Entitled "Starting the Year Off Right", the piece does a nice job of describing the qualities of several of Domenico Selections' newer wine offerings:

* Casale Pozzuolo's Rosso della Porticcia, an unoaked, 100% organic Sangiovese in purezza from southern Tuscany (Montecucco zone).

* Three unoaked, organic white from Aquila del Torre in Friuli - a Sauvignon Blanc, a Friulano and, yes, a Riesling. Kevin awards all of these "Outstanding," one with a + accompanying it. You have to go to the post to find out which one it is.

* The much-loved Freisa from Cascina Gilli, "Vigna del Forno" - unoaked, gorgeous fruit, sapid. Which is the opposite of insipid, just in case you didn't know.

Check out Kevin's blog Under the Grape Tree for a trove of wine reviews and aperçus and cranky opinions that would do Ron Paul proud. 

To those of you who don't know this already, Cascina Roccalini's wines are made by the young and very talented Paolo Veglio with the close collaboration of Dante Scaglione, the one and again enologo of Bruno Giacosa.

This time the 93 was given to the Barbaresco 2007, which some have tasted and declared it was "infanticide" to drink so soon. Sanderson does say the wine will be best between 2014 and 2025.  (Pictured label is for the 2005, to which Sanderson gave a 92. Consistency at this level is a fine thing.)

Yes, the wine is still youthful and bursting the young vitality. It hasn't yet knitted together as well as it should be within a couple of years.

Our advice: Stock and store. 

Or drink now. It's interesting to taste a fine wine in its obsteperous youth, no less than to drink it with appreciation of its development over a number of years. It's too delicious to pass up at any time.

In the piece, Franco, pictured here, explores the various suggested etymologies of the word Falanghina, and then provides a bit of history of the grape, with its "modern era" starting with the research and advocacy of Leonardo Mustilli. (Blessed be he.)

I won't go into the etymological side of it, since the evidence that Franco presents -- like many others' before him -- strikes one as equivocal. To me it's Category We Really Don't Know. But that makes no difference to one's appreciation and enjoyment of one of the great white wine grapes of southern Italy. (Maybe one should just say Italy, no qualifiers.)

Anyway, allow me to translate Franco's enthusiastic review of the Mustilli Falanghina, with all my difficiencies as translator on display (spiacente!).

This wine is vinified in a very simple way. The grapes are hand-selected and -picked. Crushed immediately, the must is fermented in stainless steel at a controlled temperature for about two weeks and is subjected to frequent bâtonnages (stirring of the lees). When needed, a portion of the must undergoes malolactic fermentation. The wine ages at least three months in bottle.

This is an absolutely classic white that paired beautifully with orecchiette cooked with broccoli, anchovies and just the right amount of pepper that I had at Agricola del Sole. 

My tasting "told" me this about the wine: A vibrant golden color, dry nose, focused, great backbone and elegance, intense and layered, with notes of citrus and orange blossom, hints of white peaches and apple and almond. Altogether a fragrant, zesty wine with a marked minerality.

When you first drink it, its attack is dry and clean, rapidly expanding on the palate with great freshness and richness. On the finish fills your mouth and has a rather long finish, all underlined by a wonderful acidity. This Falanghina has a load of energy and liveliness, making it a pleasure to match with your meal and, indeed, to be drunk as an ottimo aperitif.

Again, many thanks to Leonardo Mustilli for having rescued Falanghina and made it one of the key white wines of the South.

Sorry to have been so lax about posting, but at this time of year it's run run run. 

Ciao a tutti!

But then that's not accounting for the informative charm of Chiara Martinotti, who represented Cascina Gilli at the event, and whose passionate advocacy of Freisa is undeniable.

In the past two days her "Vigna del Forno" 2008 has won rave reviews from Bill Tish of New York Wine Salon and Elin McCoy, who contributes wine articles to a range of print and online publications, including Bloomberg News and Zester Daily.

In his review (click here), Tish waxes rhapsodic about the wine:

"This is a wine that could enthrall connoisseurs and neophytes alike. A worthy fill-in for its Piedmontese compatriots Barbera and Dolcetto. Might be my Thanksgiving red...."

McCoy concludes her information-rich piece (click here):

"The 'Vigna del Forno' bottling isn't aged in wood, so the fruit flavors are bright, intense, and immensely appetizing. Now a firm Freisa fan, I urge you to give it a try."

For Cascina Gilli and for Domenico Selections these are reviews that help validate the advocacy we've done on behalf of this lovely wine. Mom couldn't have written better ones. 

Now, we're ready to write your order.

So it's with pride and pleasure that I inform you of some excellent scores and reviews by Ian d'Agata, Tanzer's man in Italy, frequent contributor to Decanter and Director of the International Wine Academy of Roma.

