The Wine's the Thing
Mitch Kornfeld
5/1

Grand European Tasting

Recently I had the good fortune to attend the third Grand European Wine Tasting, an annual event, sponsored by the European Wine Council. The EWC is an umbrella group (or parapluie group if you prefer) of eight European countries and for the last three years they have been putting on a big tasting in the Marriott Marquis in midtown Manhattan to showcase their wares. They advertised that 200 wines would be on hand, but counting up the offerings in the tasting program puts the number closer to 600! Needless to say it was quite impossible to taste them all. With much pouring and spitting and many many breathers for bread and cheese I managed to taste and take notes on 53 wines. As usual it was a great burden but somebody has to do it.

This was the second Grand Euro Tasting that I've attended but it was the first one I went to as a member of the press. This tasting was open for five hours to those in the trade, but only for two hours to the general public. In general the hours allotted at tastings for the public have been shrinking. I used to have the going allotment pegged at three hours, then it dropped to two and a half, and now I'm seeing two-hour tastings. Everyone is afraid of getting sued so the time keeps getting shorter. This tasting cost a member of the public $50 for the two hours, which was still worth it as they had more than a few excellent wines (and good cheeses too). 

As always, the best way to approach a tasting is to have a plan. Get there a little early, pick up the always-available promotional literature, which sometimes has a floor plan, see what they have, pick out what you're interested in, and go for it. At this tasting, at about three hours out, I fortuitously received a generous pour of a 1997 Domaine Moillard Le Chambertin. The Le Chambertin vineyard is at the top of everyone's unofficial Burgundy classification (there is no official classification), and it was Napoleon's favorite wine. I was at the tasting for four and a half hours and just happened upon it. If I had been there for just two hours and didn't have a plan, I would have missed it for sure, and it was a real beauty. Take it from me and heed the advice of my favorite eight-character New York license plate and PLANAHEA.

As I mentioned earlier there were wines from eight countries there. Except for a Port at the very end, my tastings were limited to three countries, France, Italy, and Germany. The tables with Spanish wines always seemed to be on the crowded side and I noticed that I have had a few of the Spanish selections at other tastings in recent months so I never managed to try any Spanish offerings. I was really trying to get to the tables with the Austrian wines but there always seemed to be crowds around them. There had just been a major article on things winy in Austria in The Wine Spectator, and everyone seemed to have the same idea, so those Gruner Veltliners and Weissburgunders will have to wait for another day. I stuck to the tried and true method of tasting whites before reds, and dry before sweet, and I began with dry Italian whites, so I'll begin my reviewing there.

Being in a celebratory mood I started out with a sparkling wine, finding the Rotari Brut from Mezzacorona. It's a methode champenois wine made from 90% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Nero, as I was told, that's Pinot Noir to most of us. It's aged in the bottle on the lees for 24 months. As I recall I once read that in the making of sparkling wines significant changes in the taste derived from lees aging takes place at 18 months and at five years, so the Rotari is comfortably past the 18-month mark. It doesn't have the complexity of a real Champagne but it is a very nice sparkler with plenty of bubbles and plenty of charm. It's only about $10 so part of its charm is that it's half the price of Champagne. It's just the thing for informal get-togethers. Give one a try. If you like it, it might be just the thing for backyard entertaining this summer. A case should only be about $100.

