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Marziano Abbona Terlo Ravera Special
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January 13, 2012
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It’s an unmitigated treat to be able to purchase a fully mature Barolo, but it’s an even sweeter treat when that Barolo comes at pricing that’s at least 25 percent below usual. For one week from Thursday, February 2nd to Monday, February 6th, IWM is delighted to offer you three fully mature Barolos from Abbona at really great pricing. Each of these single-vineyard expressions embodies the aromatics and the fruit that Novello is renowned for, and each has its own unique beauty. The approachable ’03 gives soft, round fruit and velvety tannins; the balanced ’01 offers classic Barolo notes of berries, cinnamon, licorice and eucalyptus; and the concentrated ’00 shows the brooding side of Barolo in its dark notes of coffee, spice and earth. By the bottle or by the case, these Abbona Barolo will drink right now, or wait a few years. It’s win-win, and at this special pricing, it’s win-win-wine.
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Some wines touch you like a caress. Others split your head open--much in the way that Emily Dickinson claimed it felt like when she read great poetry. Because I'm talking about drinking wine, and not about actually getting hit, both kinds of wine feel good--both the wine that reaches out and touches you with gentle fingers and the wine that slams you with an explosive fist. Different meals, different company, different states of emotion, and different moments all call for different wines. One of the things that I love most about wine is how it can focus your attention and your senses, making those meals, that company, and those moments extraordinary.
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January 6, 2012
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December 1, 2011
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As many of you did recently, IWM set forth goals for 2012. One of them is to continue our effort to bring you the finest wines from around the globe-in fact, we plan to expand our global selections. Today's offer to our Cellar Selections clients embodies this goal. Today we're bringing you a select grouping of Northern Rhône wines from the stellar 2009 vintage, but these wines are just the beginning. Soon, we'll also be offering 2010 Rhônes, a vintage that complements its predecessor and makes a vintage streak that parallels the one from 1988-91.
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I have spent more than a thousand days in Italian vineyards from the Alps of Alto Adige to the volcanoes of Sicilia. With wines coming from 2,000 varietals, no other country can justifiably challenge Italy as champion of diversity; and 27,000 different producers bring out a rich spectrum of characteristics in the fruit and terroir. Journalists often ask me if I believe Italian wine suffers from not having a single identity, and my answer is always the same: Italy's diversity is her identity and her greatest asset. This is the common element found in all subjects which Italy masters.
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November 17, 2011
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November 9, 2011
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Italians don't celebrate Thanksgiving. There isn't even an equivalent holiday, as there is in Canada and other countries. However, not having Thanksgiving doesn't mean that Italians don't have something to say about how to celebrate it. Italians know a lot about how to structure a meal like a story, or like an opera. There's a sense of narrative, of building action, and of a satisfying finish that's created in a real Italian meal, and it's a good model for an American Thanksgiving, one of the great holiday traditions of this great country.
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On my drive through Tuscany toward the magnificent Ornellaia estate today, I got a phone call from a dear friend who has been one of the most loyal IWM clients since we opened our doors in 1999. I expected the usual "What's up? How's life in Italy?" Instead what I got was an earful.
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November 3, 2011
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October 27, 2011
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Last Thursday I started out my day like so many others--with a two-hour drive from my home in Genova, across the serpentine A10 to Savona, north on a wilderness-lined and foggy A26, ending at the little town of Barolo. My chore that day was to taste the 2007 Bartolo Mascarello Barolo that I would be offering to my clients the following week.
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Founded in 1978 by former 3-M executive Piermario Meletti Cavallari, Grattamacco seems as if it has always been there. This estate's plain in Bolgheri is a perfect site to grow fantastic Sangiovese. The sun is bright for over two-thirds a year and the win
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October 20, 2011
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October 14, 2011
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2007 is a vintage that was truly blessed. Vintages like 2007 provide winemakers an opportunity to reach deep within themselves and find the one wine in their career that might just be their best. The producers we've selected to represent this vintage know this all too well and will be patiently waiting the rest of their life to see how 2007 fits into their larger narrative. For some, it may turn out to be an outstanding year and one of their favorite vintages.
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Over ten years ago, I was sitting at a table outside of enologist Maurizio Castelli's house in Chianti. Steve Clifton, Maurizio, and I were eating pecorino and talking about--what else?--wine. Steve was a new friend back then, the owner of two highly lauded Santa Barbara estates, Brewer-Clifton and Palmina. The former specializes in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, while the latter concentrates on white and red Italian varietals. We had met only six months earlier, and now we found ourselves together in a rented Fiat, bumping around country back roads on an exhaustive tour. But it was a good deal for everyone: I was learning more about the intricacies of winemaking, and he about the intricacies of Italy.
