Well, first, it wasn’t really a contest. I volunteered to take some appropriate red wines to a birthday lunch for my former father-in-law, Ed Harrison, who just turned 94, and while he may not be as spry as he once was, he’s a gracious, good-humored person and all-around gentleman. The fare was pulled pork shoulder with beans and slaw and sauce, brought in from a local purveyor, and (second) just to remind My Readers who live outside this vicinity, the word “barbecue” in Memphis is a noun, not a verb, and it refers to pork shoulder or ribs slow-cooked over hickory coals with a basting sauce. (Don’t believe the outside propaganda that “Memphis-style” barbecue is “dry”; traditionally it has been “wet,” that is, cooked with a basting sauce and served at table with a different sauce.) We don’t say “let’s barbecue tonight” or “let’s have a barbecue” as people apparently do in the North and West regions of this great, vast country. “Barbecue” is the stuff itself in these parts. Got that? And, yes, in these parts the slaw goes in the sandwich.

I pulled six hearty red wines from the rack to take to lunch, and here’s what they were:

*Clayhouse “Show Pony” Red Cedar Vineyard Petite Sirah 2007, Paso Robles.
*Kilikanoon Killerman’s Run Shiraz Grenache 2007, South Australia.
*Nickel & Nickel Darien Vineyard Syrah 2008, Russian River Valley.
*Villa Cecchi Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2007, Tuscany.
*Mettler Epicenter Old Vines Zinfandel 2008, Lodi.
*Cruz Andina Malbec 2008, Mendoza.

These wines were samples for review. BBQ sandwich image from lifesambrosia.com; this is a great site for recipes for simple, authentic everyday food, with excellent art and thoughtful commentary.

Let’s eliminate three of these wines immediately. The Mettler Epicenter Old Vines Zinfandel 2008, at 15.8 percent alcohol, epitomized everything that is shamelessly sweet and over-ripe and cloying and awful about high alcohol zinfandel, and I found it undrinkable. About $20. The Cecchi Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. made from 90 percent sangiovese grapes with 10 percent mammolo and canaiolo nero, was lean and very dry and austere and not nearly ready to consume; frankly something about the angularity of the wine just didn’t feel right with the rich, smoky, slightly spicy barbecue. Try it in a couple of years, however, with porcini risotto or roasted game birds. About $30. Finally, the Kilikanoon Killerman’s Run Shiraz Grenache 2007 seemed unbalanced between its own smoky, fleshy spicy character and dry, almost rigorous austerity. Not a success. About $19 to $24.

Nickel & Nickel’s Darien Vineyard Syrah is consistently one of the best syrah wines made in California; I rated the 2007 version Exceptional and made it one of My Best 50 Wines of 2010. I think I would rate the 08 rendition Excellent, rather than Exceptional, but boy this is a deep, dense, darkling plain of a wine, headily fragrant, intense and concentrated in its spicy and macerated blackberry, black currant and plums scents and flavors and developing over 20 to 40 minutes added levels of detail and dimension. The wine aged 16 months in French oak, 44 percent new barrels. 1,108 cases. About $50. Actually, this wine was too complex, too multi-dimensioned for the barbecue, which required a wine a little less magnificent, a little more down-to-earth and immediately appealing. Those qualities we found in the Clayhouse “Show Pony” Petite Sirah 2007, Paso Robles, and the Cruz Andina Malbec 2008, Mendoza.

The fresh clean vibrant Clayhouse “Show Pony” Red Cedar Vineyard Petite Sirah 07 is all smoky plums, spicy blueberries and graphite-laced blackberries, ensconced in a smooth, supple structure supported by authoritative, slightly grainy but non-threatening tannins. This went down very nicely with the pork shoulder barbecue, beans and sauce. An expressive version of the petite sirah grape that doesn’t try to knock you down with high alcohol and baroque over-ripeness. This aged 20 months in a combination of French, Eastern European and American oak. Very limited production, unfortunately. Excellent. About $40.

I kept going back and pouring a little more of the Cruz Andina Malbec 2008, a blend of 85 percent malbec, 8 percent syrah and 7 percent cabernet sauvignon derived from Mendoza’s Lujan de Cuyo and Uco Valley areas. The wine was made in a partnership of Chile’s Veramonte winery and Carlos Pulenta, a third-generation vintner in Mendoza. Cruz Andina 08 aged 14 months in French oak barrels, 30 percent new. The whole package is smooth and mellow and tasty, with intense blueberry and red currant flavors supported by elements of smoke and cedar, black olive and potpourri and hints of pepper and spice. This was perfect with the barbecue and fun to drink. Very Good+. About $20.