Next I came across some nice wines from a firm named Mionetto. They are in the DOC area (Italian for Appellation Controlee) of Valdobbiadene, about 30miles/50 km. north of Venice, and they specialize in making Prosecco. Prosecco is the name of the grape and of the wine and it is a sparkler. Mionetto makes both frizzantes, what the French call crémant, and in English comes out as "lightly sparkling," and spumantes, which is vin mousseux in French and sparkling in English. The wines are made by the Charmat bulk process, which is to say they emphatically don't have the depth and complexity of good methode champenois wines, but they are dry and fruity, have a faint almond-like taste to them and are undeniably charmers. The best of their sparklers (I tried three, all non-vintage) was called Sergio Mionetto Spumante. It's 90% Prosecco with 5% each of two local varieties, Bianchetta and Verdiso. It's only 11% alcohol and it's very easy to drink. The Mionetto representatives quoted $12 to $13 to me for the basic frizzante and spumante, and $18 for the Sergio Mionetto. I suspect that they were a little off and the prices are a bit less. Most of the time at this tasting, when I asked someone what a price was I was quoted the wholesale case price, as most of the attendees were in the trade. (And you wondered where wine store owners found their wines; these tastings are one of the ways.) They often didn't know what the retail single bottle price was. I also tried their still white called Raso Chiaro (the 1999). It's an 80% Chardonnay/20% Pinot Nero blend made from free-run juice. There's no skin contact so the wine doesn't come out pink. It reminded me of Coteaux Champenois, the rarely exported still wine made in Champagne. I'm sure that's the model they were going for. The wine was dry with an almost smoky quality to it. If you're looking for something different it's worth a try.

I then came upon two tables from a firm named Panebianco. They seem to be exporters, and they had quite a stable. I first tried a 1999 Mauro Barbero Arneis "Pujun" (Pujun would be the vineyard). Arneis is the best white grape and white wine of Piemonte (Piedmont in English, in the northwest of Italy). My notes say, "Intriguing nose, good depth, good finish, very round, different, TRY." In other words I liked it a lot. They quoted me $192 a case wholesale, that's $16 a bottle. They also said, assuming I was in the trade, that I could sell it for $20 to $25 a bottle; $20 a bottle would be a 25% mark-up, and $24 would be 50%. If you were ever wondering what the wholesale and retail prices were for the wine stores I just did the math. The wine was worth its price.

I then tried a couple of their whites from the region of Friuli. This region is in the northeast of Italy, over by Trieste and Slovenia. You will most often see wines from its Colli Orientali del Friuli subdistrict, its eastern hills. It's generally recognized as the region in Italy that makes the best whites. Generally white grapes do better in cooler regions and red grapes do better in warmer ones. Notice that Italy and Spain, where it's warm, are mostly known for red wines, while the cooler and more northerly Germany and Alsace are known for whites? Friuli is in the north of Italy and it's also to the east so it's getting further away from the warming influence of the Gulf Stream, hence a climate conducive to cool weather varieties, and that means whites (and sometimes Pinot Noir, but you also have to have the soil for Pinot Noir, it's famously fickle). I started with a 1999 Ronco Del Gelso Chardonnay. It was a nice Chard. It had a nice nose but didn't deliver as much in tasting as the nose promised. It had some richness and it had a nice long aftertaste. Very good overall.

Next up was a Sauvignon Blanc, a 1999 Sauvignon from Giralamo Dorigo. (They traditionally leave off the "Blanc" in Friuli; they sometimes do it in France too. You can figure it out, after all there is no Sauvignon Rouge.) Sauvignon Blancs from Friuli are very flavorful. Actually they're usually too flavorful. "Rustic" is the word you most often see used to describe them. It's a euphemism in the truest sense. "Barnyardy" is a word that is also used. Wild is the word I use. I've tasted Friuli Sauvignons that had flavors of melon, apple, candy, asparagus, new mown hay, old mown hay, sweet pea, cat's pee, and not only with noses that jumped out of the glass but jumped out of the glass and slapped you in the face. Wild is the word. The Giralamo Dorigo is not one of those. You can see where it's reminiscent of them but it's restrained. Actually it exhibits a deft hand at winemaking. My notes say, "big and very flavorful without being objectionable." I think it's an excellent wine, but it's not for the faint of heart. It is not going to shortchange you on flavor. I say get a couple of the most flavorful Sauvignon Blancs you can find, a Sancerre perhaps, or maybe something from New Zealand, and put them up against this baby. I'll bet you it has more flavor. I didn't get the price but it's probably in the same range as good Sancerres and N.Z.'s, maybe $20. If you're looking for an eye-opening wine experience this is your chance.

