Interesting article in today’s NYTimes by Eric:
Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
I didn’t realize there were any priced above $100/btl. Slathered w/ new Fr.oak I gather. Sigh!!
The NYTimes headline doesn’t reflect the subject matter very well.
Tom
Pepe and Valentini, which Asimov cites as being >100 USD, are certainly not slathered with new oak.
And I wouldn’t agree with him that their work couldn’t be emulated. Valentini sells delicious wine locally in bulk for people to bottle themselves for very low prices. You can find Pepe’s non-riserva bottling in the local supermarkets in Abruzzo for next to nothing. So they’re not working in a way which necessitates the wines be prohibitively expensive.
Really quite misleading comment, implying they (Valentini/Pepe) must be over-oaked because they are expensive. I do find Masciarelli (in his tasting) a bit heavy on the oak in some bottlings, so I can only assume he’s (mistakenly) extrapolated from there.
In case you don’t want to read an entire Asimov article, they’re usually some version of the same thing, so here’s a handy summary.
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Hey! Try wine from this grape or region!
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Unfortunately, some producers used new oak! They’re ruining everything!
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Thank god some producers do things the traditional way, whatever that was.
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Those last producers are the best. They make food-friendly wines.
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The pendulum is swinging back to the traditional producers.
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The end.
Recently had a 2015 La Quercia Montepulciano d’Abruzzo for $10 that was one of the best wines I’ve ever drunk at that price point. Juicy, medium-bodied, very authentic.
The 2003 Margae we had in Abbruzzo back in June was a delicious and complex and rather inexpensive wine. I’m sure its age was a large contributing factor to its overall excellence. It paired wonderfully with the local arrosticini and boar dishes.
Haha, so true, especially of late…
But its good that Eric dwells into off-beat regions/ grapes. There’s enough drum roll for mass-planted, mass-marketed, fanboy wines that are increasingly homogeneous.
I hope he mixes the content up to avoid becoming monotonous!
While I agree with the sentiment, I felt that the piece did not seem to be grounded in the depth of research that he brings to his best pieces.
Of tangential relevance, but folks looking to know more about Pepe might be interested to read an article I wrote about him in Noble Rot a while back: Emidio Pepe and the road less travelled – William Kelley
Interestingly when I bought a bottle of Pepe Md’A in Ivrea, the lady in the shop made a point of recommending a proper decanting of the the wine. She said it did tend to have significant bottle-stink from the (natural) winemaking that benefitted from aeration. Not steering me away, but trying to ensure I didn’t get a nasty surprise, and handled quite diplomatically.
I’ve never found that with the reds, personally. Can see why you might decant the Trebbiano as it does malo in bottle (by design) and is consequently a bit spritzy and ‘organic’.