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October 6, 2011
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September 29,2011
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Giuseppe Quintarelli's wines have always left me speechless. His rocket-ship Amarones and perception-altering Valpolicellas were among the wines we carried when we first opened IWM in 1999--we'll be celebrating our twelve-year anniversary next week--and they are wines that continue to blow me away every time I drink one.
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Josko Gravner is one of those producers who challenges you. He's more than a winemaker; he's a wine philosopher. He makes wines with a soul, and he makes them according to his own principles, tenets that hearken back thousands of years. Josko grows his grapes naturally and makes his wines without intervention, using anfora, clay vats so large that you could fit a person inside them, sunk into the earth. He believes in the power of nature so completely that to interfere with nature would be sacrilege, and his wines look, smell and taste like no other. They are simply otherworldly.
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September 22, 2011
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September 15, 2011
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The twenty-acre Il Palazzone sits at the end of a rocky dirt road that's pitted with potholes and rife with washboards. It's a narrow road that forces you to pull your car off to the side when you see another coming, sometimes onto a narrow shoulder perched on a steep cliff that drops off perilously. When the trees part at the end of the road, you see an expanse of Montalcino pasture and vineyards, dotted with two stone houses that comprise the Il Palazzone estate. No one knows exactly how old these houses are, but they go back a few centuries. They're the kind of house that once held the animals on the first floor generating heat for the families who slept above.
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To drink wine is to form a relationship. That's how I understand it, and to help my clients grasp that idea is part of my life's passion. Many people drink wine and talk about cherries, berries, and tannins. They sip the wine, utter a few buzzwords, give the bottle a score and go on. This is nonsense. These people are missing the goal, for the goal is the experience itself. It's not an empirical, categorical result; it's the living, breathing, evanescent moment.
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September 8, 2011
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September 1, 2011
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A couple of weeks ago, I visited Toscana and dropped in on Fontodi, one of my favorite producers in Chianti. Fontodi is putting the finishing touches on an addition to their cellar facility. It's a huge undertaking that's more than doubling the size of the estate, something that the Manetti family, owners of the property since the late '60s, sees as necessary as they prepare for the next century of winemaking. More importantly, it's a venture that looks forward to the future, even as it respects the primeval.
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I've known Ales Kristancic longer than I want to admit, and so I can say with certainty that there is no one like him. He's a former champion ballroom dancer, a longtime resident of the border - straddling Brda, a fierce adherent of biodynamic practices both for his vineyards at Movia and for himself, and a man who despite already having at least four languages at his disposal finds that's not enough and makes up his own ("Zak-zak" is one of his favorite expressions, encompassing exclamations of surprise or explanations of causality). He's the kind of guy who gets up at seven, drinks a couple of liters of water before breakfast (he believes that's one of the keys to his exceptional good health), tends his vineyards, throws a dinner party, dances until the wee hours of the morning, and gets up the next day and does it all again - and again the day after that.
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August 25,2011
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August 18, 2011
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In many ways, Antinori represents the entry port into Italy and Italian wine. It blankets two of the most archetypal areas of Italy, Toscana and Umbria, often the first regions that Americans visit. Antinori, an ancient and aristocratic family, embodies so many of the romantic notions that Americans have about Italy--the effortless grace, the mellifluous language and the attractive accent, the history that stretches back further than the eye can see, and the sense of ineffable tradition. And finally, Antinori's wines are easy for those palates unfamiliar with Italian wines to comprehend, and yet Antinori's wines always speak of their Italian roots.
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A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to spend a week cruising the Mediterranean as the wine expert on a cruise organized by Napa Valley Wine Reserve, a company whose sole purpose is to help people who love wine grow to love it even more. It was a remarkable week of pristine blue skies, a gorgeous cerulean ocean, fantastic food, amazing wines and wonderful people. Sometimes my life strains credulity with how great it gets.
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August 11, 2011
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August 4, 2011
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Yesterday, I got an email from a member of our sales team asking if the wines of Paolo Bea were "biodynamic or just organic." The long answer, mired as it is in the bog of Italian winemaking regulations and Rudolph Steiner philosophy, is somewhat too complicated to provide. The short answer isn't. The short answer is this: it doesn't matter.
