To begin with the sites, I've been doing housekeeping and adding a few recipes to Italian Cuisine, but nothing really fundamental. For the latest, see http://italianfood.about.com. On the Italian Wine Review, I've posted my reactions to Casanova di Neri's Cerretalto, which was one of the most distinctive Brunelli poured at the Brunello presentation held last week. And, while I'm at it, need to make a correction. I Initially said last year's Cerretalto was Wine Spectator's wine of the year. A mistake, because Casanova di Neri did win the award, but with the 2001 Tenuta Nuova Brunello. The next time someone tells me something of this sort I will verify it before I repeat it, but in the meantime the mistake is mine and mine alone.
Addio Aurelio
Next, some sad News: Aurelio Settimo, who founded the winery that bears his name in La Morra in the 60s, has left us. I always enjoyed his wines, his Barolo especially, and he will be missed. Condolences to his daughter Tiziana, in whose capable hands the winery now is, and to her family.
Franco Ziliani has written a nice farewell, in Italian alas.
Chianti Classico, Nobile, and Brunello: Preliminary Thoughts
I spent much of last week tasting the new releases of Chianti Classico, Nobile di Montepulciano, and Brunello di Montalcino, and as always it was a fascinating experience.
We began with Chianti Classico.
This was the largest of the tastings, with more than 300 wines being poured. This is much more than I can hope to do well in the two days we were allotted, so I decided to taste mostly Chianti Classico D'Annata, the vintage wine. Some producers were presenting their 2005 vintage, and others their 2004, so that's what I had. I'll discuss how I selected which wines to taste when I put up the tasting notes, but wanted to say a few things about the vintages.
2005 was, well, Tart: Bright, lively, and acidic also come to mind as descriptors, as do scrappy and light. It was a wet, cool summer, and the wines are neither as full, nor as concentrated, nor as balanced as better vintages. This said, it wasn't anywhere near as wet or as cold as 2002, and though the wines are light, I found many to have a pleasing brambly grace to them. It's not a memorable vintage, at least for the quickly released Chianti Classico D'Annata, but these are eminently drinkable wines that will work very well with foods -- they're the classic bottles you set out while your diners are passing the platter of grilled meats around, and by the time the platter is making its second round, the bottle's empty and you need to set out another.
2004 is a very different animal. The wines are a year older, and therefore have that much more maturity and poise, but the vintage was also better, with more sun and warmth that led to greater ripeness and concentration; the resulting wines are quite elegant, with beautiful balance and poise, and though they will drink very well with foods now -- slightly less rich fare than the 2005 -- they will also age nicely for several year. In other words, it's a vintage to look out for.
Next, Nobile di Montpulciano.
They're coming off two very difficult vintages -- 2002 and 2003 -- so I was quite curious to see what 2004 would bring. The vintage, like the 2004 Chianti Classico vintage, was much better balanced, and as a result differences in winemaking philosophy were readily apparent. In particular, there seem to be two currents in Montepulciano at present; one that is fairly traditional (for want of a better term), which produces lively, elegant wines with ripe red berry fruit, brisk (but not overpowering) acidity, and a vibrant tannic structure to provide support. These wines I found quite elegant, and think they will become very nice with time. In short, something to seek out, and set aside.
The other winemaking current is, well, I wouldn't call it international, but rather soft: Big, strongly extracted wines that are extremely soft, with overripe fruit flavors (in many cases very overripe) and tannins that are ample and lax. There is acidity in some of the wines, and where present it does provide direction, but in many cases the direction is more tannic, and derives in large part from wood. These wines feel very much like the 2003 vintage, when the summer heat and dryness cooked the grapes, but the conditions weren't like that in 2004. So it's a conscious decision on the part of the winemakers to work with very ripe grapes, perhaps in pursuit of greater extraction and color. If you like the style you will like them, but I found them to be too soft and too settled, and also fear that they won't age well for long.
And finally, Brunello di Montalcino.
Here we had the 2002 Brunello, and the 2001 vineyard selections. Since I liked the 2001 vintage I tasted last year, I began with the vineyard selections, and tasted through them all. As one might expect, there were highs and lows, but my overall impression was quite positive. There are some excellent wines to be had, and they will age very well. In other words, fine wines for special occasions.
The 2002 vintage is a very different story: A few of the largest producers, who could pick through a large volume of grapes to make a small volume of bottles, produced acceptable wines, as did a small number of small producers. But the vast majority of the winemakers would have done well to follow the lead of the few who decided just to make Rosso in 2002.
Put simply, the 2002 Brunello di Montalcino is a wine that's Non all'Altezza, as Italians say -- it doesn't meet the standard. Sample after sample was lacking in fruit, presented unusual, in some cases off-putting aromas, lacked structure, or presented combinations of structure and aroma that were frankly improbable -- overripe fruit, for example, which only makes sense when you realize that the laws governing Italian winemaking allow what's known as a taglio migliorativo: winemakers can blend up to 15% of one or more other vintages of a given wine into a specific vintage of said wine to shore it up. For example, one could add 1997 and 2001 to the 2005, and here I suspect many producers tried to shore up their weak 2002 wines with a robust shot of 2003. Unfortunately 2003 has a different set of problems -- it was a very hot, dry vintage that yielded many heat-struck wines -- and combining the two vintages simply made a wine with two sets of problems rather than one.
