Italian Portfolio Tasting in London by Winetraders

A mix and match of Italian wines by Wintraders UK, with some gems to be noted at the end of the afternoon. Here they are.

Corte Sant'Alda

Amarone della Valpolicella 2016.

A balanced wine with good minerality for an Amarone.

RRP £57. Score 92.

Recioto della Valpolicella, 2019

Balanced and long.

RRP £32. Score 92.

Inama

Soave Classico 2021

Zesty, fresh. RRP £37. Score 90

La Vedetta

Barbaresco 2020

Balanced and complex, long, potential for evolution.

RRP £ 34. Score 93.

Barbaresco Cà Grossa 2019

Great structure, will reach its apex in a few years.

RRP £45. Score 94

Cabutto

Barolo Riserva del Fondatore, 2016

Superb structure, balance and length. Give it a few more years.

RRP £61. Score 93

Walter Massa

Colli tortonesi Barbera Bigolla 2010

Round, balanced and long, a mature wine, perhaps the best today. RRP £ 52. Score 95

Montefili

Toscana IGT Anfiteatro 2016

Complex, long still a bit abrupt, and will benefit from time in the bottle.

RRP £67. Score 90

Vike Vike

Cannonau Ghirlanda Fittiloghe 2020

20yo vines, still fresh, structured, long. A little patience required.

RRP £ 28. Score 89

Cannonau di Sardegna Ghirada Gurguruò 2020

30yo vines, an imposing wine, balanced and long.

RRP £43 Score 94

Barbagia rosso Ghirlanda Istevene 2020

100yo vines (!) a harmonious wine that lacks nothing.

RRP £ 57. Score 95

Soddu

Cannonau Brulleri Ghirada Bruncu Boeli Ris 2020

Round complex and long

RRP £31. Score 95

Sardinian wines carried the day!

Film review: Mondovino (2004) by Jonathan Nossiter, **

Synopsis

Filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter, who loves wine, looks at the international wine business. He offers his personal view of how business concerns and the homogenisation of tastes around the world are changing the way wine is being made. 

Review

The movie is good in that it points the finger to a phenomenon that is pervasive in the world of wine, as it is in every aspect of our life: globalization. The director's thesis, which he does not spell out but appears clearly, is that this is a bad thing. I, on the contrary, think it is a good development for wine, mainly because it allows for greater choice.

Far from homogenizing the taste of the world's wines, globalization is making any wine, in any style, available everywhere in the world, and this gives each of us a chance to choose what we like, how much we want to spend.

He implicitly accuses Robert Parker (whom he interviews) to be in cahoot with American business, while in fact parker has been very beneficial to French wines and Bordeaux in particular. He received countless awards from France, including from the president of the Republic.

Nossiter is tricky as he often hides his camera and films without the subject being aware. That is not correct in my view, even for a documentarist.

He is also political, but out of context. He underlines how a mayor of a French town who rejected American money to invest in the local vineyards was a communist (good) while Italian nobles who accept to work with the same Americans has grandparents who supported fascism (bad). I find some of these people who live in their past rather disagreeable, but that says nothing about their wines. How totally irrelevant.

Finally, he never misses a chance to film any dog that happens to be in front of his camera. For example when he interviews Parker he goes at great length to emphasize how his dogs fart a log, and that is really too much. 

Today, no matter what Nossiter says, we have more diversified and better quality wines around the world than ever before.

Here is another good review of this film I agree with by Decanter.