Les Caves de Pyrene Mainly Italian Tasting

We chose a very pleasant if not commodious venue for our autumn mini-tasting, a private room at The Only Running Footman in Charles Street in Mayfair, an excellent restaurant-gastropub owned by the Meredith group. Never wishing to make it too easy on ourselves the slender list of wannashow wines grew and grew until we had veritably ransacked the heart and guts of our Italian agency list. Relatively speaking it was still a pint-sized production; unlike some of our wine merchant confreres who display several hundred wines in prestigious locations we were fairly modest in our ambition, our focus simply to show the many different grapes and terroirs of Italy (linked again by the notion of real wines)

I like Metternich’s observation that Italy is a geographical expression. To demonstrate the exhilarating variety of Italian wines you must touch every boundary and explore the very nooks and crannies of this diverse and diverting country. From the communes of Valle d’Aosta, nestling on the Swiss border, to the baking volcanic plug of Pantelleria swept by hot winds off the Sahara, every corner of Italy throws up a grape variety, a quirky tradition or some delicious vinous ambuscado that keeps the most jaded palate on taste-bud tenterhooks.

Although we didn’t know it at the time our tasting was conducted on a fruit day on the Maria Thun calendar. The wines showed beautifully, which is a mixed blessing, because now I am going to refer and defer to the aforementioned calendar like an oracle. This may mean that my activity in the tasting field is severely curtailed!

Every tasting throws up highlights; these were mine:

2004 Chaude Lune, Vin de Glace, Cave de Vin Blanc
An ice wine from Valle d’Aosta? From the Prie Blanc grape harvested in December when the vineyards are swathed in snow. Unusually, it is the wine that is the vehicle for the wood rather than the other way round, and, in this case, cherry, juniper and chestnut amongst others lend their subtle tones to the finished product. It has a delicious burnished apple flavour, not dissimilar to a Tokaji. Throw a servant on the roaring log fire and sip this elixir with some hot roasted chestnuts whilst humming a few bars of “Edelweiss”.

2004 Torrette Superiore Vigni di Torrette, Cantina di Barro
This wine is homage to the original Torrette grown on the slopes of Monte Torrette. Opaque crimson-red, it delivers a rich, unctuous nose of strawberries and liquorice with chunky, meaty notes (seasoned by herbs). This wine exhibits a wild Rhone-like feel with powerful but beautifully-integrated tannins and the wood is a just one part of the whole.

2006 Kuenhof Veltliner, Peter Pliger, Alto-Adige
Peter Pliger’s wines seem to embody the clarity of the Dolomites as they rise up spectacularly from the Valle Isarco. The descriptor mineral is oft overused, but this Gruner Veltliner wine exemplifies all that is sternly stony. A whiff of meadow-grass, a sniff of peach-kernel, maybe a suggestion of honeysuckle, some pepper and dried ginger undercut by firm slice of Dolomitic minerality. Conventually pure, as the advert used to say. And more biodynamic than you can shake a dung-filled cow’s horn at.

2004 Granato Foradori, Trentino
Granato, from the Teroldego grape, is a wine of strength, harmony, depth and nobility. Deep, almost shy on the first nose, it reveals itself as the aromas come into focus: wild berries and candied fruit make way for roasted hazelnuts, baked bread, leather, eucalyptus and pomegranate, then the full robust palate shows plenty of temptingly chewy flesh.

2005 Vitovska, Benjamin Zidarich, Friuli
Carso is a limestone-rich plateau that extends out from the city of Trieste and reaches toward the Julian Alps to the north. The heavy limestone content of the soils likely gave the zone its name (Carso is thought to be derived from a Celtic word meaning “land of rock"), and it lends the wines, both white and red, a firm acidic backbone and mouth-watering minerality. Vitovska is part macerated on the skins for twelve to fifteen days. It has a fine, delicate, fruity nose suggestive of plums, yellow cherries and poire william, followed by a palate with an upfront entry as you might expect from a variety that shares its environment with the bora gales that batter the coast. This wine says “Drink me” and your palate will be forever “unjaded”. - Start practising that cep risotto recipe.