When I open a bottle of wine for Pizza & Movie Night, I follow no pattern or motivation, no agenda. I usually just pluck what’s at hand and give it a try. It was coincidence, then, that the wines for the past two Pizza & Movie Nights were Italian, both from Tuscany yet very different sorts of wines.
Imported by Wilson Daniels, St. Helena, Cal. Samples for review.
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First is a simple yet tasty Borgianni Chianti 2007, made by Castello di Volpaia from sangiovese grapes grown in the Chianti Colli Senesi area near Siena. The wine is made completely in stainless steel tanks and receives not the slightest kiss of oak; there’s a little canaiolo in the blend, which is traditional for Chianti. What do you want in a quaffable Chianti? How about a dark ruby-colored, robust and slightly sinewy wine that bursts with notes of black and red currants, smoky oolong tea, dried orange rind, cloves and potpourri? Would that get it for you? Borgianni 07 is nicely balanced, with moderately rich black and red fruit flavors cushioned by moderately dense and chewy tannins and enlivened by pert acidity. The wine is quite dry and a bit austere on the briery, foresty finish. 3,000 cases imported. 13 percent alcohol. Drink through 2012 or ’13 with pizza, burgers and red-sauce pasta dishes. Very Good+. About $14, a Terrific Deal.
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Tenuta di Biserno is a collaboration between the brothers Marchese Piero and Marchese Lodovico Antinori, of the well-known and venerable family that has been involved with winemaking in Tuscany since the middle of the 14th Century. Piero Antinori runs the vast family business from the Palazzo Antinori in Florence. Lodovico was the founder and owner of Tenuto Dell’Ornellaia in the Bolgheri region in southwestern Tuscany; the first vintage of the flagship “super Tuscan” Ornellaia was in 1985. After various complicated partnerships and buy-outs involving Robert Mondavi, the Frescobadli family and Constellation Brands, Lodovico lost the estate to the Frescobaldi family in 2005.

Tenuta di Biserno was established in 2001. The estate lies in the Alta Maremma region adjacent to Bolgheri near the town of Bibbona. The estate produces three wines, all red, of which Insoglio del cinghiale is considered the entry-level wine. No traditional Tuscan grapes are used here; all devolves upon “international” varieties, and indeed the blend of the Insoglio del cinghiale 2008 — syrah and merlot each 32 percent, cabernet franc 30 percent and petit verdot 6 percent — one might expect to see in California or Australia. Careful winemaking, however, allows Insoglio 2008 to retain individuality outside the category of mere internationalism.

Insoglio 08 is, first, a sleek, elegant and expressive wine whose oak regimen — 40 percent of the wine aged only four months in new and 1-year-old French barriques; the rest in stainless steel — lends it lovely suppleness and firm dimension. The whole effect is of engaging richness, presence and tone tempered by a background of clean, earthy, loamy and graphite-like mineral qualities married to polished and fine-grained tannins that slide through the mouth as if on well-oiled ball-bearings. As many well-made and ambitious wines do, Insoglio 2008 balances intensity and concentration with expansiveness and generosity, and while a few minutes in the glass unfurl depths of minerals and leather, the wine never loses grip on its innate, deeply spicy and macerated black and blue fruit flavors. 14 percent alcohol. Now through 2016 to ’18. Essential drinking, I would think, with rare to medium rare steaks or braised veal shanks, though LL and I happily consumed it with last night’s pizza. Excellent. About $32
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Vernaccia di San Gimignano has roots way back in history, being cited (as a billion wine-writers repeat) as the favorite wine of Michelangelo. Was it precisely the same Tuscan wine that was awarded, in 1966, the first DOC classification? That we’ll never know, since, as far as can be ascertained, Michelangelo never took notes on the wines he drank. The situation is interesting for a white wine that had almost disappeared by mid-century from this area of chalky hills and San Gimignano, its famous hill-town of jutting slender towers northwest of Siena. Farmers neglected the vernaccia grape in favor of trebbiano and malvasia. In a sense, the bestowal of the DOC revived the fortunes of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, though that’s not supposed to be the motivation of the official classification; it’s rather like the manner in which Academy Awards are given for an actor’s minor work because he didn’t get the Oscar when he should have years ago. One could list a dozen wines that should have been first to receive DOC classification, but that hardly matters now. Promotion to DOCG status came to Vernaccia di San Gimignano in 1993.

These observations are inspired by a group of wines that I encountered in New York on Jan. 25. The event was a tasting, at VINO 2011, of wines from 30 Tuscan properties that had been included in the 2010 Selezione dei Vini di Toscana Awards. I didn’t get to try many of these wines because I had been in a seminar on social media that ran at the same time that afternoon, but the tasting was supposed to go on until 6 p.m. so I still had more than an hour, except that after a few minutes hotel staff started flashing the lights. A wedding was going to occur later that night and the room had to be prepared, chairs set up and so on. Good planning there.

Anyway, the wines that absolutely knocked me out were whites from Montenidoli, the “mount of the little nests,” a small organically-run estate near San Gimignano founded by Sergio and Elisabetta Fagiuoli in 1965. Senora Fagiuoli herself, 46 years later, poured wines at VINO 2011. She offered one rose and five whites wines, though the estate also produces reds, two Chianti Colli Senesi and a Toscana I.G.T., all three of which I dearly long to try, because matters are handled in the old-fashioned way at Montenidoli. The wines are labeled “Sono Montinidoli,” meaning that they are made completely from estate grapes.

