The evolution of a bottle

The evolution of a bottle of wine is something that we must sometimes wait decades for. There is this way of thinking, that if you want to watch a bottle evolve, you should buy a case and check in on it every few years. It's a very affluent way of thinking. I know that I can't afford to buy a case of every wine I'd like to keep in my cellar. And so, I usually end up with three or four bottles. This is one of the reasons why the tasting notes of other trusted collectors are so important to me, so that I can read about their experiences and try to properly plan for each of my own bottles to be opened.

Honestly, this may be more effort than the average wine lover is willing expel.

However, there is a way to cheat a little, and that's to open a bottle early in the day and check in on it throughout the day. Why? Because wine ages through the slow exposure to oxygen. Basically, what I'm doing is speeding up the clock, but not as fast as a decanter would do it. By opening a bottle and simply pouring a small glass each hour, you are given a glimpse into the wine's possible evolution.

This weekend, I decided to open a 2000 Mastroberardino Taurasi Radici Riserva. A bottle with 11 years of age on it, and yet when I looked at other tasting notes, I see that many are still calling it young. I thought this was a perfect bottle to follow throughout the day.

Taurasi zone in Campania, Italy

For those that don’t know, Taurasi is made mostly from Aglianico, an ancient varietal that was cultivated as early as Roman times and was used in Falernian wine. Today, it produces big wines with a capability to age, often referred to as the “Barolo of the south.”

On to the notes:

2000 Mastroberardino Taurasi Radici Riserva

At 12pm – On the nose, this wine showed bright strawberry and floral notes with a hint of moist earth. The palate was strict with acid and drying tannin, yet showed black fruits and a chewy, rustic sweetness. The finish was dry with blackberry fruit lingering to the close.

At 3pm - The nose showed beautifully with ripe strawberry and potpourri; yet as the wine sat in the glass, it turned darker and fuller with notes of candle wax, earth, mushrooms and moist fall leaves. On the palate, this wine was eloquent and soft at first but turned more tannic into the finish. The senses were wrapped with penetrating black fruit, followed by minerals and a taste of older wood, which gave it a bit of a rustic feel. The finish was laden with intense cranberry fruit, giving it a really nice sendoff. This wine is just starting to show its age, yet still has many more years to go before its structure truly softens.

At 6pm - The aromas remained very much the same, which certainly isn't a bad thing. However, by this time, the palate really came together. The tannins in the wine softened to reveal richer fruit with dark chocolate accents. The older wood note seemed more like herbal tea and woodland than before, as well as, less rustic. It came across now as a glimpse into this wine’s maturity at peak, with a gorgeous opulence and beautiful balance. This is what I love about Italian wine; I only paid a little over $50 for this bottle.

I'm happy to score this bottle 95 points. This bottle was sourced from: Grapes: The Wine Company

Antinori: Generations in the making

If you’re a lover of Italian wine, then you must know the name Antinori. With bottles like Guado al Tasso, Solaia and Tignanello; Antinori conquered the fine wine racket with a host of “Super Tuscans” that helped define a generation of winemaking. However, you don’t need to spend upwards of $70 to enjoy a gorgeous bottle of Tuscan juice from this winery, which is now on it’s 26th generation of ownership (that’s right, 26 generations). Antinori also produces a number of bottles in the value category that drink beautifully. One of my favorites value wines is the Antinori Chianti Classico Peppoli. Each year I look forward to the newest vintage for easy drinking and highly enjoyable Chianti.

2008 Antinori Chianti Classico Pèppoli - The nose showed dusty potpourri with fresh crushed cranberry, cinnamon stick, and dark bakers chocolate. On the palate, it was medium bodied with a high level of acidity pushing dry yet intense red fruit and mocha. The finish was long on the palate with some drying tannin and lots of dry red fruit extract. (88 points) Find it on: Wine-Searcher!

I was a little on the fence with this wine but it opened up nicely after a couple of hours open in bottle. Once it started to show a little body on the palate, the dry red fruits and high acidity became more and more tolerable. In the end this is not Chianti for the neophyte, but does provide an interesting contrast to many of the, soft and modern, Chianti on the market these days.

I enjoyed this wine. I won’t put more in my cellar but I would be happy to accept a glass if offered. For a great value white wine from Antinori, I highly recommend the Antinori, Guado al Tasso Vermentino. It's an Italian white that smells and tastes as if it had been plucked right from a Mediterranean coast only days before you tasted it.

Grandi Vini: One man's opinion of Italy's best wines

I’m thinking back almost seven years ago to when I first started reading Vino Italiano (from authors Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch), which was my first bible for Italian wine. I had only just begun to explore wine and had fallen deeply in love with Italy. Vino Italiano was the end all of Italian wine in my universe. I must have read the book five times from cover to cover, going region by region, and trying to imagine the vineyards, wineries and people that made it all possible. It was the golden age of my wine education. Looking back now, there was one thing that Vino Italiano was missing: winery profiles. Enter Joseph Bastianich’s new book, Grandi Vini.

Joseph Bastianich

The Bastianich family has literally become synonymous with Italian food and wine, with a number of restaurants, retail ventures and even a winery in Friuli. Joseph Bastianich has spent his life in the industry, starting with his mother’s (Lidia Bastianich) restaurant in Forest Hills, Queens, where he rubbed elbows with distributors, importers and visiting wine-makers. Later in life, he traveled through Italy to find direction, working with winemakers in the vineyards and the wineries. Vino Italiano, and now Grandi Vini, are the result of this lifetime of experiences.

Grandi Vini is one man’s opinion of what the 89 best wines are coming from Italy today. Split up into the five different sections of Italy (Central Italy, The Islands, Northeast Italy, Northwest Italy and Southern Italy), Grandi Vini manages to provide a diverse and highly informative guide to some of the biggest names in Italian wine today. Even from the perspective of a well-versed Italophile, I still found myself pouring through this book to search for something new, something interesting; and the best part is, I found plenty of both.

The best part is that Grandi Vini doesn’t just cover the usual suspects. Many of the wineries profiled are off-the-beaten-path producers that I have spent years slowly learning about through tips from other collectors and extensive reading, yet here they all are. For the beginner, Grandi Vini presents something of a behind-the-scenes look into the world of fine Italian wine. For the obsessed, it’s a welcome addition and packed with useful information about some of our favorite wines and winemakers.