Villa Cafaggio

An interesting visit. This is a relatively large producer with high-tech production methods. Based in the Golden Conch around Panzano it has excellent vineyard location, beautiful views and great wine.


Tasting
1. Chianti Classico DOCG 2006
This is made in quite low yields - 8 bunches of grapes per vine. Ripe black fruit, sweet spice, liquorice and fresh leaves. Long, with a good balance between acid and tannin. Medium body. Very good. Drink now, but will not be hurt by age

2. Chianti Classico Riserva DOCG 2005
This is made with even lower yields - 6 bunches of grapes per vine. Black fruit, floral some vanilla. Very ripe fruit on the palate. Concentrated palate. High acid and tannin. Not really balanced yet but will be great in a bit of time.

3. San Martino 2000 IGT (100% Sangiovese)
At nine years old this is still very young. Pronounced black fruit, but slightly cooked fruit. Developing some green pepper notes too. High acid and very high tannin. Full bodied and very long. Still needs time. This is excellent - particularly once it has had a little time to open up in the glass.

4. Cortaccio 2003 IGT (100% Cabernet Sauvignon)
Medium intensity black fruit. A little tobacco and cedar. Smooth mouthfeel. Much more approachable in its youth than wine #3. Full body, high tannin and med-high acid. Round, pleasant and well balanced. Long and complex finish. Outstanding.


Buying Old Vintages
At the estate you can buy all the old vintages they still have stock for at the same price as the current vintage. So we got the oldest bottles we could find (ll early 90s - sadly I didn't make tasting notes) of the Classico, Riserva and San Martino and tried them. The old San Martino was fantastic, the riserva held up quite well and the classico was past its best.

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.

WSET Extra Study Class - Round 2

Vesevo
Fiano di Avellino DOCG
Vendemmia 2007
Pale, lemon with watery rim. Clean with medium intensity. Fresh, zesty and floral. Youthful - smells as though it should be massively refreshing and crisp... This is borne out on the palate. The nose had more stone fruit than the palate which was definitely on the citrus side of things. Youthful on both nose and palate. Medium body, acid. Medium-high flavour intensity on palate, which is more intense than would be expected from the nose. Good length for the style of wine, medium length for a general white wine. A very good wine of its type.

Vigneti di Foscarino
Soave Classico (DOCG)
2006
My first tasting note was dead mouse. Not an auspicious start! Corked. Damn!

Particularly annoying since (i) the only other time I've had an expensive Soave (Pieropan) it was very interesting and (ii) this was my disappointing contribution to the evening.

El Quintanal, 2006 Vendimia Seleccionada
Ribera del Duero
Medium-high intensity. Nose developing interesting savoury aromas. All of us agreed on a definite smoky-bacon crisp aromas (frazzles)! Definitely something smoky and meaty. Plenty of vanilla. Fruit was slightly jammy cherries.

Medium bodied with medium acid and surprisingly low tannins. Relatively short. However, opened up very nicely. The savoury flavours which dominated in the beginning gave way to caramel after an hour or so..

Good, but a little disappointing. The smoky notes were overpowering on the finish and the rest of the flavours were too short. Drink now.

Marques de Caceres
Reserva 2001
Rioja DOCa
A little googling suggests that this is not far off the current release (2002 seems to be current) so they obviously err on the side of caution with meeting the minimum age requirements for a reserva. Plenty of vanilla on the nose with red cherries. Surprisingly young-tasting given the age, but not that surprising when one considers the fact that this is only recently released. Medium-high body, acid, flavour intensity and length. Tannins a little less than would have imagined given everything else. Black fruit on the palate, but a little unbalanced on the finish, which is dominated by oak.

Good, ready but can age. Probably needs more time for the oak to integrate properly. Although, having said that, the Ribeira showed better than this after an hour or so.

Castillo de Calatrava
1998 Gran Reserva
Tempranillo
Quite restrained on the nose, but with lots of complexity. Some savoury spice (cloves?), showing reasonable development. Far more fruit on the palate than on the nose. Really ripe fruit on the palate. Medium-high acid `and tannin, medium bodied. Mainly red fruit. Good length.
Very good, ready but can age.