Some of the wines of Montinidoli are brought to our shores by various importers, including Artisan Wines Inc., in Edison, N.J.

The Canaiolo 2009, Toscana Rosato, is made from the canaiolo grape, traditionally a minor portion in Chianti wines (to soften sangiovese’s tannic edge) but largely relegated to oblivion these days, except for producers that cling heroically to the past. This is an extremely attractive and totally dry rose, sporting a pale copper-peach color, aromas and flavors of strawberries, peaches and dried red currants, and a finish of dried thyme and damp limestone. On a frigid day in New York, it brought to mind a pleasant early summer in Tuscany. Very Good+. About $18.

Montinidoli produces three levels of vernaccia wines. The first, in the current vintage, is the straightforward but surprisingly layered La Vernaccia Tradizionale 2007, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, which receives more skin contact than the estate’s other vernaccias to extract all of the grape’s natural spiciness and elements of bee’s-wax and camellias and touches of leafy citrus. This Vernaccia Tradizionale 2007 is far better than the simple refreshing knock-it-back quaff typical of most examples of the genre. Very Good+. About $20.

Next is the Montinidoli “Fiore” 2007, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, made from free-run juice, fermented in stainless steel and allowed to rest “long” on the lees in tank. My first note on this wine was “Wow, so great!” I’ll come right out and say that not only have I never tasted a Vernaccia di San Gimignano filled with so much character but I never expected in this lifetime that I would. (We can talk about other lifetimes in, you know, another lifetime.) The purity and intensity, the sense of presence — by which I mean the wine’s authority in the nose and mouth and its sense of “thereness” — are amazing, yet the grape’s innate delicacy, its crisp, lively acidity keep the wine buoyant and animated. Roasted lemon, almond and almond blossom, bee’s-wax, a touch sage, a hint of freshly-mowed grass all combine for a feeling of sensual appeal and completeness. Drink now through 2013 to ’15. Excellent. About $23 and definitely Worth a Search.

Third is this roster is the Carato 2006, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, which ages 12 months in barriques, that is, small barrels of French oak. Instead of being limited to three sips, I would love to try Carato ’06 with a wild mushroom risotto or a piece of swordfish marinated in lemon juice and white wine and seared to just beyond rare at the center. The wine is boldly spicy, deeply luscious with fresh and dried citrus and stone fruit, and, yes, one feels the influence of the oak aging in the wine’s supple texture and sandalwood-like “blondness,” yet a powerful acidic structure asserts its crystalline authority and a whole topography of limestone and chalk provides unassailable foundation. How strange and gratifying to encounter a world-class wine made from a grape whose wines are usually dismissed as “merely drinkable.” I suspect that Carato 2006 has five or six years of aging ahead, so drink now through 2016 or ’17. Excellent. About $35.

The tradition in the vineyards around San Gimignano — so I have read — is that the workers would harvest the white trebbiano and malvasia grapes first, press them and use the free-run juice to make vin brusco — brusque wine — and then when the sangiovese and canaiolo had been picked for Chianti, that juice would rest on the skins of the white grapes. Montinidoli’s Vinbrusco 2005 — yes, 2005 — is no winsome little quaffing wine; no, friends, this is a wine of tremendous body and character, made all in stainless steel and resting on the lees for an unspecified time. I would urge you to drink it with white meats like veal and rabbit or with grilled trout, but it is not imported to the U.S., so I’ll keep this short. Excellent, and if available it would cost an astonishing $20.

Finally, we come — at the risk of mindless repetition — to another amazing wine, the Montenidoli Il Templare 2006, Toscana I.G.T., a blend of trebbiano, malvasia and vernaccia grapes that sort of blew my mind. (San Gimignano was a way-station for the Knights Templar.) This ages in wood, and you feel that structure, that woody spiciness and slightly spare austerity, that dryness, yet the wine is, as all these are, superbly balanced, thoroughly poised and integrated, a model of two forces that wed here in sweet synergy as they should in all wines that deserve our attention: integrity and individuality. From the color, which is radiant medium gold, to its aromas of roasted lemon, lemon curd and lemon balm imbued with dusty acacia and a hint of briers and brambles and thyme, to its spiced and macerated citrus and pear flavors supported by the triumvirate of bright acidity, keen limestone-like minerality and subtle wood, this is a world-class wine. Drink now through 2014 or ’15. Excellent. About — gasp! — $23.

I hope that I’m not overselling these wines, but it’s probably pretty evident that I loved them, not only for their inherent qualities but for the blessed amalgam of geography, vineyard, hard work, tender care and individuality that they seem to embody. I hope that My Readers can track down a few bottles.

