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| Written by Administrator | |
| Thursday, 14 August 2008 22:08 | |
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Got Value? Luca Botter does... After happening on some of his wines in a liquidation a year ago (and you making them into a sensation and demolishing them in weeks), we met Luca Botter this year in Verona (and then he visited us here at the store a week later). He is young, really excited about wine and seems to like what we are doing so we decided to do it together. His company is a third generation family wine business with vineyards and multiple cantine, not just a big negotiant buy and bottling bulk wines. All of the labels are very well priced and designed to make a nice impression on the table (both flavor and package wise). We expect a great reception for these: Tor del Colle Brindisi Riserva 2005, Puglia $16.99 If you, like many, are addicted to Lomazzi & Sarli’s rich and meaty Brindisi Rosso Solise, this will keep you happy till the new vintage of that returns. Rione dei Dogi Squinzano Riserva 2005, Puglia You DEMOLISHED This, New Vintage Soon! The richer, meatier, more sophisticated uncle of Salice Salentino, this has a big fan club. In the zona, you often see “The best vegetable is PORK” inlaid in stone above the hearths in restaurants. Good advice, we try to follow it. Plus we just like to say “Squinzano”....fantastically rich and smooth (especially for this price)....the Pinot Killer! Botter Primitivo Salento Doppio Passo 2008, Puglia $15.99 RIPASSO Primitivo....oh..MY! This is going to be a huge thing while it lasts, don’t dally. Azienda Agricola Vitivinicola Lomazzi & Sarli, Latiano, Puglia Proprietario Pino Dimastrodonato and famed enologist Franco Bernabei have managed to drag a traditional winery (founded in 1869 but on land used for viticulture since the 8th century BC!) into the future by making it even MORE old school: they converted to all organic agriculture and instituted hand harvesting of the alberello trained 30+ year old vines. The results are not only delicious and packed with the dirt and sun of the heel of the boot, they are also almost ridiculously affordable (we love the fact that they talk about not a “good” quality/price ratio but “the correct” QPR in their brochure!) : Lomazzi & Sarli Primitivo Girale 2008, Puglia Sold Out, New Vintage Soon! ORGANIC Lomazzi & Sarli Negroamaro Partemio 2008, Puglia $17.99 ORGANIC Classic examples of the most typical Puglian varieties: Negroamaro which is softer and sort of Pinot textured but with darker flavors and Primitivo which is what we call Zinfandel here in California. Aside from being great values and not looking cheap, they are also perfect for meatloaf, red sauce pasta, pizza, Asian stir fries, pirogis, empanadas, Jody Maroni’s sausages, Uncle Sven’s special Swedish meatballs, turkey pot pies, carne asada, a chili cook-off, gyros and falafel...did we mention they are food friendly? Lomazzi & Sarli Brindisi Riserva Solise 2005, Puglia $26.99 ORGANIC A WINE EXPO-ista tasting note, live from the field: “Hey, guys, enjoyed the remaining bottle of Brindisi Riserva Solise, 2003 w/ beef roulade filled w/ bacon, onion & spices. Another reminder that an alternate definition for 'smile' could be 'drinking Italian grower produced wines'. Four hours after receiving this earthy wine, the empty decanter sat on the counter. I wondered what the aroma would be, so I picked it up & sniffed, & was thoroughly amused to find only this: a hint of gardenia followed by beautiful blackberry honey. There are always pleasant surprises on ‘the dirt road’, and always...smiles.” Thanks, Carlton, we couldn’t have said it better ourselves! Check out our favorite Negroamaro in Architectual Digest's profile of Matthew McConaughey's Beach Pad! Lomazzi & Sarli Salento Primitivo Latias 2007, Puglia $27.99 ORGANIC A much deeper and more structured rendition of Primitivo than the Girale, this is fermented in stainless steel to preserve the fruit and aromatics then mellowed in barrels for 12 months. One of the best values in the store. Lomazzi & Sarli Salento Malvasia Nera Kalós 2005, Puglia Sold Out, Returning