Community Tasting Note

sfwinelover1 Likes this wine:

Saturday, June 18, 2022 - First of 6 ($74@) from a recent auction purchase. On the very redolent nose and slightly less intense palate, rich dark berries, black cherries, plums, figs, incense, tobacco, pencil shavings graphite, rose petals, dark roast coffee, and starting on the second night, dark chocolate. Deep, dark purple with slight browning, medium to full bodied, thick legs. Intense acidity on the pour which integrated with air, medium+ tannins, no heat, but on the first night, a stewed quality to the fruit which gave the wine just a touch of booziness. Great complexity, VG++ persistence and intensity. Back from Douro Valley, Rioja and Bordeaux, on CA soil, I return to my favorite wine country (still shaking my head that I was in a neighboring country and didn’t stop by!), Tuscany, this time for a primarily CS-merlot IGT. Interestingly, unlike many of the IGTs (I’ve taken a vow not to use the term “Super Tuscan” unless it jeopardizes my life or those of my loved ones), this one actually feels more like BDX, or more accurately, BDX as I idealize it (Suckling has called the ‘12 of this bottling the Italian Lafitte, but it’s unclear if I could tell a Lafitte from Jean Lafitte) with none of the typical Tuscan terroir notes I typically adore. This wine went through 3 distinct stages, maybe even 3 and a half: right out of the bottle, when the acidity was pushing everything else around, after about 2.5 hours of air, when the secondary notes came out fully and everything balanced, night 2, when the stewiness vanished, and the wine became almost achingly elegant, then a last glass on night 3, when the wine lost just a touch of focus, perhaps because I hadn’t drained the prodigious sediment. This wine tastes early drinking window to me, and although it’s not clear it will entirely lose the slightly stewed quality—blame it on the hot year—it might, and the structure and fruit are all there for a long, happy future, whether there’s incremental improvement or not. Unlike many of its Tuscan compadres, this shines equally as a standalone as with food, in this case, on the different nights, a diversity of roast chicken, grilled burgers and red sauce pasta. At its best moments on night 2, this touched 95, and while I’m not always so generous, that’s what I’m scoring it, but if you, or at least if I had, PnP’d it, it won’t be close to this. My price was probably pretty close to the release price—maybe even a bit above—but it’s now in the $100+ area. I’m not sure that’s wrong, certainly not when compared to BDX and CA peers at that point, but even with Argentiera, Grattamaco and Guado, all CS dominant Tuscan IGTs from a bit under to a bit above the century mark. I sometimes worry I sound too much a flak for the Italian, and in particular, Tuscan, wine industry, but my chips are all in these guys consistently making among the finest, and the best, qpr wines anywhere, full stop. 94-95

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