The bottom line is that the winemakers who took everything that was supposed to be 2002 Brunello and sold it as Rosso di Montalcino probably had the right idea; I did find a few wines that were pleasant -- wines made by people who didn't try to compensate for Nature's stinginess with oak, concentrators, or other-vintage additions -- but they tended to be uniformly light, and not what one expects from what should be the flagship of Tuscan appellations, if not of all Italian appellations.
I'm sorry to come down so hard on the vintage, but if I were to fork over a hefty sum for a 2002 Brunello (there is some talk of reducing the prices, but not by much) I would be tremendously disappointed. And if I had no other experience with the wine, after buying a bottle of 2002 I would also write it off as completely overblown.
Fortunately, the 2001 Brunello is still here to enjoy, and if you should happen upon a bottle of 1999, that vintage is shaping up to be spectacular.
Cézanne: The Master was once very Florentine
Not because he came to Florence -- when the French artistic elite failed to understand him in the late 1870s, he retired to Provence, where he lived in isolation, and died an embittered old man in 1906 -- but because a couple of wealthy Americans who lived in Florence were the first to recognize his genius, and assembled the most important early collections of his work. Their names were Charles Loeser and Egisto Paolo Fabbri, and while Charles is primarily remembered for his collecting, Egisto's story is more interesting:Egisto's father and his uncle (also called Egisto) left Florence for the US in 1848, and while Egisto's father was moderately successful, his Uncle Egisto became a friend and associate of J. Pierpont Morgan, with a 15% holding in the Bank. When Uncle Egisto retired in 1885 he decided to return to Florence, and brought the family with him -- his brother was dead, but he had a sister-in-law and many nieces and nephews. Some of the nieces married Italian nobles (one became Marchesa Antinori), while the younger Egisto, who had already painted with Weir, La Farge, and others in the US, continued to paint, and moved to Paris with his sister Ernestine, where both studied with Pissarro.
Egisto also met the great dealer, Henri-Louis Ambrose Vollard. Vollard had paintings by Cézanne: Egisto bought all he could, 16 between 1896 and 1899, and even tried to visit the old man, who said no, but expressed astonishment that someone should like his work so much.
Egisto returned to Florence with his paintings following the death of Stephanie, his model and companion, and hung the works in the dining room. Both he and Mr. Loeser were quite jealous of their Cézannes, showing them only to those they thought would appreciate them (Charles kept his in his bedroom, and a young Winston Churchill, who also painted, didn't understand them).
Following the recognition of Cézanne's importance as the father of modern painting in 1907 (the year after his death) interest in the American collections in Florence increased, and both Charles and Egisto lent their works to shows, in particular the first major show dedicated to the Impressionists, held in Florence in 1910.
People's priorities change with time, however, and in the 20s Egisto converted to Catholicism and withdrew to the town of Serravalle, not far from La Verna, where Saint Francis received his Stigmata: He rebuilt the Parish church, helped the townspeople, and established a school of Gregorian chant that is still with us today. Important things, but expensive too, and to finance his projects he sold much of his art, including his Cézannes. Charles instead left his to the White House (Jackie Kennedy especially liked one), and by 1950 just about all had trickled away.
A lot has come back, now, albeit briefly, in a show entitled Cézanne a Firenze, which has just opened in Palazzo Strozzi, and will continue until July 29. Though there aren't as many Cézannes as there once were (they've brought together 22 in all), it's a fascinating show, because they also explore the personalities of the collectors, especially Egisto, with a number of works by his American teachers and contemporaries, and also several of his paintings, which are technically well done, though it's obvious that he was a follower more than an innovator (it's also interesting to see that despite his love of Cézanne he wasn't particularly influenced by him, while his sister instead copied one, and her copy is here too).
Egisto makes obvious sense, while Pissarro, the impressionist Cézanne was closest to, and with whom he painted before returning to Aix-En-Provence, is a pleasant surprise: His paintings are beautiful, and help remind us what Cézanne's impressionist contemporaries were up to -- to a degree working more with light than the volumes Cézanne finally concentrated on. And finally, there are several paintings by the Macchiaioli, the Italian -- Tuscan, especially -- contemporaries of the Impressionists. The word macchia means spot, and their work does bear a superficial resemblance to the Impressionists, in the way they dabbed and spread the color onto their canvasses, but their interests were different, and much more centered on capturing the human condition -- farmers in the fields, the aftermath of battle, bringing the cattle home, and so on. Oh yes, there's also a portrait of a gardener by Van Gough, which was owned by
Ardengo Soffici, a Tuscan poet and critic, and which was, like the Cézannes, not understood by the Florentines who saw it in the 1910 show mentioned above.Bottom line: I'm not sure I would make a special trip to see this show. However, if I was already planning to visit Florence, I would make certain I saw it. It opens several windows onto the past, all fascinating.
For more information, see the show's site, http://www.cezanneafirenze.it
I had planned to do more, but this has gone quite long enough.
This time's proverb is Tuscan: All'entrar ci vuol disegno, all'uscir denari o pegno -- You get involved (with something) by choice, but to get out costs money or sacrifice.
Kyle Phillips
Editor, The Italian Wine Review
http://www.italianwinereview.com
Want to comment? Drop me a line at Kyle@cosabolle.com
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