2014 Azienda Agricola Valentini Trebbiano d'Abruzzo

Community Tasting Notes (29) Avg Score: 92.3 points

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  2/26/2024 - Bolognese Diner Likes this wine: 94 Points

  When you know which wine you're going to taste, inevitably expectations arise, and this wine, with its reputation and years of notoriety behind it, undoubtedly carries a significant emotional weight. Upon opening (served at 14/15°C), it starts with a bit of shyness, remains closed and huddled in a chilly expressionlessness, gradually unfolds, and in the meantime, there's a chance to admire its brilliant golden color that almost seems to emit light from the glass. There's a beautiful note of white flowers, hawthorn, white peach, then a beautiful herbaceous and floral tone at the same time, sage, lemon thyme, wild fennel. The fruit is citrusy, reminiscent of grapefruit and lime. Then it changes again and opens up to warmer and more enveloping notes almost bolstered by honey, chamomile, and verbena, and to a beautiful marine tone of seaweed, reminiscent of the Marche paccasassi. In the mouth, it's extremely long and of significant structure but still precise, there's a lot of substance, a great sapidity giving a real sense of pleasure to the drink, without ever losing elegance. Overall, a wine that presents itself after 10 years as if it were bottled yesterday, showing no signs of decline and indeed, seems to suggest that it should be awaited even longer. At this moment, it's still an austere wine, not easily yielding, and yet, when it floods the palate with a disarming, almost compulsively enjoyable drink.
  
  Quando sai che vino andrai ad assaggiare si creano inevitabilmente aspettative, e questo vino con la sua nomea e gli anni di notorietà alle spalle indubbiamente si porta un carico di emozioni importante.
  All'apertura (servito a 14/15°) parte con una po' di timidezza, rimane chiuso e arroccato su una algida inespressività, pian piano di schiude e nel frattempo di ha la possibilità di ammirarne il colore dorato brillante che quasi sembra emanare luce dal calice. Si avverte una bellissima nota di fiori bianchi, biancospino, pesca bianca, poi una bellissima tonalità erbacea e floreale al contempo, salvia, timo limone, finocchio selvatico. Il frutto è agrumato, sul pompelmo e lime. Poi cambia nuovamente e si apre a note più calde e avvolgenti quasi corroboranti di miele, camomilla e verbena e ad una bellissima tonalità marina di alga, ricorda i paccasassi marchigiani. In bocca è lunghissimo e dalla struttura importante ma comunque precisa, c'è tanta materia, una grandissima sapidità da un vero e proprio senso di piacevolezza alla beva, senza mai togliere eleganza. Nel complesso un vino che si presenta dopo 10 anni come se fosse stato imbottigliato l'altro ieri, non da nessun segno di cedimento e anzi, sembra volerci suggerire di dover essere aspettato ancora a lungo. In questo momento è ancora un vino austero, che non si concede facilmente, e nonostante ciò quando inonda il palato di una piacevolezza e di una beva disarmanti, quasi compulsive.

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  10/8/2023 - Es7e2003 Likes this wine: 92 Points

  See previous notes. Honey, spice and quince. Medium to medium plus body. Well made wine. Slightly underwhelming.

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  7/22/2022 - drwine2001 wrote:

  Light yellow. Marked by sulfur. Although this showed crispness and orange peel with air, it seemed stunted and never developed the depth or texture that it should have. Massively disappointing tonight.

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  6/29/2022 - forceberry wrote:

  100% organically farmed Bombino Bianco (more likely a local synonym for Trebbiano Abruzzese than Bombino Bianco the variety). The wine is made from approx. 5-10% of the best grapes harvested, the rest is sold off as bulk. Fermented spontaneously and aged in old oak casks. Spontaneous MLF. Bottled unfined, unfiltered and without any SO2. 12% alcohol. Tasted in a Valentini Trebbiano 2014-1999 vertical.
  
  Luminous, youthful yellow-green color. Very funky, dull and even rather unpleasant nose that doesn't seem to blow off even with air - bretty notes of Gueuze Lambic and Band-Aid, some mushroomy notes of penicillin, a little bit of old leather and a hint of farmhouse funk. The nose is markedly different from any other vintage we had, lacking fruit, freshness and vibrancy. The wine feels, dry, dull and quite extracted on the palate with a medium body and concentrated flavors of earthy phenolic spices, Band-Aid, some metallic notes, a little bit of old leather, light mineral notes of wet rocks and a hint of leesy yeast. The high acidity lends a very structured and almost electric feel to the wine. The finish is dull, crisp and acid-driven with flavors of lemony citrus fruits, some mineral notes of tangy salinity, a little bit of Band-Aid, light phenolic notes of earthy spices and a hint of leather.
  
  This wine stood in stark contrast to all the other bottles of Valentini Trebbiano, which often were slightly wild and even a bit funky, but still all about brilliant, intense fruit. Here the fruit department seemed dilute to the point it was barely imperceptible and the flavors were dominated by heavily bretty notes of leather, bandage glue and other phenolic compounds. Some other people in the tasting thought the wine was badly corked, but I suspect they had never had any heavily bretty wines and were just plain wrong, because I didn't get any TCA aromas even with air and the wine was just full of bretty markers (if a wine smells like Lambic from the first sniff, it's a tell-tale sign). I'd want to mark the wine as flawed, but seeing how so many other TNs note the same funky qualities, it seems we didn't have a faulty bottle, but instead 2014 is just a very poor vintage for Valentini's Trebbiano. I'm leaving the wine without a score, but I warn other people to steer clear of this vintage. It's just not up to par. I guess 2014 was as miserable a vintage in Abruzzo (or the part Valentini's located in) as it was in Tuscany and Piedmont?

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  12/13/2021 - levicn wrote: 91 Points

  醒酒一个半小时，淡金黄色，闻香是似有似无的皮毛味，白花，苹果和桃子的香气，些许矿物气息，入口酸度高，有矿物感，能感受到白芝麻的香气，白花，黄苹果混合着桃子的果香，淡淡奶油味，收口植物的微苦和辛辣，丝滑的酒液稍微有点水感，余味是梨一类的核果香气，慢慢有些冰糖味，口中回甘。随着醒酒时间的增长，淡淡的白芝麻味在杯中缓缓释出，还能感受到一点酒泥接触带来的饼干味。2014不是一个很强的年份，酒的表现力相较2015年的 Valentini Trebbiano d'Abruzzo 有些弱，依然不变的是干净清澈的口感，期待多一些时间的陈年再带来不一样的表现。

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