The top shelf of the white wine fridge, that is. I received so many wines after I returned from South America that I needed to clear out space for some of the in-coming stuff, so I lined up the bottles that were lying on the top shelf of the refrigerator devoted to white wine and tasted them all. So that’s the category today: Miscellaneous Whites. These reviews follow the order of tasting. All of these wines were review samples.
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A blend of sangiovese, merlot and cabernet sauvignon, the Centine Rosé 2009, Toscana, offers an appealing pale onion skin color. A bouquet of strawberries, raspberries and dried red currants with a hint of dried herbs and limestone leads to a dry, crisp mouthful of wine permeated by delicate touches of strawberry and melon and a sort of woodsy berryish mossy note. The finish brings in more limestone and a trace of clove-like spice. The alcohol content is a highly quaffable 12.5 percent. Bottled with a screw-cap. Drink up. Very Good. About $11.

Imported by Banfi Vintners, Old Brookville, N.Y.
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Well, the Frisk Prickly 2009, Alpine Valleys, Victoria, is completely adorable. A blend of 83 percent riesling and 17 percent muscat gordo (an Australian synonym for muscat of Alexandria), the pale straw-gold colored wine is indeed a bit prickly and rather frisky, with its hint of spritz and star-etched crystalline acidity. The wine is moderately sweet going in, but by the time it flows past mid-palate, it’s classically dry and minerally in the crushed limestone/damp shale sense. Green apple, peach and pear, with a tinge of juicy mango; lilacs and camellias; a final delicate wash of river rocks, like a pale watercolor painting of water; these comprise a delightful wine that I found irresistible. Alcohol is 8.7 percent. Bottled with a screw-cap. Very Good+. About $10, an Absolute, Freaking Bargain.

Imported by Old Bridge Cellars, Napa, Cal.
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The Lorentz family has been making wine in Alsace since 1836; the tradition, the heritage and the experience seem evident. The Gustave Lorentz Rèserve Pinot Gris 2008, Alsace, is a radiant medium gold color; the bouquet delivers a heady amalgam of roasted lemon, lemon balm and almond blossom over subtle tissues of pear, toasted almonds and clean earthiness. Moderately rich notes of lemon, lime skin and pear (with touches of quince and ginger) seethe with teeth-rattling dryness and aching limestone-like minerality; this is, obviously, a very dry, very crisp wine that for all its litheness, leanness and chalky austerity offers wonderful body and presence. I love this detail: according to the winery’s website, its Reserve wines age in wood, stainless steel and glass containers. Drink now through 2014 or ’15, well-stored. 13.5 percent alcohol. Bottled with a screw-cap. Excellent. About $24.

Imported by Quintessential, Napa, Cal.

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The color of the Gustave Lorentz Rèserve Riesling 2008, Alsace, is pale straw-gold; pungent aromas of pear, lychee and petrol (or rubber eraser) teem in the bouquet, along with hints of jasmine and damp rocks. This is a high-toned, elegant riesling, completely classic in every aspect, from its pinpoint balance between swingeing acidity and supple texture to its tremendous dose of limestone and shale that verges on pure minerality to its gorgeous peach, pear and roasted flavors. Mainly, however, this is about structure; you feel, beneath the fruit, the stones and bones of true authority and austerity, the chime of bright acidity extending into every bright molecule. Drink now through 2015 to ’18. Alcohol content is 13 percent. Excellent, though I liked it a degree or two less than the Rèserve Pinot Gris mentioned above. About $24.

Imported by Quintessential, Napa, Cal.

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Pert and pleasant but at the same time fairly neutral, the Centine Bianco 2009, Toscana, a blend of 40 percent sauvignon blanc, 30 percent pinot grigio and 30 percent chardonnay, does little to bring glory, much less discernible varietal character to any of its constituents. The wine is dry; it is crisp; it is quite minerally, but not in the pristine form of pure scintillating minerality. Even dividing the wine for fermentation and four months’ aging in French barriques doesn’t result in a memorable personality. Let’s face it: Tuscany ain’t prime real estate for sauvignon blanc, pinot grigio or chardonnay. 13 percent alcohol. Good. About $11.

Imported by Banfi Vintners, Old Brookville, N.Y.
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It’s always interesting to read the technical sheets that accompany wines from Kendall-Jackson to my door because, for one reason, they confirm what a meticulous winemaker Randy Ullom is. The Kendall-Jackson Grand Reserve Pinot Gris 2009 carries a Monterey County designation, though the wine includes wee portions of grapes from down south in San Luis Obispo County (3%) and farther north in Napa County (2%); don’t forget that there is a Napa County appellation as well as Napa Valley. The wine is fermented primarily in stainless steel tanks; 26 percent is barrel fermented. Pinot gris grapes account for 93 percent of the wine; blended are marsanne (2%), chenin blanc (2%), viognier (1.6%), roussanne (1%) and, rather incredibly, 0.4 percent chardonnay. I wonder how efficaciously the presence of less than half of a percent of chardonnay affects the wine, though my purpose is not to second-guess the winemaker, whose attention to detail I admire. (Actually that’s not true; I second-guess winemakers all the time. No sense being a hypocrite.)