E Pira & Figli
Vino Barolo
1967
Superb! Definitely the highlight of the night. When it was being decanted it was met with sceptical looks by those who doubted the aging power of Barolo. Admittedly, the colour would not inspire confidence in someone who has not had one of these before being the colour of a 20-year old tawny port and quite cloudy as well. However, the nose was phenomenal. There was plenty of smoky, tobacco, tar, violets, savoury/meaty characters. Plenty of development, as you'd expect from a 40+ year old wine. Every time we smelt this wine it was different. Still lots of tannins and acid, even after all this time. Well balanced until the end.
Subtle, complex and long, with the flavours coming in waves. This is what Barolo is all about.

Alberto Longo Primitivo
Salento (Puglia)
The suggested tasting notes were getting somewhat silly by this stage with this wine being declared "a breakfast drink". Maybe for Winston Churchill it would be, but I think I'll stick with coffee... at least during the week! There were lots of interesting aromas - I thought it smelt of good-quality BBQ sauce. Others thought tomato and Worcester sauce. Medium acid. Tannins were quite high (medium+ in WSET language) but very soft and very ripe. Lots of bitter black cherry with meaty savoury notes. Quite a lot of complexity, well balanced with good length.

Adam thought "outstanding" and whilst I wouldn't quite go that far it was very good.

Lusitano 2007
Alentejo VR
Portugal
Bitter cherry, smoke and eucalyptus on the nose. High, rough tannins. Quite a shock after the smooth (but high) tannins of the previous wine. A bit too short - the fruit character died very quickly and the mid-palate is quite hollow. Having said that, there is an earthy aftertaste which hangs around for a while. The tannins are out of balance and not sure the acid is high enough to age it long enough for them to integrate properly. However, with a steak I'm sure it would be good.

Ancient Rioja Article

Having finally got around to uploading the tasting notes from the Rioja tasting from 17 April I thought it was topical that I just received a google alert linking to an article about ancient rioja, or rather a specific ancient rioja from CVNE, from the excellent Wine Doctor site. This is one of my favourite wine websites - well written and with a wealth of information in it. It is often my first port of call when researching a specific producer.

The article can be found here.

Wines of Rioja

Friday 17 April 2009
Wines of Rioja

The second of our tutored tastings, this time led by Adam Dent. The first 10 wines were a tutored tasting of wines from the Rioja region. Then we had the first of our audience participation epilogues which was led by Mike Hinton.

1. Ondarre Cava Brut NV
Cava DO, £10
Clear pale gold with a restrained mousse. Lots of lemon, lime and bitterness on the palate but plenty of dirt, earth and mushrooms on the nose. Good length and well balanced... apart from leaving a funny taste in the mouth after about a minute.
In conclusion, not bad - particularly since I was unaware there was any Cava produced in Rioja prior to this.

2. CVNE Monopole Barrel-Fermented White Rioja
Rioja DOCa 2006, £8
A very pale lemon-green colour but with a surprisingly intense nose. Lots of nuts, peach and peanut. Light bodied and quite acidic. A little unbalanced.
As is quite common when confronted with a white rioja, the main thought is "meh".

3. Lopez de Heredia, Tondonia Blanco Reserva 1987
Rioja DOCa Reserva, 1987
In true crazy Rioja style, this 1987 is not far off being the current release! Medium gold with lots of wood (American oak). Smells sweet, maybe candied almonds? Dried apricots, vanilla, honeysuckly. Despite all these aromas the wine is totally dry. Full bodied and round with a soft mouthfeel. Medium acid, quite mineralic. Long.
This wine is quite strange but very good. Generated lots of discussion and split the room quite vehemently. Most definitely not a "meh" in sight!

