Oliver’s Groovy Italian Wine Blog

New Producer and New Vintages

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:29:27 -0700

I am very pleased to be doing business again with Matilde Poggi at Le Fraghe, an excellent producer of Bardolino. We are finding that many of our customers are very interested in drinkable, less extracted red wines, and this Bardolino is just the thing. Cherries, hints of herbs, very well made (the same enologist as Sorelle Bronca), perfect summer red or salumi wine. Download the tech sheet here.

Other new arrivals: '09 dry Muscat and Lagrein from Thurnhof; '09 Piedirosso from La Sibilla; a final shipment of the extraordinary '09 Nebbiolo Rosato from Sella; and (ten days ago) the excellent fresh, bright white wines from Erste und Neue. To see a complete list of new arrivals, click here.

Newly imported wines from Erste + Neue Winery

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:38:47 -0700

The Alto Adige (or Süd Tyrol, as it's called by the German-speaking inhabitants) is the only area of Italy known for good large, co-operative wineries. (A few good co-ops exist in other regions, but not lots of them in one region.) We are now importing the top-notch wines of a co-op called Erste + Neue*,which is right in the center of Caldaro, one of the small towns on the 'Wine Road' south of Bolzano. They make the range of white wines that you would expect, Sauvignon, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris (and an excellent Müller Thurgau), all of which we are importing on our first shipment; we'll also have their reserve 'Grobnerhof' bottling of Santa Magdalener, which is just the kind of red wine I drink in warm weather. Gerhard Sanin, the enologist for E+N, favors a bright, restrained winemaking style that really allows this place and these varieties to shine.

We are known for importing some of the best artisan wines of the Alto Adige, such as Niedrist, Widmann and now the inimitable Peter Pliger at Kuenhof. I am very pleased to round out our selection with Erste + Neue; different price points, more wine available, and a house quality and style that is entirely consistent with the rest of our selection. We look forward to tasting these wines with you.

* 'Erste + Neue' means 'First + New', and is the merger of the first ('erste') co-op cellar in Caldaro and the newest ('neue').

Summer Reds

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:35:15 -0700

I love lighter red wines, especially now with summer upon us. The kind of food I eat this time of year certainly changes, and it makes sense that the wine would change too. I love lighter reds because they somehow just taste right on a warm summer night; I love them because they make the food I eat this time of year taste good; I love them because they often come in at 12-13% alcohol, which doesn't sound like that much less than 14%, but certainly tastes less; and I just love the way these wines taste period. (Most of these wines benefit from 15 or 20 minutes in the fridge, which is my ritual when it's warm out.)

Jon Bonné of the SF Chronicle agrees; for his article about the joys of lighter reds, click here “Reds that Tread Lightly”.

In stock, we have the '08 Pelaverga from Verduno, the '09 Santa Magdalener from Mumelter, and the '09 Grignolino from La Casaccia. On the water we have Niklas Schiava, Le Fraghe Bardolino, La Sibilla Piedirosso and a new Santa Magdalener from Erste + Neue (new winery, wines arriving in a few short weeks!).

Vinitaly 2010

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:19:49 -0700

Italians make wine in every region of their country, from hundreds of different grape varieties. These wines range in style from completely traditional and distinctive to slick, modern and faceless. This diversity is on display at the enormous trade fair Vinitaly, which is held in Verona every year around Easter. (For San Franciscans: the display area is slightly larger than all of Moscone Center, which is to say: huge.) Although Vinitaly is chaotic (4,300 wineries represented, the occasional staggering drunk on the weekend, parking nightmares), it is an invaluable opportunity for importers. Instead of having to make appointments, driving all over the countryside looking for wineries, and being polite to an anxious producer for several hours even if the first taste tells me I'm wasting my time, I walk over to, say, the Campania area, and go from booth to booth, tasting and moving on. I can research a new area pretty well in a few hours, rather than days or weeks. (Then I traverse the countryside visiting only the producers I know I'm serious about.)

We import wine mostly from very small family-owned wineries, and surprisingly almost all of them come to Vinitaly. (When you think of trade fairs of this magnitude, you would think they would be attended by mostly larger companies, but not here.) Small producers will usually band together and share a small area, perhaps with a few café tables and chairs; for example our producers Ignaz Niedrist and Andreas Widmann share a booth with several friends of the same calibre. (If I like the wines of one producer in a communal booth I will usually taste the others, too, as they are often of similar style and quality.) At the other extreme the largest wineries will have palatial 'stands', sometimes with several floors, large multimedia displays, Formula 1 cars, blatant objectification of women, et cetera. The way a winery presents itself at Vinitaly says a great deal about the style of their wines; my wineries might go so far as to bring a jar of soil from their vineyards with them, but that's about it for glitz. Well, soil and salame, lots of salame.

The day starts at about 9:30. Hundreds of visitors from all over the world mill around outside the gates, waiting for the battle to begin. At 9:30 the turnstiles are opened and everyone who is serious about Italian wine starts to crowd into the fairgrounds; I've been doing this for more than 15 years and I have to admit, it's still exciting. You have the sense that the whole world of Italian wine is laid out before you, all sorts of unknown gems lying on the ground waiting to be picked up. Once inside you have the choice of a number of 'pavilions,' which are in fact large brutish industrial-looking buildings (or sometimes huge tents), most of which are dedicated to the wines of a particular region of Italy, for example Tuscany or Campania. The fair is so spread out that most veterans try to taste building by building, as it takes perhaps ten minutes to walk from one end of the fair to the other.

I have found that the best way to find great producers in a region is to ask other great producers, whether already in our book or not, as they know who's doing good work and are almost always willing to discuss it. I usually taste just a few examples of a prospective producer's wines, to see if the style and quality of the wines are consistent with the rest of our selection. Any suggestion of off aromas or new wood (hmm, maybe new wood is an off aroma, there's a thought) and I thank them and move on. But every so often I put my nose in the glass and find just what I'm looking for: distinctive, typical, clean, expressive wine. It makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Anna Maria Abbona Dolcetto di Dogliani ‘Maioli’

Fri, 4 Jun 2010 13:58:41 -0700

We just tasted the 2008 Maioli single-vineyard Dolcetto from Anna Maria Abbona in the office. It's exactly what a reserve wine should be, similar character and flavors to the regular Sori dij But bottling but with the volume turned up; very distinctive aroma and flavor of blueberry, tealeaves, fountain-pen ink and flowers, fine tannins, long and savory. Anna Maria's vineyards are amongst the highest in the appellation, and the added freshness this confers on the wine is always welcome. Excellent with steak, lamb or sausages. (The vineyard this comes from was planted by her uncle Angelo in 1936; the wine is fermented and aged in stainless steel.)

Elevation: 500 meters
Soil: Tuff and calcerous loam rock
Exposure: South/South-West; very steep
Vineyard: 1.5 Hectares (67-74 year old vines, guyot trained)
Output: 50 Q/Ha
Fermentation: Stainless steel, 8-10 days
Malo-lactic: In autumn
Aging: Stainless steel
Bottling: A year after grape harvest without filtration
Production: 7000 bottles
Cases imported: 100 six packs