Why, then, don’t I like this wine better? It’s certainly pleasant, clean, crisp and fresh, and it packs a terrific wallop of limestone-and-shale-like minerality, yet it leaves little impression of fruit or even the fruity/floral personality one would expect from the grape. I hate to be a snot, but I have to ask the question: Why was this wine made? Why was so much time and concentration devoted to it to end up just sort of decent and drinkable and forgettable. Well, there’s a place for such wines, but they don’t usually come with this sort of pedigree. Good+. About $15.
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The Cadaretta SBS 2009, Columbia Valley, Washington, is a blend of 78 percent sauvignon blanc and 22 percent semillon; the grapes derive from hillside vineyards planted in 1992 and 1995, and the wine is made completely in stainless steel tanks. The wine offers notes of roasted lemon and yellow plums, with the semillon contributing touches of leafy fig and white waxy flowers, say camellias. There’s nothing grassy about this Bordeaux-style wine, but it does deliver sheaves of dried thyme and tarragon with a broad spectrum of dried savory spices. Elements of limestone seep in around the circumference and within a few minutes the wine is permeated by shale-like minerality, while the finish brings in hints of lime, tangerine and slightly bitter grapefruit. 13 percent alcohol. Production was 500 six-pack cases. Winemaker was Virginie Bourgue, who has since left Cadaretta to focus on her own label. Very Good+. About $23.
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At the end of July, I reviewed the Yangarra Estate Vineyard Mourvèdre 2008, McLaren Vale, and wondered why the winery, which is owned by Kendall-Jackson, put the words “vinted and bottled by … ” on the back labels. Shortly thereafter I received an email message from winemaker Peter Fraser, who informed me that the estate’s winemaking facility was almost complete and that future vintages will be estate-bottled.

The Yangarra Roussanne 2009, McLaren Vale, sees no new oak, aging, instead, in 35 percent two-year-old French oak barrels and the rest in even older, neutral French oak; the wine does not go through malolactic fermentation. The result is a subtle, supple wine with a lovely sleek texture that deftly balances crisp, apple-fresh acidity with the moderate lushness of ripe pears and roasted lemon. This roussanne is a pale straw-gold color; aromas of green apple, pear and lemon peel are infused with notes of bee’s-wax, jasmine and honeysuckle. The entire effect is of spareness and elegance endowed with confidence and varietal authority, and besides, it’s delicious. 13.5 percent alcohol. Bottled with a screw-cap. Production was 1.045 six-bottle cases. Excellent. About $29.

Sovereign Wine Imports, Santa Rosa, Cal.
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The Charles Krug Chardonnay 2009, Carneros, was pitched to me as the chardonnay that redraws the map for chardonnay, but it seemed to me to be just another weary Baedeker into the dead-end territory of manipulative excess. It took “three new yeasts” to get the job done here, including “Dave’s super secret yeast” — winemaker is Dave Galzignato — and while I admire the restrained use of oak (seven months in French oak, 35 percent new) and malolactic (only 23 percent), the wine came out smelling and tasting like a brown sugar/toffee/crème brûlée dessert bomb. This is too bad, because it opened nicely, with hints of pear and peach, lemon peel and orange zest, but it descended quickly to strident spice and cloying fruit. Tsk tsk. 14.5 percent alcohol. On the other hand, you will be surprised that I rate this wine Good+ rather than Avoid, because the next chardonnay is even worse, and a guy has to draw the line somewhere. About $20.
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Erk! Gack! Bananas Foster goes psycho-killer! I found the Hanna Estate Grown Chardonnay 2008, Russian River Valley, completely beyond the pale. Going through full barrel fermentation, malolactic “fermentation” — to remind you, ML is a natural process but not inevitable that transforms crisp malic (“apple-like”) acid into creamy lactic (“milk-like”) acid — and aged in 75 percent new French oak, this bastion of butterscotch and brown sugar is strenuously toasty, muscularly spicy and aggressively oaky, with an unpleasantly dry, austere finish. At this point, some of my readers are saying gently, “Um, F.K., isn’t this a matter of taste and stylistic preference?” Well, no, it isn’t. Wines such as this one (and the preceding model) are travesties that have nothing to do with the chardonnay grape, just as over-oaked, over-ripe, sweet, cloying, high-alcohol zinfandels have nothing to do with the zinfandel grape. It’s a matter of respect; if you truly respect the chardonnay grape, you don’t make a wine that smells and tastes like a combination of the dessert trolley in a continental restaurant and a lumber yard. A wine writer whom I admire enormously wrote in a recent column that he would never tell a winemaker how to make wine. Oops, hey, I sure would! Look at it this way: I have reviewed books for 25 years — I was book page editor from 1988 to 2003 of the newspaper where I used to work — and I have produced a fair number of negative reviews. A negative review, even only partially, is a way of saying that an author was wrong about how he or she wrote the book, and the same principle holds true with wine and winemakers. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in the winery goes out with every bottle of wine. Where was I? Oh, right. 14.5 percent alcohol. Not for me, O.K.? I mean, I’ll acknowledge that there are wine drinkers (and reviewers at Wine Spectator) who like this “style” of chardonnay, but their palates are beyond my comprehension. About $22.
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This is really interesting, a non-vintage dessert wine, and I don’t mean port or some other fortified type. The Höpler Beerenauslese nv, Burgenland, Austria, tasted from a 375-milliliter half-bottle, offers a radiant medium gold color and seductive aromas of roasted apricots and peaches, baked pears, quince jam, honeysuckle and touches of ginger and cloves. In the mouth, this sweetheart is honeyed and viscous; flavors of spiced and brandied peaches with a touch of honeydew melon and mandarin orange are balanced by resounding acidity and a strain of earthy, slightly funky minerality. The wine is definitely sweet on the entry, but halfway across the palate the sweetness melts away, so the finish is resolutely dry and a little stony. The wine is a blend of 40 percent chardonnay, 40 percent sämling 88 (a synonym in Burgenland for Germany’s scheurebe grape) and 10 percent grüner veltliner. This doesn’t project the weight or presence or ultimate finesse of a great dessert wine, but it’s very attractive and even irresistible. 11 percent alcohol. Very Good+. About — this is a guess based on imperfect Google results — $24.

