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| ♫ It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ♫ |
When one is marooned on an island, you have a lot of time to think and imagine all kinds of future scenarios. One of my favorite things, vinously speaking, is to look at wines that have aged for a decade or multiples of a decade. In 2021, that would mean 2001,1991,1981,1971,1961 and so on. It provides a neat measure to time with regards to how these little living things inside (and outside) the bottle are doing.
Another aspect to this exercise is also to use those years as a personal reference. Maybe you were born that year, or married, or a child was born, or someone died. Anything that would be considered a particular landmark in time. It gives context beyond just the wine and the score it received.
I have had every one of these wines before, and while they are considered iconic wines, especially in regards to the prestige they proffer to the greater world of wine, they also imprinted my sensibilities towards an unabashed conviction that Italian wines are as good as any (e.g., French) wines in the world. It was not the case when I started out. In fact, I spent much of my early career expending my most persuasive capabilities in an effort to dispel the myth that Italian wines were somehow inferior to other wines. Now, not so much, as Italian wines are finally the darlings of the sommelier and collector universe. The mill of God grinds slow but exceedingly fine.
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| Photo from Fine Wine Geek |
First up would be the Giacomo Conterno Monfortino Barolo Riserva. I seldom get to try this wine anymore, since it has become part of the club that wines like Jayer, Gaja and DRC belong to. Inotherwords, untouchable by mere mortals. You have to be a corporate finance mogul in Singapore or Frankfurt, where $1,000 to them is like $10 to us dirt-treaders. But, once upon a time (when I was younger and poorer) I experienced Monfortino at least once a year. So, I have cherished memories of the wine, and have written about it on this site over the years. Like the man on death row who is going to be executed in the morning, who is granted the wish for his last meal, I’d like just one more time, to drink a Monfortino.
This is not to say that there aren’t other wines just as worthy from the Barolo world. There are many, and I have some to drink in my little wine closet. But Monfortino has a special place in my heart, not because some critic has lauded it but because of our relationship to each other. It was one of the first Italian wines that knocked me out in less than 3 minutes. Gorgeous, and so extraordinary. I can still remember that first time. It must be love.
Year to drink in 2021: 1961
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| Photo from Fine Wine Geek |
My next pick would be the Bruno Giacosa Barbaresco Riserva Speciale Santo Stefano.
An old friend in Fort Worth, Texas, an Italian chef, had a thing for this wine. He also had a thing for buying them real cheap on closeout from unsuspecting wholesalers who didn’t know what they had. So, he amassed a cache of these wines from the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. Every Tuesday he’d make a lunch for the local wine salespeople and we’d occasionally drink one of them. Then I’d stumble back to Dallas, fully caffeinated and exhilarated by the length and depth of this wine.
Eventually I came to represent the winery on several occasions, and was able to go to the winery a time or two and become fully baptized in the world of Bruno Giacosa. These are wines that we most likely will never see again, for a number of reasons. Bruno is gone, for one, and that kind of sourcing is near impossible to manage in this period when the property values are so high. So, we move forward, leaving a little of our soul behind. Sure, one can still find the wines in collections and on auction (I’m sure there’s a Rudy K wannabe willing to grant you whatever wish you desire in regards to Giacosa). I’ve had my day with these wines, I’m happy to have had the opportunity to be alive and enjoy Barbaresco from a master.
But, if we ever get out of this place and in 2021 there is an opportunity to drink one more Barbaresco from Bruno Giacosa, I’d like it to be a Riserva Speciale Santo Stefano.
Year to drink in 2021: 1971
Leaving the Langhe, let’s dart on down to Abruzzo where my next choice would be the Azienda Agricola Valentini Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. I have a deep and profound love from the wines of Abruzzo. I was weaned on them early on in my career, and my wine closet has a chunk of these wines, some in large format bottles, going back to the ‘70’s. I am hesitant to part with them or drink them, because when I do, it’s like letting go of a part of the young me. And even though when I look in the mirror, I no longer see a young me, one sometimes still has an attachment to things that one was attached to in earlier years. One of my most favorite memories was drinking Valentini wines at Villa Majella and eating the food from chefs Angela Di Crescenzo and Peppino Tinari. Talk about coals in Newcastle, that was a night! And Valentini flowed freely that night, from the olive oil (yes!) to the whites, the rosato and the red. I’m not one for trophy hunting, but that was a memorable night. And I’d like one more night to be able to drink a Valentini Montepulciano, from another master, Edoardo. He made the wine I want to drink. In fact, so far, all the wines I want to drink have been made by people no longer with us. I wonder what that says about me?
Year to drink in 2021: 1981
And on to Tuscany for the final two. First stop Gianfranco Soldera and his Case Basse Brunello di Montalcino Riserva.
Again, you’d have to be a hedge fund manager to be able to afford this wine on a regular basis. But I didn’t think that was the initial intention of the winemaker. I came late to this winery, it was 2005. But everything I put in my mouth from the winery has been nothing short of illuminating. Can wine really move the soul? I don’t know. Looking at it here, on the screen, that seems a little silly. But I do know that whatever this life is that we are in, one of the great pleasures is food and wine. And a wine like that, while it may or may not move mountains, I’d surely sign up one more time to check and see if my inner Richter Scale registers any displacement within. I’d reckon more like a hum, maybe even a purr. What a weird confluence of things, Soldera Brunello and the inner purrings of a wine lover. But there you have it, that’s what wine does to some people. I’d like just one more goblet, please.
Year to drink in 2021: 1991
And off to the coast for the outlier. I know to some it might seem a bit jejune to offer up this wine, the Tenuta San Guido Sassicaia Bolgheri. But we go way back, all the way to 1968. Well, the wine at least. I remember selling the wine, always as a grey market offering, in the mid 1980’s. And at the time I was offered a stash of Sassicaia from that legendary year. I sold it, bought it back, resold it again (for $300), and along the way had a bottle or two. After all, I was selling it for something like $28.00 wholesale, initially. So, it was affordable.
I eventually was able to amass a small cache of various vintages from 1979 to 2015, purely for reference, of course. I like the wine, most of the time. But what I really like about it is the story, which is emblematic of the Italian spirit. And that is, don’t rest on what it is everyone thinks you’re good at. Break the rules once in awhile, open the gates and let the mind roam into places not thought of. Really? All of that from an Italian Cabernet? Well, to me at least. Yes, it’s now basically unaffordable to most people, so now it’s not the rebel we once knew it to be. But hey, "play Misty for me" one more time. And I’d like it to be about the same age as the ’68 was when I first drank it, at about 20 years. Just for old time’s sake.
Year to drink in 2021: 2001
Famous last words
There you have it, my “list” for the holiday season and 2021. Next year is going to be a big one for me, so I’d like to add one more wine. I’ve had one from my birth year, and it was lovely. But I also spied one in the cellar at Pio Cesare (looking like a cast-off Molotov cocktail), and I’d sure like to add it as a coda to the aforementioned wines. So, while we’re making up things to believe in in 2021, let’s throw another wine in the mix and that would be Pio Cesare’s 1951 Barolo – just for shits and giggles.
Ok, drop the curtains now…
written and photographed by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy