One Bottle Post: 2004 Poggio Il Castellare Brunello Di Montalcino

January 29, 2021 by evebushman

In keeping with my “Rona” series, aka more one-bottle blog posts because I can’t go out for wine, this week I give you the 2004 Poggio Il Castellare Brunello Di Montalcino, a remarkable Brunello made from Sangiovese grapes. (In my experience a Brunello take less time to aerate than their equally famous cousin, the Barolo made from Nebbiolo grapes. And I’m talking 90 minutes in a decanter for a Brunello compared to about seven or more hours for a Barolo – give or take an hour. This matters to me most as I don’t always know by 11 am what I’ll want to drink at 6pm, or worse: I do know what wine I want with dinner but the wine wasn’t ready to drink by dinner time. Back up bottles have become more important to me for this situation.)

Now back to this wine! This is the social media post I shared last month on this Brunello, with tasting notes and scores:

What great wine have you found in your glass lately? I found this in our cellar, hoping Eddie has another bottle: 2004 Poggio Il Castellare Brunello Di Montalcino, 14% alcohol, decanted for 90 minutes and oh, so good. On the nose this Sangiovese delivered dark cherry, toasted oak, black peppercorn, sweet char off a good filet, espresso, sandalwood and a sweet bread note reminiscent of a waffle cone. The taste had the same notes, very peppery, tannic with all dark fruit and dark chocolate. The finish had a nice sweet note to it as well.

Did a little Googling and found that K and L has it on their wait list and sells for $46.95, which I think is a good price, Wine Spectator gave it 96 points in 2009 and awarded it the #11 spot for the Top 100 wines of the year. Cellar Tracker gave it 92, Wine Enthusiast 91. Some recommended to drink by 2013 but I thought it was great now in 2021.

After the tasting I did a little more research on this particular vintage and the winery. I learned from looking at images of the winery that it would be spectacular to visit. From their Instagram I learned that they also have an incredible restaurant on their Montalcino property. On their website there are tabs for Private Dinners, their Tavern, and more.

Also, since I brought it up in my opening paragraph, in regards to length of time to decant a Barolo I searched the internet and learned that anywhere between one and two hours seemed to be the sweet spot for most vinophiles. Looking further I found that Wine Folly says two for a Brunello and three for a Barolo. So this is just an FYI for you when you want to try these varietals.

From the winery website:

In Tuscany there are places that can tell ancient stories and characters. The Baroncini family already started producing wine in 1489. So from father to son, 500 years have passed, and still today in Montalcino, Bruna and Samuele, produce wine as if to testify how time cannot scratch the traditions.

The high quality of the wines produced in the Montalcino area was already known at the time of the Etruscans, who had developed active settlements on these hills. The name “Tenuta Poggio Il Castellare” given to the company brings us back to the historical roots of the place: to the finds of an ancient settlement with the remains of houses and towers on the top of the hill of the same name.

For those that like to geek out from tech sheets, this is also from their website:

Production Area: Montalcino
Mixed Grapes: 100% Sangiovese Grosso
Terrain: Pliocene origins lands of predominantly clayey marl. They tend to reach considerable depth, offering great minerality
Growing System: Spurred cordon with dug soil
Density: 3500 vines/hectare
Average output per hectare: 45 hectolitres
Altitude: 500 metres
Microclimate: The climate is typically Mediterranean, with showers concentrated in autumn and spring. The middle hill area is frequently windy, which is ideal to keep the vines healthy. The climate is generally mild, with a high rate of sunny days during the whole vegetative phase: these conditions guarantee a gradual and complete ripening of the grapes.
Production Process: Manual harvest when the grapes are perfectly ripe. Alcoholic fermentation with controlled temperature (26°C) for about 10-12 days on the skins. Malolactic fermentation in steel vats. Refining in 2500lt Slavonian oak barrels for 30 months and in 225 lt French oak barrels for 20 months. Further refining in bottles for 4 months before the sale
Organoleptic Properties:
Colour – ruby red verging to garnet-red;
Bouquet – very intense, lingering, with hints of cherry fruit and spices;
Taste –well-balanced, with velvety tannins and a long aromatic grip on the palate
Alcoholic Gradation: 14,5% VOL
Serving Temperature: 22,0°C
Pairings: seasoned cheese, red meat, roasts, braised meat, game

Instagram: @PoggioIlCastellare

https://www.facebook.com/poggioilcastellare/

http://www.tenutetoscane.com/castellare/english/cellar-castellare.html

https://poggioilcastellare.com/

Eve Bushman has a Level Two Intermediate Certification from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET), a “certification in first globally-recognized course” as an American Wine Specialist ® from the North American Sommelier Association (NASA), Level 1 Sake Award from WSET, was the subject of a 60-minute Wine Immersion video (over 16k views), authored “Wine Etiquette for Everyone” and has served as a judge for the Long Beach Grand Cru and the Global Wine Awards. You can email Eve@EveWine101.com to ask a question about wine or spirits.