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All wineries have their own personality. Some are sleek and high-tech; their interiors are painted neutral colors and all their surfaces are glossy; if they drove a car, they'd drive a BMW Hybrid. Others are quirky, funky, and a little geeky; they look like the kid who grew up to be a software mogul. Still others feel like a favorite grandfather, all comfortably worn, almost sepia with nostalgia, but still proud in its age. No doubt wineries get imbued with the personalities of their owners. No one can spend as much time as producers do in their wineries and not have their personality wear off a little.
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July 28, 2011
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July 21, 2011
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This week, I'm offering you a collection of wines that illustrate how important--and intriguing--timing is to wine lovers. It's a collection that almost feels like a perfect dinner party. There's the 2006 J. Hofstatter, a Bianco with the smarts of a graduate student, and a wine that we haven't offered in a couple of years; I'm delighted to bring it back. There's a Barbera, the perfect dinner party guest, at its pinnacle, and there's one of IWM's best-selling Barbarescos, La Spinetta, that's like a disciplined soldier you would gladly take into battle.
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This week, I'm happy to bring you island wines from Sicilia, Sardegna and Corsica, three islands that are no stranger to nature's whims. All these regions have deep winemaking traditions and unusual indigenous varietals, and these wines show their wild island spirit, imbued as they are with Sicilia's lava-laden soil, Sardegna's buffeting winds or Corsica's unusual location. Don't let the modest price points fool you. These wines come from some serious winemakers, people who coax the best out of their vines, and people who love the islands where they live, grow and create. Crafted by producers like COS, Giacomo Tachis-led Punica, and the rising star of Etna, Graci, these are great hot weather wines, perfect for taming hot summer nights--or for celebrating them.
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July 14, 2011
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July 7, 2011
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A few weeks ago, I wrote that when people fall in love with Italy, they usually fall in love with Toscana first. Books like A Year in Tuscany and movies like Under the Tuscan Sun have made the region play a big part in popular culture. It's hard to go anywhere in Italy and not see beautiful a landscape, yet Toscana seems to have an undeniable, unshakeable romantic grip on American minds. Still I have to ask why. I drive all over Italy and have a chance to see all of its various beauties. From the dizzy heights of the Apennines' white-capped points, to the scrubby and windswept rocks of Sardegna, to Venezia's improbable waterways and lemon light, to the great green plains of Trentino, and all that lies in between, Italy has a lot to make people fall in love. So why Toscana?
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In my estimation, Quintarelli wines are so good they're very nearly fairytales, something I tell my clients year in and year out. Even more fantastic is finding vintage Quintarelli of unquestionable provenance. The vintage Quintarelli Ca del Merlo that I'm offering today went directly from Quintarelli's cellar to being stored at the perfect temperature, humidity and angles, likewise his gorgeous Valpolicellas. With provenance like this, these wines are more than just a fairytale--they're a dream come true.
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June 30, 2011
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June 23, 2011
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Last week, I offered a selection of summer whites. This week, I'm delighted to offer the complement: a group of reds that call out for something off the grill. These are reds with the kind of presence, spiciness and structure that highlights the rustic, crunchy, almost primal taste of grilled food.
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This week I'm delighted to bring you a bunch of Italian white wines for your summer table. Don't let the low price points fool you--I chose these wines because they're good. Some are varietals you'll be familiar with, some you may find new, but all of them will make your hot days and nights feel a little cooler.
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June 16, 2011
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June 9, 2011
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This week I'm delighted to offer you one of the wines I tasted in Conterno's cellar, the 2007 Cascina Francia, along with a few back vintages from the estate, including the legendary 2002 Monfortino Riserva. When I taste a good wine from the barrel, I get excited for that wine's future. However exciting youth may be, maturity brings greatness. Here's to growing up with grace, a feat that the wines of Giacomo Conterno accomplish with stunning consistency.
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This week, I'm delighted to offer the new releases of Aldo Conterno, a winemaker who has spent his whole life in Barolo and knows it intimately. Aldo is one of those winemakers who defies easy categorization--he's neither strictly traditional, nor is he modernist--and whose wines are so good that easy definitions cease to matter.
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June 3, 2011
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May 27, 2011
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Taste one of Gaja's crus, and you taste the poetry of Barbaresco terroir. These are wines of a specific place (an old place), made in specific methods (that defy categorization), by a modern man (who is at heart a traditionalist). Looks can be deceiving, but taste never is. Savor a bottle of Gaja and appreciate the surface while marveling at the still, quiet, ancient and beautiful depths.
