2003 Riecine La Gioia Toscana IGT

Community Tasting Notes (6) Avg Score: 90 points

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View Chalkhills's profile
  • Report Issue

  1/26/2019 - Chalkhills Likes this wine: 93 Points

  Deep red colour fading to the edge gave hints of what was to come. Autumnal, smokey nose if slightly restrained. Decanting helped and on the palate those same autumnal flavours emerged. Rich, dark fruit with hints of fruit cake and bitter chocolate. Perhaps some blackberry and even dried prunes adding to the dark richness. Tannins ripe and fully integrated while acid was good and well balanced. If there was a problem, it was the slightly dominant alcohol but this didn’t detract from the enjoyment. Fruit persisted on the finished and showed good length...despite rinsing the decanter last night, you could still smell the wine that had been in there this morning!
  
  Went well with sautés lambs liver served with broad beans, mash and a wine and red currant sauce.

  Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View Henman's profile
  • Report Issue

  1/7/2016 - Henman Likes this wine: 90 Points

  The cork broke upon popping so the wine was filtered and double decanted for about one hour. Beautiful nose of leather, funky notes and nice dark fruit. Rather full bodied on the palate, still going strong, delivering loads of tart cherries and plums with a mellowed aspect, a lot of funky, a bit leathery notes, some tannic grip still with a gentle dusty finish. Initially just great but with more airtime it turned a bit austere. That could suggest it is time to drink up.

  Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View kingkanu's profile
  • Report Issue

  6/28/2015 - kingkanu wrote: 89 Points

  Ripe and forward, this is mature and ready to drink, very tasty now but a little simple

  1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Comment

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View Alex H's profile
  • Report Issue

  5/7/2012 - Alex H wrote: 84 Points

  Spiced black fruited and a bit of riper sun baked fruitines. Could do with more acidity. A lil licorice and Indian spice.

  Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View Paul S's profile
  • Report Issue

  5/6/2012 - Paul S wrote: 90 Points

  Dinner at Giant Garoupa (Yuan Wei Deep-Sea Garoupa, Serangoon Road): Nice, if a little too young to fully enjoy or properly assess. It had a lovely Tuscan nose, with plenty of leather, meat and loamy earth surrounding riper notes of dark plums. With some time in the glass, typical notes of Italian herbs and spices started emerging, alongside a rather toasty smokiness that seems to mark many examples from 2003. Still tight I thought, but this was a bouquet that showed lots of character. If anything, the palate was tighter still, being marked at the fore by slightly woody and still rather firm tannins. A bit rustic given the heat of the vintage maybe. However, I liked the underlying character of the wine, with its nicely juicy flavours of dark cherries and plums leading into a spicy finish. Acidity was not as bright as you would expect from a Sangiovese, again perhaps because of the hot vintage, but there was still a nice punch of pure fruit here. It had a good finish too, with some length to it, as the fresher black fruit notes ceded some way to a slightly more dried-fruit character. Given the structure and shape on this, it is definitely a wine that should accompany a nice, meaty meal, rather than one to be enjoyed on its own. I am not sure this will be the longest lasting ICT given the hot vintage character on it, but judging the way a bottle of the similarly warm 1997 vintage that we tried last year has developed, this still has some way to go before hitting its peak drinking window.

  Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

View all 6 Community Tasting Notes

Professional reviews have copyrights and you can view them here for your personal use only as private content. To view pro reviews you must either subscribe to a pre-integrated publication or manually enter reviews below. Learn more.