USA Wine Imports, New York.
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Here’s a revealing comparison: the Höpler Beerenauslese nv mentioned above contains 136 grams per liter of residual sugar (the sugar level after fermentation has run its course); the Höpler Trockenbeerenauslese 2007, Burgenland, contains 214.1 grams per liter of residual sugar, and you feel it in the wine’s massively ripe opulence and succulence, in its sense of softly dissolving grapes and skins, of macerating peaches and apricots liquifying in spiced brandy, of smoky pomanders and crème brûlée and tangerine clafoutis, of roasted honey and orange marmalade. This dazzling panoply of nectar is saved from cloyingness by a tremendous charge of limestone-like minerality and by acidity that feels electrified. “Exquisite” scarcely begins to describe this wine, made completely from sämling 88 grapes. The alcohol content is 11.5 percent. Drink now through 2015 to ’17. Excellent. About $52 for a 375-milliliter half-bottle.

USA Wine Imports, New York
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The SantoWines Vinsanto 2003, Santorini, Greece — the company also deals in capers, fava beans and tomato products as well as non-dessert wines — is a blend of 70 percent assyrtiko and 30 percent aidani grapes, both widely grown on the island of Santorini; the wine was bottled in 2008 and is throwing a sediment. The color is medium amber with a translucent rim; the bouquet offers aromas of toffee, roasted raisins and toasted almonds, fruit cake and a sort of Platonic cinnamon toast. These beguiling qualities segue into the mouth, where such flavors are a little torn between a very sweet entry and an achingly dry finish. Let’s call it an enjoyably rustic version of vinsanto that just misses essential balance. 11 percent alcohol. Very Good. About $40 for a 500-milliliter bottle.

Stellar Importing Co., Whitestone. N.Y. Image, slightly cropped, from Benito.

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We dined with friends at Bari in Memphis Friday night, and I took along a bottle of the Lucente 2007, a cabernet sauvignon-sangiovese-merlot blend from Tuscany. Bari is primarily a seafood restaurant — we also drank, from the wine list, the white Vietti Roero Arneis 2009 — but the kitchen turns out a fine steak too. A special that evening was a boneless rib-eye steak marinated in olive oil, garlic, various herbs and spices and moderately hot chilies, the effect of which I could feel slowly building toward the back of my palate.