How Do You Like Your Wine From Your Favorite Wineries: Consistent Flavor or Consistently Good?

August 18, 2017 by evebushman

The average consumer likes consistency, but I believe that the vinophile likes a consistently interesting wine. Let me explain why I’m making this statement.

In a recent brief discussion with a wine friend we debated what is better: a wine that consumers have learned to expect the same from, vintage after vintage, so that they are confident when they pick up a bottle from the supermarket – or – a wine that surprises? Which could also be from a consistently good source?

For example, for years I have recommended Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc for its lively fruit aromas and flavors. The bottle even now has a description of what I mean: nut fruit, which is fruit with a “nut” center like apricots and peaches. I’ve frankly never noticed a difference in this wine year after year.

When I noticed they came out with an unoaked Chardonnay, that wine, just like its sister varietal, tastes the same to me with every passing vintage.

Other supermarket favorites, like the baby-blue labeled La Marca Prosecco priced below $15 are in this category, along with all non vintage sparkling wines that strive to taste the same year after year.

Sameness doesn’t mean wrongness. These wines make it easy to select for a pairing dinner, convenient as most are on supermarket shelves, and finally, most are competitively priced.

The vinophile in me does argue the point though.

If I don’t want to think about new and interesting aromas and flavors then why am I even bothering with wine? Why not drink water? If I just want to be inebriated there’s flavorless and colorless vodka.

Nope, if given the choice, I want to be surprised by a wine. And I bet some of you reading this article like this too. One of my most interesting “A Ha” moments come when someone brings me a wine that they love and want me to try. I want to put as much effort into tasting the wine that they did, figuring out if I can taste what they are describing and find the same pleasure.

It’s also fun if the wine has a totally different flavor than the aroma, if the color is not exactly what I expected, if the winemaker writes up a clever diatribe on the back label, and, of course, if it’s a varietal, winery, winemaker or from a place on earth I haven’t had before.

Think about it, which is your preference?

Eve Bushman has a Level Two Intermediate Certification from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET), a “certification in first globally-recognized course” as an American Wine Specialist ® from the North American Sommelier Association (NASA), Level 1 Sake Award from WSET, was the subject of a 60-minute Wine Immersion video, authored “Wine Etiquette for Everyone” and has served as a judge for the Long Beach Grand Cru. You can email Eve@EveWine101.com to ask a question about wine or spirits. You can also seek her marketing advice via Eve@EveBushmanConsulting.com

Vintage Eve Circa Feb 2013: Whine Epiphanies

February 28, 2017 by evebushman

In my 20s I drank white wine for several reasons. I ordered the “house white” because I didn’t know anything about wine, it was inexpensive, and I didn’t want to get drunk on the popular cocktails back then: Long Island Iced Teas and Cosmopolitans.

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Bordeaux at night for a special event.

White wine “Spritzers”, as they were called, worked really well when I spent the entire night on a dance floor and wanted to be refreshed just so that I could keep on dancing. My friends, at least the ladies, did the same. While the menfolk drank the cocktails, we stuck to the wine.

My epiphany came before most ladies moved from white wine to White Zinfandel. (I remember learning about Zin before the craze – so much so that when others were ordering the white version I hunted down the red. But I do appreciate what White Zinfandel did for bringing the mainstream drinking public over to wine.)

Readers that have asked me how I got into wine have brought this trip down memory lane to you. I started much like any other wine drinker. But, lucky for me, I had two wine “epiphanies” that sent me very far away from a lifetime of house wine and spritzers.

Epiphany #1

My future in-laws took us out for a vertical wine tasting at Concannon Vineyard over 20 years ago. As I recall we started with a couple of barrel tastings for the same red varietal, then ended up tasting the same wines finished in the bottle. Doing it this way allowed for me to begin to see the gradual changes being made in the wine, mature fruit, tannins and structure replaced bright fruit and sweetness. My palate, unbeknownst to me as I had yet to learn the right words to describe it, had matured in one afternoon.

Epiphany #2

Fast-forward a couple of years and my future husband Eddie and I were on a vacation in Europe. I was reading the Wine Spectator avidly by this point and anxious to taste French wines in France. One Parisian restaurant/wine bar, Willi’s Wine Bar, was highly recommended by the Spectator, and run by English-speaking vinophiles. That was to be a stop we had to make.

