I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine reviews (mostly from samples) and tasting notes in a “mini-review” format.
 
They are meant to be quirky, fun, and (mostly) easily-digestible reviews of (mostly) currently available wines (click here for the skinny on how to read them), and are presented links to help you find them, so that you can try them out for yourself. Cheers!

• 2014 Dry Creek Vineyard The Mariner Meritage (Dry Creek Valley): Both classy and, one could argue, now classic in a Fitz Henry Lane painting kind of way. $40 A-
• 2016 Hess Collection Panthera Chardonnay (Russian River Valley): A promising start, for sure, though still needs to rise above the inevitable cougar-juice cheap shots that are headed its way. $41 B+
• 2016 Dutton-Goldfield Freestone Hill Pinot Noir (Russian River Valley): A stunning still-life in earth, spice, and dark fruits; give it 8 years, then stand back… $72 A
• 2017 Tasca d’Almerita Tascante ‘Buonora’ Carricante Etna Bianco (Sicily): We now present to you the fresher side of Sicily’s best white grape… ok, Sicily’s best grape, period. $24 B+
• 2017 Poderi dal Nespoli Campodora Secco (Albana di Romagna): Your daily does of rich, heady apricot goodness. $NA B+
• 2015 Fattoria Nicolucci ‘Predappio di Predappio Vigna del Generale’ Rosso Riserva (Emilia-Romagna): This General is both powerful and elegant, the kind that you’d likely follow anywhere. $NA A-
• 2013 Piccolo-Brunelli ‘Cesco 1938’ Romagna Sangiovese Predappio
  (Emilia-Romagna): Sporting those appealing salt-and-pepper temple streaks, silver-fox style. $NA A-
• 2016 Domaine Ostertag Pinot Noir ‘Les Jardins’ (Alsace): The gardens are full of svelte folks making almost embarrassingly finky dance moves. $35 B
• 2016 Dr. Pauly-Bergweiler Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett (Mosel): Apple, pear, lemon, and, well, just a bunch of sunshine and happiness. $26 B+
• 2017 Odfjell ‘Orzada’ Carignan (Maule Valley): Dark, handsome, and mysterious, and making seductive eyes at you from across the room. $23 B+

What gives one the impetus to isolate yeasts, experiment with, say, cumbersome large barriques, and pursue crafting world-class Sangiovese in a region best known for bulk wine? Probably having regional winemaking in your blood.

That’s the sense that one might take away from a visit to Tenuta Casali, in Romagna’s Mercato Saraceno, where Silvia, Francesco and Daniele Casali now work with the previous Casali generation, Valerio and Paolo, who themselves took over in the late 1970s from grandfather Mario, who farmed their alluvial, stony, and white clay soils since the 1940s as a grower. So there are five family members now involved directly, doing all of the normal family-winery stuff while also attempting the aforementioned experimentation/fine-tuning, and yet I got the impression that things were running well enough, and personally did not notice anyone trying to kill one another while I was there…

Tenuta Casali sits astride the Savio Valley, which itself sits astride Italy’s Appenine hills in Romagna, with approximately twenty hectares of vines (all but twenty percent of which are devoted to Sangiovese) in effect bordered by Tuscany and the Adriatic.

Their vineyard placement – which also enjoys an elevation of between 500 and 800 feet – seems to work some mighty Romagna magic on their Sangio fruit; their reds were some of the best that I tasted during my media trip to the region last year. Not that their whites are slouching, as we’ll get into, well, immediately…

I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine reviews (mostly from samples) and tasting notes in a “mini-review” format.
 
They are meant to be quirky, fun, and (mostly) easily-digestible reviews of (mostly) currently available wines (click here for the skinny on how to read them), and are presented links to help you find them, so that you can try them out for yourself. Cheers!

• 2017 Sidebar Kerner (Mokelumne River): Probably more richness and intrigue than we mere mortals deserve from this kind of price-point… $28 A-
• 2011 LangeTwins Centennial Zinfandel (Lodi): Tender and succulent slabs of smoked brisket IN YO FACE!!! $55 B+
• 2013 Brack Mountain Cyprus Cabernet Sauvignon (Knights Valley): An embarrassment of riches in soft, herbal-tinged blackcurrant kisses. $35 A-
• 2015 Grgich Hills Estate Grown Merlot (Napa Valley): Plummy, spicy, and, yeah, oaky… but also very, very damned tasty. $43 A-
• 2016 Weingut Fitz-Ritter Gewurztraminer Spatlese (Pfalz): Delivering stone fruits and white flowers in a zesty frenzy. $23 B+
• 2014 Joseph Drouhin Macon-Villages (Burgundy): Juuuuust perky/tasty/toasty/spritly enough. $15 B+
• 2015 Villa Papiano ‘I Probi di Papiano’ Sangiovese di Romagna Riserva (Emilia-Romagna): Sangio that likes to flex is strong, sinewy, gritty musculature. $25 B+
• 2017 Agrintesa ‘Poderi delle Rose’ (Romagna Albana Secco): Crowd-pleasing dance number between ripe stone fruits and candied citrus. $NA B+
• 2012 Poderi Morini ‘Nonno Rico’ Sangiovese di Romagna Superiore Riserva (Emilia-Romagna): Orange peel, dried herbs, black cherry, ample dashes of loveliness. $NA B+
• 2015 Trere ‘Amarcord d’un Ross’ Romagna Sangiovese Superiore Riserva (Emilia-Romagna): About as fantastical and earthy as the Fellini film that inspired its name. $NA B+

Well, that was unexpected.

Earlier this week, I was a guest on Connections, a WXXI NPR radio program hosted by my friend (and the guy who literally wrote the book on NY Finger Lakes wine) Evan Dawson. Mostly, I just tried not so sound too much like an idiot compared to the show’s (much) more eloquent host and guests (Bob Madill of Kindred Fare, and winemaker August Deimel of Keuka Springs).

The part that was most surprising was that the show’s theme centered around the Op-Ed-style piece I penned in mid-February, in which I posited that the wine industry as a whole has fumbled the ball when it comes to attracting the Millennial generation, as evidenced by multiple reports showing that wine in the USA is hemorrhaging those younger consumers and now needs desperately to staunch the bleeding, having failed at the preventive medicine part of hopping generational buying habits. It’s not all gloom-and-doom, of course; the wine biz is very good at some forms of consumer engagement, but I maintain that those forms work best with an older crowd.

Our discussion morphed from whether or not wine is losing the battle for younger drinkers, into both broader (wine biz writ-large) and more focused (impacts on the NY FLX wine scene) conversations, and now my minor dream of trying to sound intelligent during one of those super-cool, dignified NPR discussions has finally been realized. You can listen to that show here, or via the embed below (and then make fun of me in the comments). Make sure that you have NPR coffee mug in hand first (but you can, of course, fill it with wine… I’m not gonna judge…).

Cheers!