The wine is a product of Luce delle Vite, a collaboration, launched in 1995, between the late Robert Mondavi and Vittorio Frescobaldi, of the prominent and ancient Tuscan wine family. The main wine is Luce, with Lucente as a less expensive second label. The blend in Lucente 2007 is 50 percent merlot, 35 percent sangiovese and 15 percent cabernet sauvignon. The wine ages 12 months in almost all French oak, 55 percent new barrels, and a bare 5 percent American oak. The first impression is of classic merlot and cabernet elements: cedar, tobacco and dried thyme; black currants and black cherry; dusty tannins and glittering graphite-like minerality. The wine is meaty and fleshy, inky and a little tarry, and at this point one feels a sense of sangiovese character, a bit of plum, a wash of dried spice and flowers, a touch of smoky black tea. Give the wine a few minutes and you perceive echoes of moss on granite, dried mushrooms, iodine; then the dense tannins really start to emerge. In others words, Lucente 2007 resembles a really well-made Napa Valley blend that possesses several degrees and shades of Tuscany. The alcohol content is 14.5 percent; just like Napa! Best from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 to ’18, but boy it squared off damned prettily and essentially with that medium-rare boneless ribeye. Excellent. About $30.
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The next night was Pizza-and-Movie Night at our house (Tilda Swinton in the Italian film “I Am Love”), and desiring something simple, tasty and authentic to accompany my pizza — topped with roasted tomatoes, green pepper, roasted sweet chilies, shiitake mushrooms, green onions, pepper-cured bacon, mozzarella and Parmesan — I opened a bottle of Li Veli Orion 2008, a 100 percent primitivo wine from Salento, the heel of the Italian boot that forms the Apulian peninsula. This was precisely what the doctor — I have an honorary doctorate, thank you very much — ordered, a drinkable red wine, very spicy, quite succulent with black currant and blackberry flavors encompassed by smoke, a hint of tar-tinged violets, black pepper and shale-infused tannins. Depending to what you’re reading, this wine was made all in stainless steel (the press release) or spent six months in oak barrels (the winery’s web-site), but I don’t mind saying that in any case, this is a very enjoyable expression of the usually rustic primitivo grape that just happens to share DNA with zinfandel. Nothing deep here; just direct and tasty appeal. Very Good+. About $11, a Real Bargain.
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Lucente 2007 is imported by Folio Fine Wines, Napa, Cal.; Li Veli Orion 2009 is imported by Dalla Terra Winery Direct, Napa, Cal. These were samples for review.
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Not much Chianti Superiore is made in Tuscany; production is under two percent of total Chianti output, which encompasses, generally, Chianti, Chianti Superiore, Chianti Classico and Chianti Classico Riserva. The “Superiore” designation doesn’t necessarily mean that a wine is “superior” to those made in a “lesser” category but that its production requires greater density of planting and lower grape yields in the vineyard and a slightly higher alcohol content than “regular” Chianti. Chianti Superiore is officially categorized as a D.O.C.G., or Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, the highest classification of Italian wine, though in the past 20 years this distinction has been passed out like candy at a children’s birthday party.

Anyway, a few nights ago I made a sauce for penne pasta in this manner: I minced about a quarter of an onion, a small carrot, a stalk of celery and I guess three cloves of garlic and sauted them in some olive oil and a little grease from some chopped Italian sausages I had previously cooked. When the vegetables were just beginning to brown, I poured in about half a cup of red wine, turned the heat up and let that bubble until the wine had evaporated. Meanwhile, as recipes say, I had taken about 15 small and very ripe Roma tomatoes (from the Memphis Farmers Market), halved them, sprinkled them with olive oil, salt, pepper and dried thyme, marjoram and oregano and put them under the broiler until they began to blacken and blister. The skins, what was left of them, slipped off easily. I scraped the tomatoes and any liquid into the pot with the vegetables, stirred all this together and then took a pair of kitchen shears and went in there and scissored everything into the smallest possible pieces. Before serving, I took two very ripe, dark red tomatoes, dipped them into the boiling pasta water for a minute each, stripped off the skins, chopped them and added them to the sauce to heighten the freshness factor. A couple of dippers of the hot pasta water stirred in gave the sauce just the right consistency. Prego!

All of which brings us to Banfi’s Chianti Superiore 2008, one of the wines in the Banfi Toscana portfolio. This is the first release of the wine; it’s available only in the United States. The wine is made from 75 percent sangiovese and 25 percent canaiolo nero and cabernet sauvignon and aged four to five months in French oak barrels. This is an accessible, direct and authentic expression of the sangiovese grape and of the Chianti style that makes up in delicious appeal what it may lack in depth and dimension. Scents and flavors of black cherries, red currants and plums are bolstered by spicy elements that increase as the moments pass, manifesting themselves in hints of cloves and allspice, orange rind and black tea. The structure is just dense and chewy enough to remind you that, yes, the wine indeed has some structure, with slightly dusty tannins unfolding in the background. The Banfi Chianti Superiore 2008 was exactly what was needed with our pasta, its vibrant acidity and dark fruit flavors matching nicely with the rich sauce. Alcohol content is 13.3 percent. Drink through 2011. Very Good. About $11, A Real Bargain.

Nothing on the bottle tells consumers that the image on the label is the painting Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci. The girl — for she was only 16 — is Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Lodovico Sforza, who was Duke of Milan and Leonardo’s patron. The piece was executed in 1489-1490 in oil paint — then a new medium — on panel. It hangs in the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow.

Imported by Banfi Vintners, Old Brookville, N.Y. A sample for review.

