earlier this week i was in a very nice Modesto (i know, i know) Italian restaurant while my car underwent an extensive 90K M service. was speaking with the GM about their excellent wine list and private dining room. we went back and forth about the Italian values on the list and he asked if i was a fan of Michele Moschioni wines from Friuli. i know Moschioni makes a Cab Sav/Merlot, ST-type wine but this place has both the Pignolo and Schiopettino on their list from some older vintages so i was intrigued.
so we returned and tried the 1999 Moschioni Pignolo last night with a great bread spread including lovely olives, oysters 2-ways, excellent beet salad + slightly bitter greens and finally cheese tortellini in a hearty lobster sauce. wine was $150 off the list @ Galletto’s on ‘J’ St.
nearly perfect cork though the waiter was all-out in removing this with his hinged corkscrew. really lovely, deep nose of flowers, fruit and funk that did tend to morph a bit over the course of the meal. wine was fairly thin in the mouth with lighter red and blue fruits. was frankly a bit sweet with an even but lengthy finish that was punctuated by very firm tannins and a bit of frizzante that didn’t show it self until the wine was swallowed.
this frizzante aspect only noticed on the finish was really a new experience for me. when i had previously noted any frizzante in a red wine it was always an “upfront” phenomenon.
the really serious grip also seemed out of place with the mouthfeel and lighter fruit profile. the nose seemed more in line with the tannic structure IMO. i would guess Pignolo is a cousin of Zinfandel based upon region and last night’s experience.
sorry, no bottle photo but this producer has his wine in a very modern package. looking for anyone with further insight about this producer and/or varietal. thx in advance.
I picked up one years ago at the old Sams in Chicago. I adored it. Went back and got six more the last of which I finished years ago. I think this was the 1997. Back then this went for about $40-$50 each. I have not seen this wine since then. I have looked. I have seen it on wine searcher once in a while but always for way more $$$
found this quote from Antonio Galloni about Moschioni wines…
“Michele Moschioni’s tiny estate is located in Cividale. An afternoon spent in his cellar is a fascinating education in the purity of expression that Friuli’s indigenous red varietals are capable of achieving in the hands of a serious, passionate producer. Moschioni credits Romano Dal Forno as an early inspiration for his wines. He is also very close to Gravner, Damijan and Zidarich, all small artisan producers who craft hand-made, natural wines. Moschioni favors late harvests which can stretch into mid-October or early November. Because fruit often struggles to ripen in this northerly microclimate, in some vintages Moschioni performs a slight drying or appassimento on a portion of his grapes. As Moschioni says, he likes fat wines and these are powerful, intense offerings with dry extract levels that are off the charts. The wines are fermented using only natural yeasts. For his top bottlings - Pignolo, Schiopettino and Rosso Reâl - Moschioni uses open-top wood fermenters without temperature control. The wines all do malolactic fermentation in French oak (Allier and Tronçais, roughly 80% new) where they age for about two and a half years. The SO2 levels are minuscule and the wines see no fining or filtration prior to being bottled in accordance with the lunar phases. In short, these wines are among the most natural, unmanipulated wines readers will encounter from anywhere in the world. Consumers who want to understand the potential of indigenous varieties like Pignolo and Schiopettino owe it to themselves to check out the stunning wines of Michele Moschioni.”
Romano dal Forno claims Moschioni as a protege. Moschioni dries a portion of his grapes so that the style is not unlike what dal Forno does with his Valpo’s. [Bastianich is also doing this in Friuli]. His line of 04s are terrific wines (pignolo, schioppetino (another Friulian varietal) and several wines that use cab and merlot.
Pignolo is a varietal native to Friuli. It is big and tannic and peppery and needs the hand of a good winemaker to tame. I dont think it has anything to do with zinfandel, which I thought was genetically related to primitivo in southern Italy.
I’ve been drinking Jermann’s pignolo the past week, the 03 Pignacolusse. It’s an excellent wine and it’s taken 3-4 days of air for the tannins to soften up. I think Dorigo also makes a very good pignolo.
Native reds from Friuli are not bargains but they merit serious attention.
with Friuli being so close to Slovenia and Croatia and recent evidence that the Crljenak grape (which is indigenous to Croatia) and the Zinfandel grape are in fact the same grape i was just wondering about Pignolo’s genetic relationship to Zinfandel.
It’s a Vinifera import so they are hard to find and expensive which is a huge bummer. I got an 04 Real from WL a while back and thought it was a phenominal bottle.
Thanks for the note.
I have a bottle of the '04 from Garagiste, just South of a C-note.
We had a '97 Bressan Pignol about a week ago which really rocked our world. How much of that was Bressan and how much was the grape is up in the air.
A.
Update on my 03 Jermann pignolo (Pignacolusse), rocking with the benefit of 48 hours of breathing, not the slightest hint of oxidation:
I’ve been coming back to the Pignacolusse for 4 days. Finally, after being opened and stoppered in a cool corner of the kitchen for nearly 48 hours, this wine has opened up, finally and brilliantly. The fruit is dark, some blackberry notes, some pepper and some mocha or chocolate elemets on the edge. It coats the tongue with tannin and has a pretty long finish. It’s nowhere near ready, but now showing what I wanted. Much more complexity than initially but in need of lots more time. And this is the '03, which I recall was not as strong as other recent Friuli vintages. I’ll look to reload in later vintages given the obvious quality and definitely let my 04 Moschionis rest some more.
Last night Veronica Castro stopped over to let me sample some of the wines she was showing off at Winex and other shops. Among them (with a killer value '06 Barbaresco, btw) was a Pignolo, and a blend of Pignolo and Merlot. This was my first experience with this grape.
The Merlot blend had more sweetness to it, but both wines were quite dark, and the Pignolo varietal was pretty highly tannic, and seemed closed overall, even after having been open for probably 8 hours. Must be a wine designed to age for quite a while…
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