the two best white wines i've tasted in past 5 years

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Todd Alexander

Gianfranco Gallo

After 20 years of tasting Italian wines I’ve started to remember the day, time, and place where I notch an “ah ha” wine moment. The more I taste over the years (and I don’t limit my tasting to only 90+ point wines) the less I come across wines that make me say ah-ha. A few weeks ago I tasted several wines that were remarkable but in my decades of tasting I’ve rarely tasted two wines that were painfully gorgeous-one after another. Two wines from the same producer and vintage that simply transcend the category. Vie di Romans, a small-production winery situated in the gently rolling hills of the Collio in Friuli run by Gianfranco Gallo (no relation to the Gallo here in the States), has always made high quality wine; keeping yields low and allowing the fruit to speak instead of PR blitzes and gimmicky winemaking. But the release of their 2009 vintages raises the bar to a new level for the zone.

The Vie di Romans 2009 Chardonnay Vieris is the finest chardonnay I have ever tasted from Italy. This is a 100% stainless steel fermented chardonnay that displays more complex layers of pear, green apple, and white peach than you can immediately handle. The wine is simply fearless as it relies on perfect balance and seamless integration of fruit and acid to take you to another level. The wine has spine for days and one small sip lingers on your palate for minutes. But the one word that sums-up this bottle rocket is intensity. This is a mouth searing wine that will laser through anything you saddle up next to it while maintaining its charm if riding solo. A simply stunning wine that will make any fan of chardonnay stand up and applaud. 93/100 points

The Vie di Romans 2009 Pinot Grigio Dessimis is literally one of the best white wines I’ve ever tasted, period. Never have I had a pinot grigio that displayed hideously attractive levels of pit-fruit and mineral extract combined with fruit without being heavy-handed. If you want to witness the absolute pinnacle of pinot grigio, this is the wine. If you simply want to drink a white wine that will change the way you think about white wine, this is it. While Roman’s pinot grigio will easily age and improve over 4-5 years, I don’t have the discipline to keep my hands off this stuff for more than a year or two. The way Gianfranco manages the mineral streak that runs through the spine of this wine while allowing the fruit to take center stage is masterful. Unreal wine! 94/100 points

Anyone looking to experience the best white wines being produced in Italy should look no further than at the wines of Vie di Romans.

vermentino: a food friendly alternative to pinot grigio

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Todd Alexander

You know how I feel about pinot grigio at this point. The wine is over produced, most of it is uninteresting at best, and the really good stuff will cost you $20 or more. And with all due respect to Tony Terlato for pioneering the grape in the U.S., I’m not talking about Santa Margherita. I can whine about it all I want but pinot grigio is the biggest selling imported white wine in America so there’s plenty who either don’t care or disagree.

I want to introduce you to vermentino. If you know it already, you know it’s a crisp, clean, hi-toned white wine that usually seeks something rich to help calm its nerves. Over the past several years most of the vermentino I’ve tasted from Tuscany’s coast has been so acidic, tart, and one-dimensional I’ve not even the smallest reason to talk about it. Vermentino is still not close to being my preferred Tuscan white wine (except for Terenzuola’s vermentino which is other worldly) and most producers who produce it sell it impossibly cheap to their local trattorie and osterie who then smilingly dump it on the tourists who pack the coast during the summer.

The 2010 Litorale from the Val delle Rose estate, is a marked improvement over the 2009. Not only does the wine sport a new tidy label, but the wine itself shows more intensity, less sharp edges, and more immediate charm and appeal than the previous 2 vintages I have tasted. It’s all lemon cream, tangerine, and lime blossom with hints of stone and white peach on the finish. The acid is fast and racy and will keep you awake at the table. The 2010 vintage also marks the first time the estate has used only its own fruit to produce the wine. We can take this to mean that the winery has better control over when and how the grapes are harvested which should mean better fruit, hence better wine. The wine has 15% “other complimentary varietals” according the fact sheet I received about the wine and given the growing area I would take that to mean either sauvignon blanc or chardonnay. Given the wine’s texture and weight, I would suspect chardonnay is the addition but it in no way takes away from the headlining vermentino. Although the wine is fermented in stainless steel, it ages in oak barriques for 9-12 months. Based on what I’m tasting these oak barrels are completely neutral as you’ll not get even a whiff of tree. Good on them for that!

The verdict. 86/100 points and almost as interesting as any pinot grigio you’ll find in the $18 price range but most assuredly a better match for grilled fatty fish.

the italian wine challenge: remarkable yet affordable

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Todd Alexander

How many people can honestly say they’ve shared a meal with their real life hero? I did, by chance, about 8 years ago and I’ll never forget it. No it wasn’t Angelo Gaja, whom I’ve met and I still have a hole in my head from where he stared at me with his laser-beam eyes. It was Ricardo Legorreta, an architect whose work takes my mind to another place-almost like an amazing barolo. I riddled him with questions all afternoon and even at dinner the same evening and he graciously answered them all with humility. He told me that what he designs is great fun and almost a fantasy because most of his projects come with rather unlimited budgets. The work he admires most however, is the work he has done designing affordable housing; work that has clear budget restrictions but is no less important to the owners.

