Well, we are back to the Thursday night wine tastings at Fine Wines of Stockton. George and Gail have started us out with a complicated topic. This week the tasting was titled Italian Super Tuscan wines…what the heck? George explained that Super Tuscan has no historical definition which means they do not conform to DOG/DOCG rules. DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata et Garantita) is considered to be higher quality than DOG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata). IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica) comes next in terms of quality followed by Vina de Tavole (table wine). Super Tuscans fall in to the IGT classification. Super Tuscans come from the same general area as Chianti—think Florence and Pisa, then go a little south. Not needing to conform to specific varietals and other requirements allows the winemakers to be a little more experimental and the name Super Tuscan sounds really great right? Marketing is everything…except the wine must taste good. So let us see how they do.
George told us we would be tasting six wines, one of which is a Chianti and two were Super Tuscans. So, our challenge for the evening was to pick-out the Chianti and decide which wine we like the best.
2006 Fattoria dei Barbi Morellino di Scansano (DOC) – The color was garnet, the nose smelled of smoke and concentrated dark fruit. The flavors tasted smoky and like dried fruit. The body was very light with a moderate amount of tannins and good acid. Most of the group thought this was the Chianti.
2001 Il Molino di Grace Chianti Classico Reserva (DOCG) – The color was very dark garnet with a nose of dark dried fruit. The flavors tasted like concentrated dark fruit with big tannins and good acid. The finish was long and finished with tannins. I guess we aren’t very good at picking out the Chianti 🙂
2003 Valdipiatta Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Vigna D’ Alfiero (DOCG) – The color was garnet. The nose was distinctly vanilla and the flavors tasted of dark ripe fruit. The tannins were big with good acid and it finished with tannins.
2005 Tassi Rosso Di Montalcino (DOC) – The color was a nice medium garnet. The nose smelled of caramel and ripe fruit. Flavors consisted of ripe fruit with bursts of cedar. The tannins were big with good acid. The finish was long with both flavor and tannins. This was the favorite wine of the group.
2003 Palazzo Altesi Toscano (IGT) – It also had a nice garnet color. The nose was vegetal and minty. The flavors were vegetal and dark fruit. The tannins were moderate in amount with good acid. This wine had the least amount of tannins of the group. The finish was fairly short.
2003 Carbaia Castello di Bossi (IGT) – The color was ruby – the only wine in the group that was not garnet. The nose smelled of jalapeno and green peppers. The flavors tasted of vanilla and sweet dark fruit. Once again the tannins were big with good acid. The finish was long with both flavor and tannins.
The most surprising part of the tasting was the color of the final wine. The color and bright fruit lead me to believe this was a much younger wine than it turned out to be. The other thing I noted was the significant, grippy tannins most of these wines exhibited along with concentrated dried fruit flavors. Overall, all of the wines were very tasty and moderately priced.
