2008

$66.00

When you pay $66.00 for a wine you expect to be impressed. And I was, this is the best Italian wine that I have tasted this year, it impressed me beyond my expectations.

In my opinion this is top end Italian Abruzzo at its best and like a lot of European wines its (organic) and I really think that makes a difference to the flavour of old world wines.

A dark deep red colour that matched its bouquet of wild berries, cheery and dark truffle hints with blackberries washed with cloves. All this in the glass and I have not taken a sip yet.

The palate is soft with velvety tannins filling the mouth with rich lively fruit acid, coffee and chocolate with a very long lingering finish that reminded me of a good Bordeaux.

Yes thats the quality of this wine, a wine to enjoy with food and think about while you look for a good port to have with the cheese. This wine was decant for one hour and drank slowly for two hours over dinner so my note are taken over this time.

I drank this wine with pork dumplings with a hint of ginger and much to my surprise it worked well. The spice of the wine the soft tannins along with the fruit acid cut the fatty pork with the light spice of ginger a good mach to the wine.

I may not have normally tried this meal with such a wine. But thats what happens when you think you are having Italian and end up at a Chinese restaurant.

Michael Lillis

I love good Food and Wine And don’t mind Chinese food occasionally even if its meant to be Italian.