Caiarossa

Since the British legal system had unreasonably requested that Tamsin perform jury duty she was late coming out to Tuscany. So on the Wednesday in the middle of our week's wine tasting we drove from Chianti back to Pisa to collect her. To make the most of this journey we were looking for a winery to visit in the coastal region.

As a result of a tip from the excellent Monty Waldin book we visited a producer called Caiarossa. This was a fantastic place to visit. The winery is owned by the owners of Chateau Giscours and Chateau du Tertre from Margaux and is a much smaller production vineyard than either of those two.


During the tour it became clear that the winemaker is very into biodynamic winemaking (something I find truly bizarre). However, if someone is going to pay that amount of attention to how they make their wines that they are prepared to follow the implausible rules of biodynamic winemaking then they are also going to be paying close attention to the important stuff. As a result, the wines are often fantastic, as these proved to be.

Another reason why the visit was so awesome was that, since the estate has only been producing wines for a small number of years, they have not become "touristed out". We received a very gracious and hospitable welcome, with our guide even staying late so she could take us into the barrel hall and show us some barrel samples of Petit Verdot (something I'd never had as a single-varietal before). Anyway, excellent wines, gracious host and beautiful scenery... what more could you want? Try to arrange a visit if you happen to be in the coastal area.




1. Pergolaia 2005 IGT (95% Sangiovese)
Medium-high aroma intensity: dark berries, wood and wild herbs. Fairly high acid and tannin but in balance. Medium-high body. Medium intensity red fruit. Also something slightly sour. Medium length. A good wine, but needs food.

2. Caiarossa 2004 IGT (Blend of multiple varieties)
Pronounced aroma of black fruit and tomato. Evident oak influence, but not obtrusive. High acid, high (but fine) tannin. Intense black fruit. Well balanced, long and with a fresh, fruity finish. This was outstanding and will age well.

Incidentally, we put this in a blind tasting on the final night of the holiday. The other wines were Castello di Fonterutoli, Fontodi's Syrah and Biondi Santi. This wine was the clear winner against some stiff competition.

3. Caiarossa 2005 IGT
Dark and brooding. Plenty of liquorice, cedar, tobacco and black fruit. Medium-high acid and high tannin. Long, but very tannic finish. A baby - give it time and it will be outstanding. For now, just very good.

4. Caiarossa Bianco 2007 IGT
This is a fairly unusual blend of 55-45 Chardonnay and Viognier. Very high alcohol as well and from a hot climate so I wasn't expecting a great wine. Surprisingly it worked very nicely. Aromatic peach notes, as well as a noticeable grape smell (which is surprisingly rare in wine) and some dairy aromas. Full bodied with high alcohol. Plenty of acid. There has been lots of lees contact which gives it a nice texture. Amazingly concentrated. This wine was served after two huge reds and really held its own. Usually my preferred style for white wine is not anything like this, but I could happily drink this wine at any time.

5. Oro di Caiarossa 2006 (late harvest. I think grape variety is petit
manseng)
This wine had a noticeably sesame seed aroma. Also nuts and dried apricots. Sweet, with high acid and excellent length. Again, an excellent wine and it made an interesting change in style from all the Vin Santo we drank that week.

Poggio Antico

Poggio Antico
Brunello di Montalcino

This was an excellent visit and I highly recommend it to anyone planning to visit wineries in Tuscany. I had arranged for our group to have a tour and tasting in the morning and then we stayed for lunch afterwards. The grounds of the estate are so fantastically beautiful that it's an amazing location to sit and have an Italian-style lunch over several hours and the food was excellent. So excellent we were too late for our afternoon's appointment. Be warned - you will probably spend longer here gawping at the scenery than you originally planned to!


Rather amazingly Alasdair's harebrained travel plans worked out perfectly with his flight arriving early(?!), which enabled him to arrive in time for lunch.


Tasting:
1. Rosso di Montalcino 2007
This is aged for 10 months in tonneau before being bottled. Lots of black fruit, long and well balanced. Very good, much better than rosso usually is.

2. Brunello di Montalcino 2003
This is made in a traditional style with 3-years in Slavonian oak. The nose has confected black fruits and a somewhat gamey character. High tannins and high acid. Well balanced and long. This was excellent but needs a bit of time - the palate is still quite aggressively tannic and has plenty of fruit, acid and tannin so no worries about aging potential.

3. Altero Brunello di Montalcino 2003
This is made in a modern style with new french oak aging. There is noticeable wood on the nose but not so much on the palate. Plenty of black fruit, but also leather, smoke and spice. Very high tannins. Again, this has plenty of acid to balance the tannin. Still quite aggressive but more approachable now than the traditional style (#2). However, this one will also benefit from age.

4. Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 2003
So far this century Poggio Antico have only made a riserva in 2001 and 2003.
This has pronounced intensity on the nose - jumping out of the glass. Concentrated fruit aromas, some red but mostly black. Lots of smoke, tobacco and leather. Brooding. Very high tannin and acid, still very grippy. Intense black fruit, this is still very fresh and young tasting. A baby - needs a fair amount of time. Or a huge steak. This one was outstanding.

5. Madre 2006 (IGT)
This is their 50% Cabernet and 50% Sangiovese supertuscan. Plenty of cassis on the nose as well as some gamey and earthy notes. The tasting note given by the woman at the estate was "morbido" a rather worrying sounding Italian word that, as far as I can tell, means that it tastes smooth rather than it tastes of death! This wine had plenty of tannin and acid and is quite long, but nothing like as long as the riserva. Very good, more approachable in its youth than the others.

Poggio Antico
53024 Montalcino
+39 0577 848 044
mail@poggioantico.com

Chardonnay and Pinot Noir Tasting

Champagne
Blanc de Blanc vs Blanc de Noir (both tasted blind)

1. Waitrose Blanc de Blanc NV
Medium intensity bready, yeasty aromas. Also plenty of lemon and apple. High acid and a fine mousse. Very appley for want of a better word.

I preferred this wine. The consensus preference was for number 2

2. Mailly Grand Cru Blanc de Noirs NV
Slightly darker in colour than number 1 (which may have been due to extra bottle age). Green fruit on the nose, but riper smelling than #1 and with noticeably more bready, yeasty character. On the palate the mousse was less fine but there was more body and some red fruit notes (strawberry and raspberry).

Pretty much everybody managed to successfully work out which was which, in sharp contrast to the inaugural BV blind champagne tasting. Perhaps the Blanc de Noir was a more typical example this time, or perhaps we simply confused the flavours coming from the extra age as being flavours coming from the black grapes.

The next pairing was supposed to be a non-blind comparison of a typical unoaked chardonnay (Montana, NZ) vs a typical oaked chardonnay (Catena, Argentina). However, the Catena was corked which meant that I had to steal one of the white burgundies (which was to have been tasted blind) to use as the oaked chardonnay example.

Oaked vs Unoaked Chardonnay (not tasted blind)
3. Montana Unoaked Chardonnay, Wairau Valley, NZ

4. Domaine Jean-Jacques Girard "Les Belles Filles", Pernand-Vergelesses, (Cote de Beaune) 2007

Neither wine 3 nor wine 4 were particularly impressive, but they were solid examples of the type of wine we were trying to highlight.

Next we blind-tasted 3 white burgundies:

White burgundy (tasted blind)
5. Waitrose Chablis, Caves des Vignerons de Chablis 2007

6. William Fevre, Vaudesir Grand Cru Chablis, 2005

7. Joseph Drouhin, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Folatieres, (Cote de Beaune) 2006

Of these the Drouhin was showing best by some significant margin with plenty of fruit, acid and oak, but all in balance and great length. This will clearly age well for years. Many people didn't appreciate the Fevre since it was quite restrained. However, I thought it was excellent. The Waitrose chablis showed more on the palate than on the nose (quite surprising). However, it paled in comparison to the other two. This was quite a good introductory blind tasting exercise since the number of variables was massively curtailed and the differences in style (oaked vs unoaked) and quality (normal vs grand/premier cru) were quite stark.

Pinot Noir (tasted blind)
9. Escarpment Pinot Noir, Martinborough, NZ 2007

10. Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir, Walker Bay, SA 2006

11. Domaine Hudelot-Baillet, Chambolle-Musigny, Cote de Nuits, Burgundy

It was quite clear which wine was the Chambolle-Musigny. However, I was caught out by the South African pinot which was significantly more elegant and cool-climate tasting than the NZ. In retrospect, this is not the first time I've been surprised by the elegance of a South African pinot noir. I seem to have it stuck in my head that SA reds are big, bruising monsters yet they can clearly make excellent pinot noirs. I must remember this in the future.

Old Burgundy (not tasted blind)
12 Pierre Ponnelle Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru, Cote de Nuits, Burgundy 1970
This one was not included in the blind tasted above because there was simply no way anyone could get this one confused for anything else tasted on this evening. If nothing else, the colour would have given it away - the wine was garnet with a tawny rim. Relatively intense aromas of cherries, nuts, leather, mushrooms. A very complex wine with pronounced intensity of flavour on the palate and phenomenal length (we're talking several minutes here).Tannin and acid were both quite low so this would not carry on much further, but it's superb now.