Domaine de la Charite's 100% Mourvedre cuvee 'Dame Noire' from the excellent 2007 vintage is beginning to show well at last. Typical of the variety, it has taken seven or eight years to get past 'muted' and start revealing plenty of sweet black fruit character. Next stop leather!
I realise that, having been very quiet on the blogosphere of late, I never triumphed the wines of Poggio al Gello in Tuscany! Very remiss, especially asthat one of the wines has sold out already. On a recommendation, I agreed to receive samples from the estate (I know it sounds odd, 'agreeing' to samples but so much of what people want to send promises so little that I have to say no - my house is only so big after all). That was a year ago and, tasting the wines then, I found the 2010 Rosso good but, perhaps a little underwhelming, and the 2011 Pugnitello exciting but, probably, uncommercial.
Fortunately for me, them and you, there were two bottles of each wine so I re-tasted these in January. I opened the Rosso at around 7pm on a Sunday evening, intending to let it breathe (I thought the first bottle had perhaps been in need of this) but before long the bottle was empty. Very impressive. Another evening saw similar results for the Pugnitello so I was hooked.
By this time there was a 2011 Riserva available too so I took a punt on this. A friend opened five of these for a tasting group, one freshly opened, one after four hours, another after eight hours, then twelve and twenty four and called me the next day with a big order and a tip to let it breathe for four hours. Call it magic, alchemy or simple oxygenation, it works a treat!
More updates soon.
I realise that, having been very quiet on the blogosphere of late, I never triumphed the wines of Poggio al Gello in Tuscany! Very remiss, especially asthat one of the wines has sold out already. On a recommendation, I agreed to receive samples from the estate (I know it sounds odd, 'agreeing' to samples but so much of what people want to send promises so little that I have to say no - my house is only so big after all). That was a year ago and, tasting the wines then, I found the 2010 Rosso good but, perhaps a little underwhelming, and the 2011 Pugnitello exciting but, probably, uncommercial.
Fortunately for me, them and you, there were two bottles of each wine so I re-tasted these in January. I opened the Rosso at around 7pm on a Sunday evening, intending to let it breathe (I thought the first bottle had perhaps been in need of this) but before long the bottle was empty. Very impressive. Another evening saw similar results for the Pugnitello so I was hooked.
By this time there was a 2011 Riserva available too so I took a punt on this. A friend opened five of these for a tasting group, one freshly opened, one after four hours, another after eight hours, then twelve and twenty four and called me the next day with a big order and a tip to let it breathe for four hours. Call it magic, alchemy or simple oxygenation, it works a treat!
More updates soon.
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