Over the years, it has occurred to me that the wine business must take the same stance. Anyone, myself included, could make a great bottle of $50 wine. Buy and hire the best and, poof, it’s done. But to put a remarkable wine on the shelf for $15 presents a different challenge. Mistakes are harder to cover and marginal fruit gets exposed. Yes, 95% of the wine out there is well under $15 a bottle and 99% of that is just that, wine. Wine that neither inspires much conversation or keeps you from looking for alternatives in the same price range. Most get the job done, some quite well, and then you keep moving, looking for the next bargain out there. It’s part of the fun of wine and we all do it gladly.

I recently tasted several over-achieving Italian wines (red, white, and sparkling) where I felt the winemaker was making a statement and not a budget. Where each winemaker made their wine, poured a glass, and said, ”here is an honest wine, a thoughtful wine, that will stand up to anything in its class regardless of price”. I’m sharing these wines with you not because they will be the best Italian wines you have ever tasted but because they merit your respect, if not attention and may well be the best Italian wines you’ve tasted for under $15.

Le Fraghe Bardolino Classico 2009

Erste e Neue Pinot Blanc 2010

Anna Maria Abbona Dolcetto di Dogliani ”Sori dij But” 2009

Sorelle Branca Prosecco di Valdobiaddene N.V.

Poggio Basso Chianti 2009

my friends love "nothing" about frascati

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Todd Alexander

I brought a bottle of frascati to a friends for dinner last night. It’s been humid in San Diego lately and the weather called for something bright, light, and white. Based on the speed in which the bottle was drained over dinner I’d say I picked a winner. My friend took a picture of the bottle with his i-Phone that he could reference when he went to the store to look for it. Both he and his wife said they liked it because there was “nothing to it”. Actually, there’s plenty to it, but I know what they mean. Sure, not enough to incite conversation about winemaking and terroir but enough to drink easily over dinner without effort. That, I believe, is the point of a $10 bottle of white wine. Easy and food friendly drinking.

The wine was Fontana Candida Frascati 2009, a wine that sells for about $10 and found in almost any grocery store. It’s been imported into the U.S. from Lazio years before I could legally drink it and sells well because it is so easy to find, afford, and drink. Frascati, made from the ubiquitous trebbiano and malvasia, is meant to quench the thirst of those who flock to bars and trattorie during the sweltering summer heat in Rome. Almond, lemon, and pear notes combine with a mineral ease on the palate with no rough edges or overtly ripe fruit to distract from the conversation or the meal. It’s simple clean wine that delivers exactly what it promises-ease of use.

Fontana Candida also makes a reserve, more full-throttle frascati that I’m going to taste soon. It’ll be interesting to compare the two. I just hope that the turbo version is as easy to drink as the classic. Afterall, Fontana Candida is doing fine at making “nothing to it” wines that people love drinking.

italian wine is not your job

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Todd Alexander

A friend recently asked my advice as he was buying a mixed case of California chardonnay. I just chuckled and started rattling off producer names that I’ve had luck with in the past. I didn’t have the heart to tell him what I really thought. He wanted chardonnay and he wanted California chardonnay because that is what he usually buys and that’s what he likes. I figure there’s plenty of time to save him from himself.

If at some point in this country we are going to treat wine as food then we need to start walking the walk. Despite the fact that most of us go through the same motions every day, most of us don’t eat the same thing every day (try as Madison Avenue may). The range of Italian wines already in the marketplace dwarfs that of any other winemaking country. We should celebrate and take advantage of this. If in one week you eat grilled steak, baked chicken, broiled fish, sautéed pasta with mushrooms and butter, and roasted pork tenderloin, why not try soave, tocai, pinot bianco, orvieto, and vermentino if you’re a white wine fan instead of chardonnay, chardonnay, chardonnay, chardonnay, and chardonnay. Yes, there is ease and comfort in routine and it’s great to find a favorite and run with it. It’s why we do what we do everyday without thinking about it. But after all, when the few opportunities we have each day arise to change the routine, spin the game, or ”break” the rules don’t we owe it to ourselves to do so?

Every day we get out of the same bed (usually with the same person), get into the same car, drive the same route, and go to the same job, where we usually do the same thing. Encourage others to break the rules. If you know someone who drinks California chardonnay every day (if you read this blog them I assume you don’t have such habits), hip them to a chardonnay from Italy or better yet a Soave.

Afterall, Italian wine is not your job.