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Today, I'm offering the new releases from two more estates that are part of the Barolo New Girl Order: Luciano Sandrone and Paolo Scavino. Luciana Sandrone is poised to take over for her father, whose iconoclastic, heady Barolos escape any neat distinction between traditional and modern. And Enrica Scavino has already made a significant mark on her father Enrico's estate.
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May 20, 2011
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May 12, 2011
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Today I'm excited to offer you 25 wines, each and every one of them full-on in their sweet spots. Often, people buy a wine and drink it before it hits that perfect mellowness--wine lovers can have a hard time waiting, and the wine industry can be even more impatient than connoisseurs. It's rare that you can buy a wine like a Barolo, a wine that typically needs at least ten years on it, when it's ready to drink.
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This week, I'm pleased to bring you the '06 Brunellos from eight producers you might not have heard of--but whose wines are all the more spectacular for their relative anonymity. It's always the ones you haven't heard of that you need to watch out for.
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May 5, 2011
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April 29, 2011
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This week, I'm delighted to offer you a selection of some of the greatest vintages of Querciabella's Camartina--including its inaugural 1981 vintage; the mid-career vitality of 1991 and 1996; the sensuous years of 1999 and 2000; and the most recent vintage of 2007, a year that illustrates the fresh, bold future of this wine.
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I'm delighted to introduce to you the 2010 vintage of Bodega Chacra's Pinot Noirs--along with the 2009 Merlot Mainque. These Pinots are Piero's favorite vintage to date, and I can understand why. These are wines that speak softly and carry a really long-lasting finish.
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April 21, 2011
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April 14, 2011
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This week, I'm delighted to present the 2008 Sassicaia, which I'm offering along with the exquisite 2006 and the powerhouse 2007. The '08 is, Sebastiano says, the finest vintage in forty years. It's certainly elegant, but I wouldn't expect anything less from Sassicaia, the wine that makes elegance look easy.
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This week, I'm delighted to offer the recent release of the 2006 Biondi-Santi Brunello as well as the 2004 and the '04 Riserva. These are all gorgeous wines, made by a master in two very excellent--if very different--vintages.
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April 7, 2011
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March 31, 2011
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This week, I'm delighted to bring your four vintages of Grattamacco, all of them at least twelve years old. Open one and toast to your favorite intellectual--or better yet, share a bottle with him or her.
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This week I'm delighted to bring you a selection of Le Macchiole's wines from their recent release of the 2007 vintage. These may not be the traditional wines of Toscana, but then the Maremma was never traditionally understood as a place where you could make wine. It took vision and hard work to make that happen. Here's to the innovators, to small towns, and to local boys who made good.
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March 24, 2011
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March 17, 2011
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To celebrate the seasons changing, I'm delighted to bring you a selection of wines that parallel this sense of optimism and cheer. They're all white because after a winter like the one we've had, I feel like something bright, breezy and happy. These are unusual whites, whites with unexpected twists, and whites that embody that sense of spring's fresh perspective.
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COS very much embodies the best of Italy. It's an amicable cooperation between different entities that embraces Italian tradition even as it innovates. That these wines are amazing--pure, nuanced, vibrant and complex--only intensifies my feelings that they're the ones to celebrate today, tomorrow, and on down the road. Salute!
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March 10, 2011
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February 24, 2011
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This week, I'm delighted to bring you some of my favorite "Super Seconds" of Brunello. Open a bottle with your second-in-command and toast to those who can be easily overlooked, however deserving they are of their time in the spotlight.
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This week, I'm proud to bring you a selection of some genuine Brunello from 2006, one of the best years that I've seen in a long time. There has been a lot of buzz circulating around the '06 Brunello, and I tasted many at Benvenuto Brunello last weekend. The ones I've chosen are good, very good, very real and very Tuscan.
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February 17, 2011
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February 10, 2011
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This week, I'm proud to offer you a selection of natural wines, wines that are the very antithesis of junk food, wines that but for nature would be nothing. Open one with someone whose company you wouldn't ordinarily keep and toast to all things natural, simple, and extraordinary.
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This week, I'm delighted to bring you a selection of wines that I love and that I hope you will too. And to illustrate my point that our love of wines can be panoramic in its breadth, the selections range from sparklers to Amarones to dessert wines. Each one, however different, has one thing in common: it'll raise your passion.