4. Bodegas Domeco de jaruta, Vina Marro Vendimia Selleccionada 2005
Rioja DOCa "Semi-crianza", £10
Some wood, lots of red fruit (cherries). Some green notes and something herby (mint?) Dry, medium tannin but with the tannins being quite "grippy" and rough. On the palate the main notes are red fruits. Quite short.
Good, but not particularly complex and too short

5. Lopez de Heredia, Vina Cubillo 1997
Rioja DOCa Crianza, £15.50
Starting to be a quite noticeable garnet colour. Intense tobacco, some volatile acidity (but still at a low enough level that it adds complexity rather than ruining the wine), leather, herbs (cinnamon?) violets and smoke. As is probably clear from the list of aromas above this wine was developing some serious complexity. Medium body and acid, with tannins perhaps a little too light to be in balance with the acid. More fruit on the nose than on the palate --> drink up. Which I did gladly. This was good but you wouldn't want to keep it any longer.

6. Ondarre Graciano 2005
Rioja DOCa, £11
Deep purple colour - this wine looks very young. The main tasting note I get from this wine is banoffee pie and I was so struck by the applicability of this tasting note that I struggled to get anything more sensible written down about it. To explain that rather weird tasting note I wouls point out the banana, sweet ripe fruit and nutty characters that were all pretty intense. High tannins but well structured, this wine had plenty of fruit and acid on the palate and was very young. Would benefit from a little age.

7. Ondarre, Major de Ondarre 2004
Rioja DOCa Reserva, £10.50
Not very good.

8. Campo Viejo Gran Reserva 2002
Rioja DOCa Gran Reserva, £14
Lots of oak. Rather 1-dimensional. A serious contrast to the following wine...

9. Campo Viejo, Marques de Villamagna Gran Reserva 1975
Rioja DOCa Gran Reserva, £25
This wine was the colour of a tawny port. Intense aromas - violets, sweet cherry, wet dog (amazing how some aromas coming from a good old wine can sound pretty bizarre) and nuts. Some volatile acidity (again in a good way) and leather and cinnamon. This wine was complex! Intense flavour and medium bodied on the palate. There was more noticeable wood and cigar notes on the palate than on the nose. This is a fantastic wine. It is interesting to see what type of wine Campo Viejo used to make. A generous person might put the difference between #8 and #9 down to vintage variation. A slightly more cynical person might attribute it to larger production.

10. Lopez de Heredia, Bosconia Gran Reserva 1981
Rioja DOCa Gran Reserva, £43
The colour of a 10-year old tawny port. Lots of leather and smoke on the nose. The palate is surprisingly subdued. Medium acid, medium-low tannin. Lots of secondary and tertiary notes. Plenty of complexity, "barnyard", earthy, mushrooms. The flavour of the wine is sadly too short - it fades to just being acidity very quickly.
Quite an interesting wine this. Had the tasting not included #9 this would have been the most interesting wine of the night. I personally preferred the previous wine to this one; however, this final wine generated by far the most discussion of any of the wines this evening with others finding it their favourite wine.

Epilogue
The first of what will hopefully be many such "audience participation" endings to Bacchus Vintage tastings. At the end of the previous tasting we asked if there was anyone who is interested in presenting a couple of wines to the group at the end of a tasting. It's a great way to get some experience of presenting wines to the group without having to organise an entire tasting yourself.

This first one was led by Mike Hinton and the two wines he presented were two of the Rupert and Rothschild wines from South Africa.

11. Rupert and Rothschild Classique 2005
Franschoeck, Paarl, South Africa, £12
A deep ruby colour. Intense nose of red cherries (but bitter and perhaps slightly unripe cherries), vanilla and some leafy notes. Quite dusty on the palate with plenty of oak showing through. The fruit notes on the palate are definitely on the black-fruit side rather than red fruit. High acid and tannin and medium-high bodied. Well balanced. Very young - particularly in comparison to the previous ancient rioja!

12. Rupert and Rothschild, Baron Edmund 2004
Franschoeck, Paarl, South Africa, £26
Opaque and ruby with slight hints of garnet coming through on the rim. Smoky, tarry nose with intese black fruits. Intense, full-bodied and brooding with the tar and black fruit really coming through on the palate also. High tannin. Very extracted. The flavour lasts for a long time. Again, very young and will probably benefit more from age than the previous wine.
This wine was very good and a serious step up from the (perfectly acceptable) Classique.