2002 Brunello di Montalcino, Il Paradiso di Manfredi
Il Paradiso di Manfredi today is one of the best expressions of traditional Brunello di Montalcino. Viticulture and vineyard rhythm is effectively biodynamic. Pesticides and weedkillers are eschewed, the waxing and waning of the moon determines activity in the vineyard and the winery. They hand-pick the grapes (the wild ferment takes place in concrete vats ( no temperature control! ) after which the wine spends 36/40 months in big casks of Slavonian oak (25/30 hl).
The wines are everything you hope for great Sangiovese displaying wicked wild cherry fruit along with notes of herbs, leather, liquorice, pepper and spice and nascent prune, tar and tobacco aromas. It’s so savoury that the food you are thinking of cooks and presents itself at the table.
A wine made out of love in a difficult vintage.

1997 Il San Lorenzo, Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Riserva, Fattoria San Lorenzo
This vintage Verdicchio is as mad as a Marche Hare. The presence of oldies but goldies confirms that this is Verdicchio that acquires profound wisdom with age, when all the discrete flavour components have melded to create a wine that is beautifully mysterious, not unlike old Chablis, old Vouvray or old Trebbi-valentini. Firstly, pour into a carafe and allow the wine to reach traditional cellar temperature. Nosing this you receive the impact of warm, bready aromas and the distinctive cut of iodine; the palate reinforces this and there are some nice hints of citrus peel and nut lingering around. Fantastic long finish; the acidity sashays around your mouth for some time and thrums your gums in a friendly fashion. If it’s a ten year Verdicchio it’s barely out of nappies.

2002 Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, Edoardo Valentini
The lowly Trebbiano grape, overcropped everywhere across Italy, becomes world-quality, refined, and ageworthy in Edoardo Valentini’s (and now Francesco’s) hands in Abruzzo. The wine, best after years in a cool cellar, shows a kaleidoscope of flavours that are creamy and crisp at once, ranging from freshly toasted hazelnuts to coconut shavings, and has an underlying bracing acidity that lends it an uncanny capacity to age. But let’s pour a glass of this beautiful wine and test the evolution. Give it a little time to open and out comes that elegant, minerally nose with ripe citrus aromas. Take a sip and experience how full and mouthfilling it is, how piquant and almost fat (but not quite). Note how refined the flavours are, how intensely they are rendered by its swathe of acidity, the sort that gives wines like this great potential for improvement with age. Observe how long the minerally finish is with its notes of hazelnut and liquorice. Nick Belfrage describes Valentini’s Trebbiano as the quality equivalent of a very fine white Cote de Beaune. With crooked bells on, I would have thought.

2003 Vigna Paradiso Lacrima di Morra d’Alba, San Lorenzo
The fascinating name of the Lacrima Morra d’Alba is derived from the variety of the same name, the Lacrima, a native of the district. It is reputed to be of extremely ancient origin (o best beloved) and is still cultivated only in the commune of Morro d’Alba in the province of Ancona and the territories of neighbouring communities. The use of the “governo Toscano” is recommended in making the wine. The method involves the inducement of a second fermentation of the wine, following racking, through the addition of a certain quantity of must pressed from selected and partly dried grapes. The addition must be made no later than December 31st of the year of the harvest. The Vigna Paradiso Lacrima is a different vale of tears. Much Lacrima is dilute, confected and semi-sweet, whereas this version, made from yields of one bunch per vine, is fermented dry, has a snappy, rasping personality and chockfull of cherry goodness.

2005 Cerasuolo di Vittoria, COS, Sicily
A beautiful lively ruby-red wine combining the floral nature of the Frappato grape (violets, cherry-blossom) with the black fruits flavours of the Nero d�Avola. The wine drives across the palate with a gratifying crispness; it is never heavy, and its fruity flavours are also lifted by the subtle notes of crushed minerals and dried herbs. A revelation if you believe that Sicilian reds are nothing more than jam spread of toast(ed) oak.