The next table belonged to an outfit named Vias Imports. I tried two of their whites, a Gavi and a Greco di Tufo. The Gavi was a 1999 single vineyard wine from from Broglia called La Meirana. It's made from 100% Cortese, one of Piedmont's, and Italy's, best indigenous white varieties. Judging by this tasting I'd have to say the Arneis has the edge over Cortese at the moment, but this Gavi was a very good wine. It was stainless steel fermented and showed nice depth, good fruit, and a fairly long finish.

The Greco di Tufo is from Campania, in southern Italy. It's the province that has Naples in it. You may think it's a bit too far south and too warm to make a good white, but as you may recall from High School it gets about 3 Degrees F. cooler for every 1,000 feet (300 m) you go up in altitude, and these Greco di Tufo vineyards are up around 2,000ft. (600-650 m). The elevation keeps things cool enough to make a good white. The Greco is from Terredora and the label says Loggia della Serra, Greco Di Tufo 1999. The 100% varietal wine is made from the (surprise) Greco grape, and I'll go out on a limb and say it originally got to Italy from Greece. It was a nice wine with a good nose, some depth, but not a lot of finish. It should retail in the high teens

Towards the end of the tasting I went back to Panebianco and tried a couple of reds. The first was a 1999 Valpolicella from Tenuta San Antonio. It was made using what they call "partial Ripassa." This means that they take some of the harvested grapes (Corvina is the principal variety, along with Molinara, Negrara, and Rondinella) and leave them out to dry, in effect to become raisins, and then put them back into the fermenting wine. This kicks up the sugar and therefore the alcohol content, and it also adds depth to the wine. Basically producers like Tenuta San Antonio are using Ripassa to improve the quality of Valpolicella, which has, and has had, a reputation as a lightweight. I like the better Valpolicellas and this was a good example. (Try one from Quintarelli if you ever come across it.)

The last red was a 1995 Brunello di Montalcino from La Togata. Brunello is a clone, or selection, of Sangiovese. The best way to describe these selections is to call them sub-varieties. They are very close to the original variety, different enough to see that they are not exactly the same, and not different enough to be a new variety themselves. If you ever read On The Origin of The Species, Darwin makes it very clear. If you know about cats maybe Seal Point and Black Point Siamese cats will do it for you as an explanation. They're both obviously Siamese cats but they are obviously different too. (Take it from one who knows, there's nothing like a nice Siamese.) There are other Sangiovese clones you might see, such as Sangioveto or Prugnolo, but Brunello is acknowledged to be the best. Indeed this Tuscan wine is one of Italy's very finest. My notes for the La Togata say, "Warm, rich, a winner." I'd guess it's around $50.

That finished my Italian tastings. For next week I'll have about 30 French wines to talk about and try to turn into something coherent. Wish me luck and keep those cards, letters, and e-mails coming in.

© Mitch Kornfeld 2001 All rights reserved

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mitchk@unionsquarejournal.com


Previously by Mitch Kornfeld...

King Cab, Part V -- Spain, Chile, Argentina, Australia (04/18/01)

King Cab, Part IV -- Italy (04/04/01)

King Cab, Part III -- California (03/21/01)

King Cab, Part II -- Bordeaux (03/07/01)

King Cab, Part I -- Some Basics (02/27/01)

For a Big Red, Think Petite (02/18/02)

Tannic Monsters from the ID (02/08/01)

New York Wine and Restaurant Deals (01/30/01)

Dad's Cardinal Zins and Other Clichés (01/20/01)

Some Basics for a Winter's Eve (01/12/01)

And if They're Spanish That's Fine (01/05/01)

Hello Carbon Dioxide (12/29/00)

Wines for Christmas (12/22/00)

Nouveau Beaujolais, Etc. (11/24/00)

Going to a Tasting 101 (12/01/00)