I just got this from a very long time customer via e-mail:
Hello Roberto,
I fear it is all over for my love affair with Italian Wines from pig farms. Not that Leone de Castris has a pig farm (certainly not) but his 1999 Salice Salentino that I bought in copious amounts from you back in 2001, a wine that had all the goodies you have waxed about over the years no longer exists as a species. I recently bought some of the 2007 (delighted to have found it, too) from K&L and it is nothing but a pretty, fluffy, party wine. Same old story: soft and fruity, made to appeal to a broad (read profitable) undiscerning clientele. Blind, I wouldn’t have had a clue where it came from.
You have been passionate. What do you say to the Italians about this, or do you bring it up? The push back against people like me used to be, “Its what the people want”: That was crude. Now it is more nuanced. Now I am hearing intellectuals say," well, it is a truer expression of the fruit, and all those flavors you like: tobacco, rubber, earth, barnyard, and graphite are really faults". “Modern technologly has made it possible to express the true nature of the grape”.
So what do you say to these people? I need some help here. Better yet, got any Lizzano made without rotary destemmers?
I think he means rotary fermenters in that last bit but he’s an architect, not a wine maker, so you get his meaning.
Michael
You should remind him to shop at WE, sell him two bottles of Vallana Gattinara spanna, and have him call you in the morning. ![cheers [cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif)
Chaad, he shops here a lot. What he is upset about is that he can’t get such wines where he lives, on the southern East Coast.
That’s why UPS/Fedex was invented. I have to go out of state for most of the interesting champagnes I want.
I’m actually of the school that for some wines brett in some amounts actually gave the wine more flavor and nuances. Eliminate 100% of the brett, you lose any of the good along with the bad. You go into winemaking areas and cellars in France and they talk about the good mold. You go into the same in the US and they look like operating rooms. Many people look on it like cheese. At least we can still buy good European cheeses without all the American laws trying to save us from ourselves.
I bet it’s the just right amount of VA he misses.
Kind of like when they stopped putting dolphin in tuna.
I hasten to add that I also love the “just right” amount of VA in my Puglian Negroamaro. Dolphin not so much!
re: Better yet, got any Lizzano made without rotary destemmers?
I’m pretty sure he does mean “Rotary Destemmer”… that’s what pretty much what everyone uses nowadays…
http://www.winegrowers.info/wine_equip/crushers/info.htm
I had the 2006 recently and it was pretty much as he describes the 2007.
It’s quality oak and the wine is well made, but just seemed like such a generic crowd pleaser that, I agree, would be perfect for parties.
Or, if you ever had a visitor from another planet, you could serve this and say, “this is what wine tastes like.”
But, what kind of wine?
Oh…you know…wine.