The Wall Street Journal-20080118-WEEKEND JOURNAL- Tastings- An Informal Wine-s Straightforward Charm- Italy-s Montepulciano d-Abruzzo Is Easy to Drink- Easy to Like -- And Very Easy to Afford
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WEEKEND JOURNAL; Tastings: An Informal Wine's Straightforward Charm; Italy's Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Is Easy to Drink, Easy to Like -- And Very Easy to Afford
We just completed a tasting in which every one of our favorites rated Good/Very Good or better and cost $11 or less. Ka-ching!
To start at the beginning:
We guess there are some really rich people out there who drink very expensive, precious bottles of wine every night. In our experience, though, even people who love wine and have plenty of money are still always looking for house wines: straightforward, inexpensive and tasty wines that require little money to buy and little effort to enjoy. These are the kinds of wines to keep around at all times simply to pop open and enjoy when you get home from work.
A few weeks ago, before a performance of "Cyrano de Bergerac" on Broadway, we dropped into our favorite pre-theatre restaurant, Joe Allen, which has a short but carefully selected wine list. We chose an inexpensive Montepulciano d'Abruzzo from Italy. We weren't sure what we'd find. Montepulciano d'Abruzzo has been out there forever, but it has never had much of a profile. Maybe that's because it's often sold in 1.5-liter sizes and segregated with the jug wines, maybe because it's inexpensive and sometimes kept on a bottom shelf, or maybe because its name invites confusion. Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is made from the Montepulciano grape in the Abruzzo region; Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is made from the Sangiovese grape around the town of Montepulciano in Tuscany. The wines are unrelated.
So we poured this inexpensive red and, especially with John's meatloaf and Dottie's calf's liver, it was wonderful. We don't mean wonderful in a hear-the-angels-sing, change-your-life, deeply-complex- perfection way, but wonderful in an easy-to-drink, charming-adult- beverage way. As you can imagine, we immediately decided to see if there were many examples out there and, if so, conduct a broad blind tasting.
We quickly found a large sample from four states. Some were from well-known, giant winemakers like Citra, while others were more obscure. Most were packaged in regular bottles, but we bought a few in larger bottles. We did not set a price limit, but none cost more than $20. (We know there are some examples out there that cost more than that, but we didn't see them.)
We drank the wines in blind flights over several nights and . . .
Yes, we just said "we drank the wines" instead of "we tasted the wines." This was an amazing thing. Night after night, we found that instead of swirling, sniffing, tasting, spitting and moving onto the next wine, we actually came back to wine after wine for another sip. Sometimes it seemed like we forgot we were conducting a very serious professional tasting and just started talking to each other with glasses of wine in our hands, like we used to do when we were wine civilians.
This was totally unexpected and, like our experience at Joe Allen, totally wonderful. These wines were so charming, so easy, so drinkable that they seemed like a part of our family as soon as they were opened.
The wines were generally pillow soft, with raspberries, blueberries and sometimes blackberries on the nose and in the mouth. They tasted like real, just-picked, crisp fruit, fun and simple, and in that way reminded us of Beaujolais. A few were ruined by oak -- it's as though the slight frame of the wine just can't handle it -- and a handful were slightly sweet, which destroyed their charm. Ultimately, though, the line between the good ones and the better ones was surprisingly clear: It was all about minerals. Wine after wine was fruity and fun, but the ones that also offered smells and tastes of minerals stood apart, time after time. The minerals gave the wine depth, made it more than pleasant grape juice, and also left a dry and drying finish that called out for food and/or more wine.
Interestingly, in fact, our very favorite, Valle Reale "Vigne Nuove," was fermented in stainless steel and never touched oak. To do that, the vintner must have tremendous confidence in the land and the grapes -- the wine is bare, there for all to see -- and this is a total winner, as charming, real and honest as can be. The importer, Winebow of New York City, says 25,000 cases were made, of which 4,623 cases were imported and distributed in 21 states. We paid $9.95, a real bargain for such a delight.
In the attached index, you'll see our favorites, but, as always, it's impossible to know which you might see. Overall, we'd say that these are an excellent bet, especially young, considering the low prices.
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Melanie Grayce West contributed to this column. You can contact us at [email protected].
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The Dow Jones Montepulciano d'Abruzzo Index
In a broad blind tasting of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo from Italy, these were
our favorites. We would buy and drink these young. These are fine sipping
wines but also pair well with informal food, from pizza to roast-beef
sandwiches. Because these are generally fruity and light, they can stand a
bit of a chill, so if we were going to have one tonight and didn't have a
wine cellar or cooler, we'd probably leave it in the refrigerator before
going to work and then take it out when we got home. Some of these are
available in 1.5-liter bottles, perfect for a party.
VINEYARD/VINTAGE: Valle Reale "Vigne Nuove"/2005
RATING: Very Good
PRICE: $9.95
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Best of tasting. Filled with fruit (it's unoaked) and
remarkable for its balanced minerality, especially on the finish, which
makes this taste far classier than others.
VINEYARD/VINTAGE: Castellana (Cantina Miglianico)/2006
RATING: Very Good
PRICE: $5.99
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Best value. Dark, earthy and herbal. It reminded us of
a ripe tomato because of its fleshiness and acidity. Quite food-friendly and
nicely dry. Very pleasant.
VINEYARD/VINTAGE: Citra/2006
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $4.85
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Very soft, with light, easy, raspberry fruit and enough
stuff underneath that you know you're drinking real wine. Nice with Italian
food. Also a favorite in an earlier tasting of jug reds.
VINEYARD/VINTAGE: Farnese (Farneto Valley)/2005
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $7.99
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Plummy and soft as a feather, with some blueberries and
plenty of charm. Very, very easy to drink.
VINEYARD/VINTAGE: Il Conte/2006
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $6.49
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Fresh and fruity, with some raspberry tastes and a
simple, drink-me-now focus.
VINEYARD/VINTAGE: Rubiro (Villa Cervia)/2004
RATING: Good/Very Good
PRICE: $11.00*
TASTERS' COMMENTS: Controversial. Clean and crisp, with some earthiness,
and bursting with such strong tastes of ripe blueberries that Dottie likened
it to a fruit wine, which she found charming and John found too unusual.
NOTE: Wines are rated on a scale that ranges: Yech, OK, Good, Very Good,
Delicious, and Delicious! These are the prices we paid at wine stores in
California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York. *We paid $9.99 for Rubiro,
but this price appears to be more representative. Prices vary widely.