I’ve written about our first trip to Willi’s (link: http://www.localwineevents.com/Wine-Articles/424-2.html) and the first time I had my first taste of Lynch Bages Bordeaux. I wish I had written tasting notes back then, but I didn’t.

But the epiphany came due to several factors: I was in Paris with my future husband, we were dining at a special restaurant only because of a Wine Spectator review – and we were actively making memories of the night.

We have since purchased Lynch Bages over the years, I even found one bottle from our wedding year at Valencia Wine Company that now rests in our cellar. And we recently purchased the ’09 as a future, and discovered that Spectator highlighted it as #93 out of their Top 100 list for 2012.

Now, with a career firmly entrenched in all things wine, I have an epiphany yearly. I may discover a new winemaker, a new pal with the same appreciation or one just learning. And, most recently, my website’s editor, Michael Perlis, propelled us into the business of Eve Wine 101 consulting (now Eve Bushman Consulting). Gee…maybe if you’re reading this it’s high time you (or your wine business) had an epiphany? Taste and ye shall find my friend; we’re here to lead you on the proper spritzer-less path.

Sour Grapes and Grain: A Film Review and A Warning

January 6, 2017 by evebushman

The only auctions we’ve ever purchased wine from were Juan Alonso’s at Le Chene benefitting the senior center, Circle of Hope’s Vine 2 Wine and an event I co-hosted: Toast and a Wish. Those were little auctions in comparison to the ones held in Napa Valley that raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, or any auction – ever – held by a respected auction house like Sotheby’s or Christie’s. Why no those? Because we don’t have that kind of money.

If you do buy wine via wine auction, or are a vinophile, you’ve undoubtedly heard the story of Rudy Kurniawan by now. (I’ll be just abbreviating his name to RK for the rest of this article, as he’s all over this.) RK wormed his way into the wine world first by buying wine in large amounts, possibly driving up price and demand, and then started selling large amounts of it.

A new film on Netflix, Sour Grapes, is an a eye-opening documentary on RK that I just watched before writing this article.

The wine RK sold via auction couldn’t be pinpointed to a specific source or cellar other than his own and he relied on the opinions, or so he said, of other respected somms of their quality.

There were no actual tests done by the auction houses to authenticate the wines before putting them up for sale.

Things unraveled when one millionaire buyer and a French winemaker started to question RK more and more. The film is compelling to watch as the sleuths uncover RK’s work and, finally, get into his Arcadia home where everything from a printing press to bottles soaking in a sink long enough to remove their labels are exposed.

We learn in the film that Petrus didn’t make a magnum for the vintage year RK sold, glossy photos of bottles in the auction program were of fakes, one winery didn’t even exist in the vintage years sold and while a label looked brand new – albeit misspellings appeared – the foil capsules were definitely from older vintages.

Also of note in the film was a person I recognized in several shots drinking with RK: Calogero Drago of Pasadena’s Celestino restaurant. I Googled their names together and found nothing. But, if you watch the film, you will see and hear from many people that trusted, and some that still trust, RK. I found that interesting too.

We wine people are a tight bunch. If I find someone I like to taste with, that is sharing some nice wines, I might not ask/care how the wine was obtained. But I would be embarrassed to have liked a wine that turned out to have been blended by someone other than the true winemaker.

There is a scene with Christian Navarro of Wally’s Wine where a few bottles of Rudy’s wine is brought in and tasted, two or three people claim it as being perfect, and Navarro calls it out for crap. That was hard to watch.

Then this hit my newsfeed: a report of Fake Whiskey in the auction market. The article highlights a 1903 Laphroaig but the story doesn’t end there. Like RK’s cellar, these whiskies may still be out there and available via auctions, and in personal collections.

How much fake wine and whiskey could there be on the market? How much may already be purchased but the buyer left unaware? Are the auction houses now taking more serious precautions? I’m a wee bit grateful not to be a millionaire right now.
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For your further study:

A little more on the ongoing story of Rudy Kurniawan.

Follow more Sour Grapes news on Facebook.

Eve Bushman has a Level Two Intermediate Certification from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust, a “certification in first globally-recognized course” as an American Wine Specialist ® from the North American Sommelier Association (NASA), was the subject of a 60-minute Wine Immersion video, authored “Wine Etiquette for Everyone” and has served as a judge for the Long Beach Grand Cru. You can email Eve@EveWine101.com to ask a question about wine or spirits. You can also seek her marketing advice via Eve@EveBushmanConsulting.com