...A big fan, around 6-5.
While I was talking with the fine young winemaker from Friuli, Michele Ciani, I saw a tall and very Irish-looking guy giving me a strange stare. He came up and said, "Aren't you Terry Hughes of mondosapore?"
"I am."
He bowed in obeisance, which is something even my favorite beagle could never bring herself to do. "I read mondosapore all the time. I love your perspective on Italian wine. You tell it like it is. The regular wine press is just..." An Italianate shrug.
This big fan is Daniel O'Byrne, a Californian who lives in Greve, Chianti, with his wife Jacqueline Bolli. She herself is Italian and Irish. Nice to see such a Hibernian presence in Tuscany.
Jacqueline's father started their Montecalvi winery 20 years ago, and the first commercial release was in 1995. The couple has followed the no-spoofilation path by, for example, using no purchased yeasts and minimal sulfur. They tend to leave the wine alone..
I tasted their three wines today. They are highly tannic, have great structure and still are looking for the right balance. The fruit is sound, the use of wood is restrained, but for the American market at least the prominent tannins represent a bit of a problem. As usual, I liked the wines more than Ken. Assertive tannins aren't his thing. I think these wines have the stuff to age well, which may be the issue: few Americans have the space or inclination to lay down such uncompromising wines.
Montecalvi's production is quite small anyway, and Daniel acknowledges that these are niche wines. The wines are now available in the States.
It will be interesting to follow their development over the next few years.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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