James Bercovici - The Big Red Wine Company

Note: updated after the tasting! The Dulwich Wine Society has a new meeting venue since I last visited, more conducive to the enjoyment of fine wines. I was there last night to present, for the first time in the context of a wine club, a selection of wines from Piedmont. Here's the running order... White wines 1.     Fabrizio Battaglino , Roero 2010 Arneis 2.     Giovanni Manzone , Langhe Bianco 2010 Rosserto 3.     Nada Giuseppe , Langhe Bianco 2009 "Armonia" All the whites were very well received: the Arneis surprised most tasters who had little or no experience of the grape for its slightly austere nose but fuller palate. The Rossesse was showing well and was also well received as a new wine to everyone in the room. As always, Enrico's wine wowed tasters with its assortment of varieties each bringing something different to the well integrated whole. Red wines 4.      Nada Giuseppe , Dolcetto d'Alba 2010 C...

Not a great start, as I subsequently discovered: I had got the wrong day! Mauro was busy for the first half hour but we had a guided tour of the cellars from his sister who has recently joined the Giovanni Manzone family estate. It is a fascinating place with an underground spring keeping the area naturally humid. We went through most of the wines: Dolcetto, Barbera, Nebbiolo and Barolo. Frankly, not a bad wine among them. Some highlights though: the Dolcetto 2010   La  Serra  is more complex and structured than most with good acidity and more tannin so can age well (10 years?). Good "purple" fruit, long and fragrant. The Barbera 2010  offers juicy fruit and a simple structure to back up the slightly sour cherry fruit: a good all-rounder. I still prefer the more complex Barbera Superiore 2009 La Serra  which sees 16 months in tonneaux.  It is a fuller, rounder wine with lovely juiciness and good complexity. The Nebbiolo 2010 Il Crutin   is quite evo...

Last night I opened a 2007 Barolo "Bricat" by Giovanni Manzone . Everything was against this being successful: it is a very tannic wine which, on paper, needs another five to ten years and I was eating something that was never going to partner a wine like this even when it is mature. I just couldn't help myself. To start with, the tannins were a little immature but there is enough sweet Nebbiolo fruit there to cope with them even when the bottle has just been opened. Over the course of an hour or so, the tannins softened. Not completely, of course, but enough to bring the fruit out even more. Texturally, the wine is gorgeous with a velvetiness that makes you want to keep coming back but, at the same time, enough grip from the tannins to keep it pert. But what about the fruit? Classic Nebbiolo - sweet cherry, quite piercing, reminiscent of a very fine Burgundy. Some tar, tobacco and spice too. What's not to love?