TN: A chance to sample the Veronelli cellar (very old Giacosa, Braida, G. Mascarello, Felsina ....)

WINE TALK
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Thanks!


Fiorano: > https://www.instagram.com/p/BbDgaxWHr6N/?taken-by=leviopenswine

We agreed on the nose: “A green edge to the nose…”

Overall comments: > https://www.instagram.com/p/BbGIVPKH3nd/?taken-by=leviopenswine

He doesn’t seem to have been as seduced by the Pepe as the rest of us.

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Hi John,

thanks for your report and good seeing you, Gray, Cole, Bob Semon, Levi Dalton and Roberto Paris (Il Buco / Il Buco Alimentari) at ASTOR Center last Friday.
I would like to say thank you to Cole for his help in translating a bunch of famous Veronelli quotations in English (preserving the ‘literary quality’ and the subtle allure of the original lines in Italian).
And I would like to say thank you to Morgan Rich of Polaner Selections, too, for his precious help in the complex wine service operations preceding the Seminar & Tasting (we dexterously and expeditiously uncorked + flash-decanted 36 old bottles…and poured the content into 324 Spigelau glasses in about 30 mins!).

The Veronelli Cellar is such a monument to the history of Italy’s wine industry, from WWI up until today…that Lucia Veronelli, his husband Arturo Rota (curator of the Veronelli Archive) and I…we could have presented 50 alternative lineups of great old & rare Italian wines for the evening.
We eventually chose to present nine wines made by nine growers who had (and still have today) a special relation with Luigi Veronelli: Bruno Giacosa, Livio Felluga, Giacomo Bologna, Giuseppe Mazzocolin, Barone Giorgio de Cles, Emidio Pepe, Mauro Mascarello, Prince AlessandroJacopo Boncompagni and Angela Maculan.
As an example, it is thanks to the many letters of encouragement that Luigi Veronelli sent to Mauro Mascarello in 1969/1970 if Mauro finally took the notion to bottle his first-ever single-vineyard Barolo ‘Monprivato’ with the 1970 vintage, winning his father’s objections to this ‘innovation’.
Moreover, the Veronelli family and I wanted to present a well-balanced lineup of Italian wines, ranging from the North to the South, both Sparkling, white, red and dessert, including relatively underrated / lesser-known regions and varieties (think of the 1977 Barone de Cles Teroldego), in order to show to the guests how the Veronelli Cellar is disclosing to us today the full potential of many Italian varieties / appellations that one would normally never cellar for 30 or 40 years (maybe next time we will open a 1978 Croesi Rossese ‘Vigneto Curli’ from Liguria or a 1973 Tardioli Sagrantino Secco from Umbria…).
Last but not least we had to consider the practical constraint to have at least 5 bottles available for each wine (a total 36 guests were invited to the Seminar). Personally I would have loved to present two white wines or even three…(that Italian white wines can age, and often age surprisingly well and slow…it is one of the great findings from the Veronelli Cellar), and a great Rosé from the south (1980 Valentini Cerasuolo anyone?..). Well, in the next episode…

All the 34 bottles and the 2 Mags (Giacosa 93 PN Extra-Brut / Braida 89 Bricco Uccellone) were opened 30 mins before the Seminar started.
In the context of such an eclectic tasting of old and rare wines, it is absolutely fair to express a purely subjective preference for this or that wine.
During the ‘wine service operations’ preceding the Seminar, Morgan and I noticed that almost every group of 4 bottles was quite coherent and consistent, pouring four wines with a remarkably similar color and bouquet (we didn’t taste the wines before serving them, of course).
The two wines where I personally detected a marginally wider bottle variation were the 77 Barone de Cles and the 75 Pepe, so this may explain why guests sitting in different rows, whose glasses were filled with different bottles, expressed a variable level of appreciation for these two wines (ranging from good to great).
I had previously tasted all the nine wines at least once or twice in the past 12 months. I can say the 1970 Monprivato showed very well, definitely the best bottles of 1970 Monprivato I’ve had thus far (Elena Mascarello was quite happy and proud at the way the four bottles from the Veronelli cellar showed last Friday night…and rightfully so!).

The Veronelli Cellar Tasting is an example of ‘sharing economy’ to some extent, as every party involved contributed his own specific ‘asset’:

  • ASTOR Wines & ASTOR Center offered the location and their highly professional team, who coordinated the complex logistic of the event (in return, the Veronelli family has granted to ASTOR Wines the right to purchase a section of the Veronelli Cellar, now at their store)
  • the Veronelli family and I contributed all the contents for the event, from the Wine Sheets for each wine to the vintage books, photographies, artworks and various paraphernalis from the Veronelli Archive (now ‘on stage’ at ASTOR Wines where a small ‘Veronelli corner’ is found, kind of a mini permanent exhibition)
  • the six growers (Mascarello, Pepe, Maculan, Felsina, Boncompagni, Barone de Cles) contributed their own presence to the event and the tale of their personal relation with Luigi Veronelli, enjoying at the same time a celebration and a tribute to their own ‘avant-garde’ artisanal wines.

I have uploaded on YouTube the two videos that were streamed at the event.
They offer a summary of the man - Luigi Veronelli - and his profound, eclectic legacy.

Veronelli Top Quotations about Wine, Anarchism and Life

Short educational Video on Luigi Veronelli (Bio & Works)

Thanks again to all the good old friends who came to ASTOR Center for this special, one-of-a-kind event. It was great seeing your after so many years.
Any question you may have, I am happy to address it. :slight_smile:

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Dating a London-based architect.

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Hats off to Luca for organizing an amazing trip through decades of Italian wines that but for his efforts I would have never been able to try.

John’s TNs were better than anything I wrote up: my top wines for the evening were the 1975 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from Emidio Pepe (great acidity even after all these years) as well the 1970 Barolo Monprivato from Giuseppe Mascarello (an intense and still tannic beauty with a touch of tobacco leaf), the 1985 Fontalloro from Felsina (cherries and tobacco), the 1982 Torcolato Passito from Maculan (sundried pineapples with good acidity) and the 1977 Teroldego Rotaliano Riserva “Maso Scari” from Barone de Cles (while lighter than the others, a touch of fruit and smoke in a rendition I’ve never tried before).

Best quote of the evening from Luigi Veronelli:
One day a pig drank some alcohol. He died from it.
Moral: wine is not made for pigs.

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Hi Gray!
It was great meeting you, David and John Morris at John’s place the night after the Veronelli event at ASTOR Center, along with our friends the growers Elena Mascarello (G.Mascarello), Enrico Dellapiana (Rizzi) and Manuel Biava (Biava).
Thanks a lot for sharing the beautiful 2009 Thiériot and Cérise PN, I hadn’t tried a Littorai PN in a long time and the two wines reminded to me what a great job Ted Lemon always does with PN, even in a warm vintage like 2009. [cheers.gif]

My favorite Veronelli quote…‘White wines are like (most) women: they need to be urged’ (it shows the quote goes back to the 1960s…oh the times have changed!)