No luck with Sicily or Tuscany

WINE TALK
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  • 2005 Benanti Etna Rosso di Verzella - Italy, Sicily, Etna DOC (6/18/2009)
    Day 1: Sourness dominated the flavor after I pulled the cork. Badly out of balance. After 90 minutes a single flavor started to poke through the acid. It was oak. I set it aside for the next day.
    Day 2: The wine has mostly come into balance, but still needs food. Strong dose of oak still prominent. Dark ruby red in color, pencil shavings on the nose and darker fruits and maybe licorice on the palate. Average finish. Not really distinguishable as an Italian wine, let alone nerello mascalese from Sicily. It did improve quite a bit in 24 hours, so I’m assuming it will improve with age. The Palari Faro was supposedly spoofy without much bottle age and maybe this wine is on the same trajectory 13.5 percent alcohol. The bottle says the vines are head trained… A Wine Warehouse import.
  • 2006 Rocca delle Macìe Sasyr Toscana IGT - Italy, Tuscany, Toscana IGT (6/9/2009)
    It’s amazing to see positive notes for this wine in other vintages. On the nose, I got alcohol and acid. Lots of acid. For the palate, the wine flows with a mangled mess of indistinguishable flavors across the taste buds on the attack like a flat tire – plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk. And then on the finish there’s this ugly flair of alcohol that kicks your taste buds in the rear end before sliding down the gullet. It’s supposed to be a blend of sangiovese and syrah – a blend I never tried before – and I couldn’t distinguish either grape. Perhaps the bottle was heat damaged. It looked interesting on the menu at Olive Garden. It’s a brand new Olive Garden that opened up. I wanted to try it at least once. Hey, it’s my life. My money. It’s close by. I don’t have to explain to you why I’m eating at the Olive Garden SCREW YOU! A Palm Bay International Import.
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Funniest TN I’ve read in a long time… [rofl.gif]

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I like their salad dressing. There, I said it

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When roadtripping, if you are in, say, Grand Junction, CO, Farmington, NM, Price, UT, Lander, WY, Superior, AZ, etc etc, a place like Olive Garden can start to look mighty tasty, especially as a vegetarian.

Re: the wines, I’ve had great luck with Tenuta della Terre Nere for wines from the Etna DOC…

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Thanks for the nice comments.
A person on Wine Disorder said Benanti is a great winemaker, but their wines don’t show well young.