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February 3, 2011
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January 27, 2011
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I really like the Fantinel wines. But what I like more is their passion--their passion for work, their passion for Friuli, their passion for soccer, and their passion to bring it all together in a way that shows their passion for Italy and their passion for life. It's with great pleasure I offer you the wines of Fantinel this week, wines that I hope you'll love, and I also offer you the chance to have dinner with Marco at a special event at IWM in New York.
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This week, I'm delighted to offer you an array of Bruno Giacosa's wines, including the newly released '08 Barbaresco Santo Stefano and Barbaresco Asili. Every one of these bottles is a testament to the man who made it--and to the bond between the people drinking it. Open a bottle when you have the time, the company, and the luxury to be pleasurably bewitched.
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January 20, 2011
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January 13, 2011
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This week, I'm delighted to offer you the newly released '07 Grattamacco. The growing season of '07 was hot and dry, and it made for some serious grapes. It was, in short, a really good year. And at the higher altitude of the Grattamacco vineyards, it's maybe even a spectacular vintage. The '07 Grattamacco is a fine reminder of what an original Super Tuscan tastes like. Enjoy one and toast to the pioneer spirit.
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This week, I'm happy to bring you one of the best usual suspects I know--in four different vintages--Castello dei Rampolla's Sammarco, the first biodynamically made Super Tuscan. These are gleeful Tuscan gems, wines that hit you in the gut with a warm, happy feeling, and they are, have been, and probably always will be some of the best wines I know.
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January 7, 2011
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December 30, 2010
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Le Pupille's sophisticated Cabernet Sauvignon blend Saffredi embodies its maker, her pioneering spirit, and her deep devotion to Tuscan terroir. This week, we're delighted to offer you two vintages of Le Pupille's Saffredi, the '06 and the '07, along with the estate's value wine, Morellino di Scansano, and a Montepulciano-Sangiovese blend from Lanari.
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This week, I'm really happy to offer you two of Bruna's wines, including the 2009 Pigato U Baccan. New Year's is as much about honoring the past as it is about toasting to the future
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December 23, 2010
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December 9, 2010
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There's nothing that sets the celebratory tone like the evocative "pop!" of Champagne or Prosecco. Today, we're offering a selection of French and Italian bubblies that'll ring in the New Year--or bring the fun to any gathering--with taste, style, and love.all, joy.
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This week, I'm glad to be offering both Quintarelli's rock opera Rosso del Bepi and Poggio di Sotto's life-affirming Brunello--along with a selection of other great value wines. Enjoy a bottle with someone and see how it brings you back to the fundamental truths of youth, love, pleasure, and, above all, joy.
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December 2, 2010
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November 26, 2010
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The mark of a really excellent producer is the ability to finesse a great wine from a rough year. Both Talenti and Fuligni are able to do that consistently. But in 2005, they each made wine that exceeds their customary level of expertise.
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Querciabella brings a seriously Tuscan sensibility to their Super-Tuscan wines. Their Camartina relies heavily on Sangiovese, and it warms from the inside. Their Batàr hits like a bolt of late summer sunlight, that gorgeous lemon-lavender light that comes right before twilight. It's hard for me to drink Querciabella and not feel like I'm drinking that ineffable light of Toscana itself.
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November 19, 2010
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November 4, 2010
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This week, I'm happy to offer you not only a wide selection of Tua Rita's wines, but I'm even more delighted to be the first wine seller to offer their 2008 vintage. I hope you take some to drink with family, with food, with love and to add to warmth to your home.
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Most people who visit Italy go to the hot spots: Rome, Venice, Florence, or Toscana. Most people take the beaten path. But when they do, they miss much of the strange and rich beauty that is Italy. The wines that I'm bringing you today are from Sardegna's Attilio Contini and they very much embody the road less traveled. They are, no question, very different. But to my mind, difference is good; difference is beauty; difference is Italy.
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October 28, 2010
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October 22, 2010
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Today we're delighted to offer you two new releases of Mascarello Barolo, the 2006 Barolo and the 2005 Barolo Magnum, as well as the two new vintages of the wines that Barolo makers customarily craft to drink as their Barolos mature, the 2008 Barbera and the 2009 Dolcetto. All of these wines exemplify the tradition, the mastery, the thoughtfulness and the beauty of Mascarello.
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Quintarelli's wines are treasures. The world is a richer place for having them. I'm delighted to offer these wines to my clients and to urge you to sit down, relax, and sip them slowly. Life is to be savored, and these wines remind you of why.
