a bit and the fruit was more evident on the palate. It paired well with a sausage, kale and white bean soup.

Overall impression: Not straight-up delicious, but really interesting and food-friendly. Worth it just for the geek-cred you’ll earn for trying this uncommon grape variety. B

Free association:

Demoiselles d'Avignon - Pablo Picasso
Demoiselles d'Avignon - Pablo Picasso

More info:

Tech sheet, which doesn’t state the vintage, so assume the specs are approximate.

Gary Vaynerchuk did a WLTV episode on Lagrein wines (though not this bottle).

Apparently, outside of Trentino-Alto Adige, Lagrein has developed a small foothold in Australia. And there is also an Oregon winery (with an Aussie winemaker), Amaranth Ridge, that is growing some. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

Another blogger’s review at Melodic Fermentables.

Price: 11-15 bucks, Tasting Notes

Cannonau – WBW #62: A Grape By Any Other Name

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Argiolos Costera-Bottle Shot

The theme of this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday #62 (hosted by Dale Cruse at Drinks Are On Me) is “A Grape By Any Other Name”. The idea is to taste a wine labeled with a lesser known name of an otherwise common grape. Now this is the sort of thing that I’d normally stew over at length. However, on a recent trip to Costco, I happened upon a bottle that I thought was a great fit: a 100% Cannonau from Sardinia.

Argiolas Costera 2006 Isola dei Nuraghi

Producer: Argiolas

Grapes: 100% Cannonau – the name for Grenache in Sardinia

Appellation: Isola Dei Nuraghi IGT (Sardinia, Italy)

Vineyards: The Costera vineyard, a 61-acre vineyard with clay and limestone soils and southeasterly exposure. It was planted in 1989.

Winemaking: Tank fermented, then spent 6-8 months in French barriques.

Alcohol: 13.9%

Price: $14 at Costco

My tasting notes: Dark, yet translucent. A gemlike garnet in color. On the nose, this wine is pungent with tire shop smells. If there’s fruit there it is well-hidden. In the mouth, there is a lot of iron and perhaps a little tarriness, but some good raspberry fruit comes through as well. It finishes with nice grippy tannins. After being open a few hours, the tire aroma recedes and the fruit shows up on the nose. The palate integrates a bit more and starts to lean toward wild berries and meaty flavors, while retaining a stony minerality. On day two it’s drinking even better – the fruit is really shining now and it’s plush while retaining some backbone.

Overall assessment: I enjoyed drinking it over a couple days, and at $14 I don’t think it’s a bad value, but I do think there is a lot of competition at that price as well – stuff I like even more. However, I like finding nice wines like this from regions I rarely think about. B-

Reflecting on the theme of this WBW, I think this Cannonau has some similarities and some differences from the Grenache wines I’ve been drinking recently. First, it does convey the minerality that I find in Garnacha from Spain (e.g., Montsant) or Grenache from the Southern Rhone (e.g., Vacqueyras, Vinsobres). On the other hand, this one is much more tightly wound and takes lots of time (day 2) before the delicious fruit shows up. Of course, much of the French and Spanish Grenache/Garnacha is blended, often with Syrah, while this is 100% varietal. It was definitely an interesting bottle and I’m glad Dale’s WBW theme led me to it.

Free association:

TireTreadMacro

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobalt/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

More info:

Imported by Winebow/Leonardo LoCascio. Lots of geekster details on the wine at their website.

CellarTracker tasting notes (avg. 88 points).

Other blogger reviews: Viva la Wino, Canadian Wine Guy, The Gastronome’s Cellar and Wine Belly.

Price: 11-15 bucks, Tasting Notes

Rubizzo Sangiovese di Toscana 2007

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Rubizzo_SangDiToscana2007Picked this up on a whim at the grocery store for a spaghetti and meat sauce dinner.

Producer: Rocca delle Macie  (pronounced ROH-kah DELL-eh mah-CHEE-ah)

Grapes: 95% Sangiovese, 5% Merlot

Appellation: Sangiovese di Toscana (IGT)

Vineyards: estate vineyards

Aging: unknown

Alcohol: 13%

Price: $13

My tasting notes:  The first whiff bursts with juicy cherry aromas followed by some leathery notes. Subsequent sniffs don’t elicit the same bright fruit…I start to get more dried flowers with the fruit in the background. (We have this bunch of roses that I gave to my wife at least a decade ago and she dried and kept — the smell of those dried roses is what comes to mind.) On the palate, the cherry notes remain, though now a bit darker and mixed with spices. Makes me think of a Persian dish of rice and cherries that I’ve had a few times. There is also a iron/graphite minerality to this. Finishes very dry.

Assessment/score: As I write this, I feel like it’s sounding better than it actually tastes. Not that I’m not enjoying it…it’s a solid bottle. I like it just fine. But I don’t “like it like it”, as we used to say in the 6th grade. B-/C+

Free association: Tropic Thunder – On paper I should have liked this movie more than I did. Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. … all actors I like. And funny previews. But at the end of the day, it didn’t add up to a memorable movie.

200px-Tropic_thunder_ver3