Aquila del Torre in late February. All organically farmed,

vineyards are set within a nature preserve

Recently, on Tanzer's wineaccess.com site, reviews of three of Aquila del Torre's wines were published. We applaud this, to us, new and very impressive producer from the Colli Orientali district of Friuli.

Here are the reviews, along with links to wineaccess.com. 

Friulano 2010 -- 88 points

<http://www.wineaccess.com/expert/tanzer/ecommerce/product.html?product_id=11281000>

Green-tinged straw-gold. Rich nose of fig, lime blossom and almond. Fat, thick and sweet, with an almost syrupy texture to its apple and almond flavors. An impressively rich and big Friulano, but compared to the sauvignon it comes across as slightly blurry, in need of a little more acidity (or less alcohol) for better definition. Finishes long and rich, with hints of lime oil and cut grass.

Sauvignon Blanc 2010 - 89 points

<http://www.wineaccess.com/expert/tanzer/ecommerce/product.html?product_id=11280999>

Pale, straw-gold color. Fresh nose verges on the exotic, offering pineapple, grapefruit, green fig and lime skin notes. Solidly built, but with lovely delicacy to the pineapple and grapefruit flavors. Has the flesh to support its very good acidity. Nicely done: Aquila del Torre, long known for an excellent picolit (the Savorgnano subzone is an absolute grand cru for the variety), actually makes one of Friuli's more interesting sauvignons as well.

Picolit 2008 - 90 points

<http://www.wineaccess.com/expert/tanzer/ecommerce/product.html?product_id=11281072>

Bright yellow-gold. Pure aromas of lime oil, mango and ripe yellow peach complicated by dried apricot. Bright and sweet, with lime and honey flavors on entry, then rather gently styled in the middle. Could use a bit more length, but it's so pure and varietally accurate that it rates an outstanding score.

We have in stock the Friulano and the Sauvignon Blanc, as well as the relatively unsung Riesling, but the Picolit wasn't available when we placed our initial order in the summer. That luscious nectar, bright with enough acidity to make you want another glass, then another, will be here early in 2012.

Like Semillon, for example? 

Like Primitivo?

And why, exactly?

Those are two of my top picks in this category.

Just thinking out loud...

...To be honest it took me a few days to realize how sweet the food was there in US. At the beginning I simply felt I was really enjoying eating out, then I realized that the big cheese plate was loaded with frosted peanuts, the apparently healthy salad had caramelised strawberries on top, while the steamed salmon was topped with cherries. No wonder eating was becoming such a fun experience (yeah...I have a sweet tooth). The point is: this kind of food is anesthetizing your palate, it makes you lose in complexity and shades. They are pushing you towards an immediate, short and childish taste. Adult tastes are savour, saltiness, acidity, adult tastes often require time as well. I think quite a few Italian wines also require an "adult palate" to be fully appreciated.

OK, first off, Chiara -- you ordered a salad with what on top? Salmon with what on top? No wonder you have this viewpoint!

Granted, too many salads and salad dressings here are loaded up with sugar in addition to gloppy with greasiness thanks to excessive amounts of what purports to be cheese. But you can always bypass (key word!) that my requesting oil and vinegar, or lemon.

As to the fish, what can I say? It sounds like the wrong thing to dump on salmon. I don't care if it was farm-raised. 

I'd have to say that the excessive sweetness in a lot of American food is, in part, a matter of habit as well as the desire of the restaurateurs and food-product manages to make the customer back for more. It's the path of least resistance for everyone.

Looking at this issue diachronically -- look it up! Google makes it easy to expand your vocabulary! -- I can remember back to about 60 years ago. As a little kid, I of course went crazy for anything sweet. We had things like "tonic" (soda in American) and ice cream as treats fairly seldom. Sure, we binged candy and Halloween and baked goods at Christmas. But holidays were a completely separate category regarding food, which was a major part of why we eagerly awaited them. Now that holiday/ordinary day dichotomy is blurred to the point of insignificance. We have the national obesity epidemic to prove it.

What has this to do with wine? Nothing and everything. Even among those who drink wine frequently, there is a common theme of "I don't like sweet wines." Yet ask them what they prefer, and it's something high in sugar and well as alcohol -- California Zinfandel or Cab, Amarone, some jammy monster from Australia. Chiara commented on this, and Jeff and I, observing this preference at tastings for civilians, laugh about it all the time. We laugh but we're crying on the inside.

Well, look, I have no intention of making a lot of profound observations on the topic, nor do I wish to devote my days to researching it. It's an interesting point, which I hadn't thought much about before Chiara brought it up. And it does shed some light, if obliquely, on the ingrained American preference for sweet drinks of all sorts, wine often included. That's all.