From Italy, With (Some) Age
March 30th, 2018
The theme of today's offer is simple, I suppose.
All three wines are -
- from Italy
- have some age on them
Instead of rambling on at length about each one in separate offers, I thought that rambling on about all of them in one offer was a great idea.
It's a 3-for...so...lucky you!
BISCI VERDICCHIO di MATELICA RISERVA SENEX 2010 $42
Bisci's 'Fogliano' is, in most years, the finest Verdiccho di Matelica on the market, and it's one of our staple white wines here at MCF. In great years (like 2010), the Bisci brothers select the very best fruit from Fogliano vineyard, which is considered to be the Grand Cru of the zone, and allow it spend an extended time in both barrel and bottle and release it late. The Riserva Senex 2010 still shows the bright, fresh, beautifully cheesy character that Fogliano is known for, but the age contributes another level of soft, floral, slightly nutty complexity to it. The slight oiliness coats the palate, gives the flavors a long runway across the palate. Of course, it will pair well with fish (usually the de facto pairing for Verdicchio), but, for me, it'd be much more at home with a range of flavors. Picture a nice long Italian meal that starts with various apps, then moves on to pasta, then fish, then poultry, etc. and you need a white to cover all of that. This is that white.
TENUTA delle TERRE NERE ETNA ROSSO CALDERARA SOTTANA 2013 $41
Terre Nere's airy, pure, racy single-vineyard reds from the slopes of Mount Etna are well-known these days and, while the wonderful 2016s are the current release, I came across a small lot of the already-maturing 2013 Calderara Sottana and was intrigued. While the vibrantly-bright red fruits that all of the TN reds display is certainly front and center, this wine in particular is typically all about firmness and minerality, and that's what we've got going on here. In fact, when you first pull the cork, the wine is solidly in that 'middle' place, where the structure is overshadowing the fruit, making it appear a bit firm and austere. But with a few hours of air, things really begin to come into balance. If you have the ability, I'd recommend pulling the cork well in advance, as the beautiful, Burgundian softness/pureness really begins to emerge with good time. The other option would be to let it go in the cellar for another couple of years. Either way, you're in for a delicate little treat.
ODOARDI VIGNA SCAVIGNA ROSSO 'VIGNA GARRONE' 2004 $45
I'm always yammering on about the South of Italy and how many undiscovered, age-able gems there are if you're only willing to take the leap (i.e. buy the wine from me and than age it for 5-10 years on reco alone). With this wine, you don't have to leap, though. The Vigna Garrone from Odoardi, one of Calabria most exciting small producers, being a 2004, kinda takes away the need to wait...now you only need to take my advice! This rather unique wine is comprised mainly of Gaglioppo (80%), which is Calabria's main (and probably most important) native red varietal. The remaining 20% is a blend of (and this is where it gets rather interesting) 10% Nerello Capuccio (a grape associated almost exclusively with the above Etna wines) and the remaining 5% are the Bordeaux varietals of Cabernet Franc (5%), Cabernet Sauvignon (3%) and Merlot (2%). As the back label states, each vine was 'severely pruned to produce just one bottle of wine per year'. So, you can imagine that when this wine was young, it was a huge, dark, pungent, rustic bruiser of a wine...which it was. Give it over a decade of bottle time, though and you still have a big, dark, earthy, rustic red, but one where the 'bruiser' element has integrated, and now the wine shows a degree of wisdom to it that really serves to balance out its more primal instincts. It's a wine that's packed with that special, brutish charm that only wines from Italy's deep South can express.
MCF Rare Wine, Ltd
249 West 13th Street
New York 10011
mcf@mcf-rarewine.com
212.255.8870
www.mcf-rarewine.com
WARNING: DRINKING DISTILLED SPIRITS, BEER, COOLERS, WINE AND OTHER ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES MAY INCREASE CANCER RISK, AND, DURING PREGNANCY, CAN CAUSE BIRTH DEFECTS.