Sasa tasting dinner at etcetera etcetera

Enough political tomfoolery.  Back to what matters.  Wine. 

Terry Hughes l'opinionista shot his week's wad on this post, now has only the time and energy to report the facts, ma'am, just the facts.  Well, OK, some 'tude will show forth.  Don't it always.

Tony Sasa, a sort of promotional/sales agent for a group of wineries in various parts of Italy as well as proprietor of an enoteca in Florence, hosted a private tasting dinner at etcetera etcetera last night.  Funny how things go full circle; two years ago this month, at the very same restaurant, I first met Tony, enologo Paolo Caciorgna and producer Andrea Mantengoli of La Serena, an estate in Montalcino.  I had met Giorgio Boeri, a Barbera d'Asti producer, at Vinitaly.    He was there last night, energetically pouring and explaining his wines to anyone who spoke a little Italian.

I'm not sure where the energy came from.  These folks were plumb tuckered out, having just come from the West Coast, where they did tasting dinners in Seattle, LA, Dallas, and then they had just flown in from Boston -- I may be omitting something else -- and have DC and Baltimore still to go.  All in about a week.  A most un-Italian pace.

Before I go a little into the wines and producers, let me tell you I was fairly surprised by the types of people who forked over the bread to attend the event.  For one thing, they skewed quite young, 20s and 30s, not so much the typical 40s to 60s.  And there was a rather high proportion of women -- women who came with gal pals not boyfriends or husbands.  OK, there were all types in this gathering of 40-something people.  It's the distribution of them that was surprising to me.  I think it augurs well for the long-term interest in and consumption of Italian wine.

All during dinner we got tasting-sized pours of a fairly wide range of wines, several of them from producers who weren't present.  I'll mention a few that particularly struck me one way or another.

The sole dry white was from Boeri, the Bevion Riserva 2005.

This is a barriqued Chardonnay that has a mid-Atlantic taste profile, a little bit Burgundy and a little bit California, with a slight leaning toward Cali.  This is a well-made wine that should please aficionados of California Chardonnay.  I liked it well enough -- it has been said that I'll drink anything -- but the wood didn't please me too much.  I prefer a crisper taste in my Chardonnay, but maybe the plain old Bevion is more my cuppa Chard.   Boeri's wines are imported to the US by Peter Weygandt.   

Another Boeri wine, their flagship Pörlapa` is a truly superior Barbera d'Asti.  We drank the 2004, and Ken said, "It doesn't taste thin and cheap!"  For so many do, as we all know even if we don't talk about it.  It's a nice, round wine with plenty of authentic earthiness, brambly fruit, snappy tannins and acids, etc. 

We tasted also Andrea Mantengoli's Brunello La Serena 2003.  This vintage isn't the best, as he more or less admitted ("A difficult year," he said, as all Italians say), because it hasn't the elegance and complex nuances that normally characterize this wine.  For a 2003, however, it's ravishing.  (Does that sound old school enough?)  The great thing was that I got to see Andrea again, as well as his really wonderful fiancee Elisabetta. 

Elisabetta. 
Marry the girl no matter what your mother says, Andrea.

A big hit, according to Marisa Alberti, an old friend of Tony's, was Le Macchie, a wonderful Sangiovese in purezza made at Paolo Caciorgna's father's place in the Val d'Orcia in southern Tuscany.  Another Peter Weygandt import.

We were all knocked out by a fragrant, rich and utterly captivating Negroamaro from Puglia, ES by Gianfranco Fino.

This stunning wine is made from 50+ year old vines.  It isn't yet imported to the States, and a damned shame that is.  To me it was a whole new experience of Negroamaro. 

What a body!

The Gianfranco Fino vineyard in Puglia.  Negroamaro da morire

"Onward, men, onward!" as Errol Flynn cried in The Charge of the Light Brigade.

 

 

We were also served a wine made by Paolo on a tiny holding on the north slope of Mount Etna.  The wine in question, a Nerello Mascalese called N'Anticchia, is a wow.  Only 1400 bottles a year are made, and the wine is an expensive, rare gem.  (18 euros there, forget about a US price, which would be about $55 - 60 retail here.)  Paolo, complimenti -- a rare, spicy, profoundly aromatic wine that screams "Mediterranean."  I want more.

After din-din and with dessert, we had a lightly sparkling Moscato by Boeri.  As they say in some old movie, "Charming, simp-ply chaaahming."  Everyone loved it. 

The wines were fine but I sure wished we could have spent more time with Tony, Paolo and all the gang.  Charming, simply charming...

Comments

[Marco]

I would kill to cop a bottle of the Etna Rosso, but I can only get 25% off retail. These wines will never see the cellars of most wine lovers in the USA. It's too bad and too sad. I priced a COS Cerasuolo da Vittoria today. $34. I bought a couple of bottles for $20 in November.

[AC + BR]

Dallas? they wuz here? really?

[Himself]

They wuz. I think. I dunno. They been all over. You gotta understand, it's all about me.

[Himself]

PS--My rib is killing me. I made the express train anyway. Ha. Ha. Ow.

[elisabetta]

Ciao Terry!
solo adesso leggo il tuo blog.
è Andrea che ha bisogno di tempo per decidere di sposarmi, non la sua mamma, che non vede l'ora di liberarsene!
ti sei incontrato con marisa?
a presto!!!!!