Soon! ORGANIC Our notes on tasting this new bottling (the first pure Malvasia Nera that we have ever seen) with Pino: “Wow!!! Brandied fruit, spice and rose petals on the nose, THICK in the mouth, rich deeep red fruit in the mouth and a firm dry finish, this is going to be HUGE.” Lomazzi & Sarli Salice Salentino Irenico 2004, Puglia ORGANIC Sold Out, Returning Soon! The crown jewel of this estate: organically grown, hand made, beautifully packaged, absolutely delicious, DOC certified and still under $15? Welcome to WINE EXPO! Lomazzi & Sarli Salento Rosso Susumaniello Nomas 2004, Puglia $29.99 ORGANIC One of the best Puglian wines we have ever encountered: very dark and brooding in the glass with deeeep, dark black fruits but somehow nearly weightless in the mouth. It has intense color and a big, chocolate and plums flavor profile (but with good acidity underneath) and an incredibly smooth finish. Grab this while it’s here as it is VERY limited. Lomazzi & Sarli Salento Aleatico Rosso Dolce Dimastrodonato 2003, Puglia $26.99 500 ml ORGANIC An outrageously rich, indulgent and yummy alternative to Porto that is packed with rose petal, berry and citrus notes, this will be delish whether you serve it with some nice ripe cheeses, poach some pears in it or just sip it on the deck and watch the sunset.
Azienda Vinicola Palamà, Cutrofiano, Puglia Complimenti Cosimo! Merum, a very serious wine and food magazine written in German and based in Switzerland, has a monthly feature that could have come right out of one of our newsletters. Der Ultimative Weintest uses a scoring mechanism we can really get behind: after a comprehensive blind tasting of a particular set of wines, the tasters are served a large selection of Pizza and then, after they are satiated, the bottles are lined up according to how much wine is left in them. This is measured in centimeters and the HIGHEST number is the loser. Well, our beloved Palamà Metiusco Rosso 2003 (one of our largest sellers despite being told that it was “too rustic” for Americans by a previous importer) was the winner recently with ZERO cm remaining (as in they killed the bottle) and the winner of the coveted JLF (“je leerer die flasche, umso besser der wein!”). A Star is Born! Palamà Salento Rosso IGT Brontolo, Puglia $9.99 LITER bottle This delicious blend of Negroamaro and Malvasia Nera has NO tannin, is super smooth and drinkable with nice meaty flavors and very food friendly. Brontolo became a WINE EXPO-ista Cult Classic in less than a week and even made the Best of LA edition of the LA Alternative Press who gushed that its “bouquet puts grassy tasting Chuck Shaw to shame”!!! Yes, it has a screwcap but that is just so you can get your first glass filled faster..... Palamà Salice Salentino Albarossa 2007, Puglia Sold Out, New Vintage Soon! Long a favorite of WINE EXPO-isti for his Metiusco and Mavro Vino da Tavolas, Cosimo also maintains local tradition by making this wonderfully smooth and flavorful (and also REALLY affordable) bottlings of the local DOC. Soft, Pinot-like textures, warm meaty flavors, direct from sunny Puglia, this is good with almost anything. Santé! Palamà Salento Primitivo Albarossa 2007, Puglia $17.99 You love Primitivo (the Godfather of Zinfandel), we love Primitivo, let’s all scream for more Primitivo. This one is seriously dark and spicy yet very affordable. Palamà Salento Rosso IGT Metiusco 2003, Puglia $14.99 Palamà Salento Rosso IGT Metiusco 2008, Puglia $26.99 Palamà Salento Rosso IGT Metiusco 2003, Puglia $75.00 3 liter double magnum Southern Red ala Funk with a strong backbeat drawn from a blend of Malvasia Nera, Negroamaro, Primitivo and Montepulciano, this is a perpetual WINE EXPO-ista favorite due not only to it bumptious, bring on the real food flavors but also its classy packaging (it’s the one with the grocery bag colored label and the big red wax seal). Why not try the whole line (White, Rosato, Red, Dolce) and have a themed tasting dinner? Palamà Salento Rosso IGT Mavro 2008, Puglia $25.99 Silky smooth and richly flavored, we have one customer who keeps insisting every time he buys another bottle that “You know, that is the best wine in the