1997 Azienda Agricola Valentini Montepulciano d'Abruzzo

Community Tasting Notes (17) Avg Score: 95 points

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  12/31/2023 - Benoit Hardy wrote: flawed

  Smell and taste like nail polish. Totally dead.

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  3/24/2023 - glou.sf Likes this wine: 95 Points

  Beautiful nose with dark fruit notes, violets, mint, dark cherries, and plums. It's very fragrant and surprisingly primary, but opened up nicely with air, revealing a bit more leather and wood notes. Nice balance on the palate with velvety mouthfeel, more dark fruit notes, tart cherries, and a slight rusticity. Good acidity and long finish. Excellent wine that tastes very young still. It's surprisingly ripe, but well balanced and will be even better with more age. 95+

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  4/8/2021 - Benoit Hardy Likes this wine: 95 Points

  Despite its 4 hours of slow aeration in the bottle, it will have to be decanted. It is only after this operation that he will take off.
  
  The nose mixes beautiful notes of caramelized fruits, tobacco and chocolate.
  
  In the mouth, the structure struggles to assert itself at first. But when the wine starts to take off… The orbit is guaranteed. The mouth appears bloody as is often the case with this area. There is a lot of complexity in this wine: flavors of coffee, crushed strawberries and cocoa mingle on the palate. The juice is textured and silky, it is very beautiful and elegant, with a lot of finesse, whereas I have always found this wine to be powerful and earthy. Very nice minty and herbaceous finish that stretches for a long time in the mouth.
  
  An impressive wine for its complexity and for the different phases it has gone through since opening.

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  9/28/2020 - La Flama Blanca Likes this wine: 95 Points

  Beast Mode! Inky dark blood in color. Massive and untamed, these Valentini’s are not for the timid. Showcasing a dark red and black fruit core with notes of roasted wild boar, olives, iron, beef blood, wet earth and smoke. At 6 hours open it was still insanely intense. I’d recommend an 8-12 hr / all day decant to experience everything this monster has to offer. Off the charts power and a wine that needs both bottle age and a day’s worth of air to truly enjoy all of its nuances. 95+

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  7/27/2019 - Ms. Bubblehead Likes this wine:

  Quite a bit more concentrated than the Pepe, with less of a floral nose that was more meaty and smoky, the palate had darker fruits with olives, gravel, and a bit rustic. I think overall Valentini's reds need more time to show and often feel the fruit can be hiding under more earthy sensations.

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