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October 14, 2010
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October 7, 2010
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Today we're offering wines that bring people together quietly, with little fanfare--a Brunello from La Fuga and a Ribollo Gialla from La Castellada--both wines that honor my belief that well-made wines make people happier. We hope you open one with people you don't know and discover how like-minded you are.
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IWM founder Sergio Esposito says, "We don't sell wine. We sell experiences." This assertion puts people at the center of our business-and for this reason we're proud to highlight two great wines made by two great Italian winemakers: Giacosa's Barbaresco Asili and Mastroberardino's Taurasi Radici.
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September 30, 2010
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September 24, 2010
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This week we are proud to present to you the 2007 Antinori Solaia. It's our hope that you'll enjoy a bottle and educate yourselves in the history, the beauty and the love of Italian wines--an extraordinary pleasure you can enjoy whether you're at home or abroad.
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This week I couldn't be prouder than to offer you the Casse Base 2004 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva, along with other great wines from this truly gifted winemaker. For the 2004, as true with all Soldera wines, try, as I did, to have as little wine as possible in the glass. And, try, just try, not to drink a few bottles, so you or your loved ones can enjoy them throughout your lives.
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September 16, 2010
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September 9, 2010
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What Nebbiolo is to Piemonte, Aglianico is to Campania. Often called the "Nebbiolo of the south," this big, brooding variety demands patience, on the vine and in the bottle. It's hard work crafting a truly good wine, something Fattoria Galardi knows well and puts into every bottle of the Terra di Lavoro.
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There are a handful of Italian winemakers who know how to grow international varietals, all while staying true to their land. Planted on Italian soil by Napoleon's army, as well as Florentine merchants, Italians adopted them and made the varieties their own. Today, in Toscana, they are as much a part of the landscape as Sangiovese or Malvasia in many areas.
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September 7, 2010
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September 2, 2010
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Still family-owned, J. Hofstätter and Canalicchio di Sopra produce some of the finest white and red wine of Trentino-Alto Adige and Toscana, respectively. We're pleased to offer you J. Hofstätter's Pinot Bianco from the 2009 vintage and the Canalicchio di Sopra Rosso di Montalcino 2008.
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Only a few thousand bottles are produced each year of Il Palazzone's Brunello di Montalcino and Riserva; we have a mix of both from the 1997 through 2000 vintages, plus the premiere 2005 vintage of their Cabernet Franc-blend Lorenzo e Isabelle. If you want to indulge your big appetite for these small gems, you'll want to move quickly. But sip slowly; you'll want to savor every drop.
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August 31, 2010
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August 24, 2010
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We're pleased to offer you De Conciliis' Greco di Tufo and the COS Pithos, both great discoveries from the south of "the boot" from the 2008 vintage.
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Perhaps the regions of Umbria and Puglia have something in common with the "city of brotherly love." Both have producers, run by a duo of brothers, who are passionately in love with wine.
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August 19, 2010
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August 17, 2010
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Aldo Conterno's 2006 Barolo turned out classic. He's even compared them to ones from his most perfect vintage, the hallmark 1989, which is now considered legendary. When it comes to Barolo, each of Aldo's is the best representation of Nebbiolo from the Cicala, Romirasco or Colonello vineyards.
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Great minds do think alike. In Toscana and Friuli, two producers, who never had a background in winemaking, conferred with fellow winemakers and friends and now make some of the most impressive wines in their own right
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August 12, 2010
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August 10, 2010
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It's a pleasure to drink Domenico's wine from the very heart of Barolo's Monforte D'Alba. Today's selection of Clerico classics--Barolo Ciabot Mentin Ginestra, Barolo Pajanà, Dolcetto Langhe Visadi, Arte Langhe and Barbera d'Alba Trevigne--is especially exciting.
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Lombardia is most known for its sparkling wines, but there's more to the region than meets the glass. Today's producers go against the sparkler stereotype; one crafts a rich, complex red and the other a still white, using a German variety.
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August 5, 2010
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August 3, 2010
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Often called the "Champagne of Italy," Lombardia is most known for its sparkling wines, but there's more to the region than meets the glass. Two producers go against the sparkler stereotype; one crafts a rich, complex red where there are predominantly whites and the other a still white, using a German variety.
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The Ca' dei Mandorli estate has seen grapes thrive within the vineyards since 1888, and today, fifth-generation grower Stefano Ricagno, along with his father Paolo run the estate. They follow a simple philosophy that wine is best expressed via the vineyard and the grapes of its origin.
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