store and it’s less than $35! How do they DO that?” We won’t argue (at least as far as value for money is concerned!). “Mavro” is Greek for “black” and this blend of Malvasia Nera and Negroamaro IS quite dark. A heartwarming tribute to Papa Palamà: Palamà Salento Rosso Il Vino D’Arcangelo 2008, Puglia $35.00 100% Malvasia Nera finished just barely off dry as a tribute to Cosimo’s father. VERY rich, smooth and just barely sweet, this will shine with duck, lamb or game dishes or maybe some really ripe cheeses, roasted nuts and the whole family reminiscing about Grandpa. Fantastic packaging too. Palamà Salento Rosso Passito IGT Metiusco Oro 2005, Puglia Sold Out, New Vintage Soon! This is a really sophisticated wine that grows on you with every sip: so soft it is almost fluffy, scented with black fruits and Rosé petals, not too sweet or alcoholic, serve it with anything from gnarly cheeses through panna cotta with fresh berries to your most sinfully intense chocolate. Azienda Agricola Petrera Pasquale, Gioia del Colle, Puglia This cantina has such an interesting story to tell that we don’t even know where to begin. THEY begin in their press kit with “At the beginning of the Oligocene era there was still a channel between the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic Seas. Between the cretaceous plate of the Bari area and the Southern Apennines, the Saddle of Spinazzola formed a broad strait that linked the Ionian Sea to the Adriatic, where the today's territory of Gioia del Colle was then submerged....” then note that their vineyard site was used as same by the Peucetians in the 8th century B.C.. They then fast forward to the late 18th century when their ancestor Nicola Petrera picked their hillside (365 meters above sea level) to plant to vines and built a home / cantina at about the same time as local bishop Don Franceso Filippo Indellicati selected a local grape variety, known in dialect as U’pr’mati’ve, as the best in the Zona and renamed Primitivo as it is not only the first to ripen but gives TWO harvests each year, the second one (known as “racemi” and with less body and color but more sweetness and aromatics) being thrown into the fermented wine as a sort of Ripasso or Governo thus adding richness to the wine. The current generation were the first to bottle Primitivo in purezza (in 1987) and founded the DOC Primitivo Gioia del Colle in 2000 and have taken Nonno Nicola’s motto, “Who loves and respects Nature, loves God and himself” as their own and do everything by hand and in strict accordance with Certified Organic Agriculture standards (“considered as life-style: not for business but for respect of Nature and every living creature, in primis ourselves”) and even say that they treat each vine like a person and that “We want to make our wine like mirror of the territory, the soil and the people who are its authors...the success of a wine has to be made starting from roots of the vine”. They kind of lose us at the part where they “foster tranquillity and harmony by diffusion of new-age sounds in our cellar to support the activity of the living enzymes inside our natural wines sensitive to music therapy” but, hey, what could it hurt? So, anyway, we tasted the wines and immediately ordered piles of them for ourselves (we might let you have some too if there is any left). Petrera Primitivo Gioia del Colle Fatalone 2005, Puglia $24.99 Petrera Primitivo Gioia del Colle Riserva Speciale Fatalone 2003, Puglia $33.99 ORGANIC Ok already....after all THAT what does serious Primitivo (which as you may know, is the grape we call Zinfandel in California) taste like anyway? Well, to quote the chef / barkeep who created the world’s greatest Burger (the Office Burger at Father’s Office), our friend Sang Yoon, “A charred aged prime steak rolled in dirt, with a smoked plum garnish...I liiiiiiike it!” Now THAT is the sort of recommendation of a grape varietal we can really get behind. These do not disappoint: They are big, rich, meaty, smoky...all that and a bag of wild boar chittlins. |
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| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 03 August 2010 01:28 ) |