Chianti Rúfina is an enclave on the sloping foothills of the Apennines, in the northeastern reaches of Tuscany, that for centuries has had the reputation of producing red wines that are both more refined and more concentrated than their cousins, also made from the sangiovese grape, in the Chianti regions closer to Florence. At least they have that potential. We won’t generalize from the example of one bottle, but the Nipozzano Riserva Chianti Rúfina 2006, from Marchesi de Frescobaldi, is a fine model indeed. Composed of 90 percent sangiovese and 10 percent a blend of malvasia nera, colorino, merlot and cabernet sauvignon, the wine aged 24 months in second- and third-use French oak barrels, so while there’s plenty of wood influence in the wine’s taut, powerful structure, there’s no taint of pumped-up vanilla-ish new oak. Nipozzano Riserva 2006 offers the warmth, generosity and elegance that sangiovese can deliver in its best manifestation. The color is medium ruby-garnet with a darker, bluish cast at the center; aromas of plums, dried currants, cloves, tobacco leaf and oolong tea draw one’s nose to the glass, with, in a few moments, additions of orange rind and new leather. This is all classic stuff, well-knit and impeccably balanced, made vibrant by lip-smacking acidity, and seamlessly wedded in its segue of scents and flavors. In the mouth, black fruit is awash with notes of potpourri and lavender, dried spice and shale-like minerality; the wine is smooth and mellow but gently roughened in the depths and circumference by dusty, slightly chewy tannins. We drank the Nipozzano Riserva Chianti Rúfina 2006 with Saturday night’s pizza, and that was great, but its highest function is to accompany steaks; pappardella with porcini mushrooms, duck or rabbit; full-bodied braises and stews; or venison. Alcohol content is 13.5 percent. Drink now through 2014 to ’16. Excellent. About $22.

Imported by Folio Wine Co., Napa, Cal. A sample for review.

Well, of course the simplest pasta would be a bowl of naked noodles, but one step up in complication and yet remarkably delicious is the Roman dish Spaghetti a Cacio e Peppe, that is, Spaghetti with Pecorino Romano cheese and Black Pepper. You cook the pasta — as you can see, I used farfalle because I love those cute little bow-tie shapes — and when the pasta is cooked, reserve a little of the water and then drain the pasta as usual. Put it back into the pot, grate on a bunch of pecorino cheese and fresh cracked pepper and stir in a bit of the pasta water to help it all cohere. That’s it! I added — please don’t curse me, you sweet old lady goddesses of Roman cuisine! — a dribble of olive oil. It’s great stuff, and one bowlful made a more than adequate lunch for me yesterday.

For wine, I opened a bottle of the Argiano Non Confunditur 2007, a Rosso Toscano blend of 40 percent cabernet sauvignon and 20 percent each merlot, syrah and sangiovese. Argiano, whose winemaker bears the unexpected name of Hans Vinding-Diers, is a viticultural estate in Brunello di Montalcino that goes back to 1580, though the present ownership, of Countess Noemi Marone Cinzano, began in 1992. Non Confunditur is a Latin tag that means something like, “not to be confused,” and if the point is that this wine should not be confused with Brunello, well, don’t worry, small chance of that.

The wine is dark, ripe and robust and seductive with its aromas of macerated and fleshy black currants, black cherries and black raspberries, along with a whiff of black pepper. The wine ages one year in a combination of French barriques and Slavonian vats, so the oak influence manifests itself in the wine’s framing and foundation, exerting a sense of subtle, supple woodiness and blond, slightly exotic spice. Notes of red currants, orange rind, lapsang souchong tea, tobacco leaf and a tinge of cabernet’s graphite-like minerality develop in the glass. A stream of taut acidity keeps the wine lively and enticing throughout its soft almost plush ripeness, while dry, dusty tannins contribute to a build-up of briery and brambly austerity on the finish. Impressive character and confidence. The alcohol content is 14 percent. Drink now through 2014 to ’16. Excellent. National prices are all over the map, as in about $16 to $24.

Vias Imports, New York.

As faithful readers of this blog know — bless yer little pointy heads! — every feasible Saturday night it’s Pizza-and-Movie Night in the FK/LL household. This has been a steady occurrence for 15 years or so, and for most of that time I adhered to pretty much the same routine in making the pizza. Recently, though, I radically changed the way I make pizza, in terms of basic ingredients and technique.

The first inspiration was an article that ran in the food section of The New York Times on May 18 (and available online), called “The Slow Route to Homemade Pizza,” by Oliver Strand. Following the advice of a number of professional pizza-makers, the story advocates making the pizza dough and letting it rise at room temperature for 24 hours or at least overnight. Now I’ve always indulged in what I thought of as a slow rising of the dough at about eight hours, but overnight was new to me. I tried the technique soon after I read the article, making the dough on Friday night and leaving the bowl on the counter until the next morning. About 11 o’clock, I punched the dough down, kneaded it a few times, put it back in the bowl and set it out on the back porch. By the time I was ready to make the pizza at 6 p.m., the dough has been working for about 20 hours.

What happened next was remarkable. Usually, when you roll out the dough, you have to have do it a couple of times because the gluten is still elastic, so it has to rest for a couple of minutes and then be rolled again. With the new technique, I rolled the dough out and it immediately spread across the edges of the wooden paddle and onto the counter. Whoa! I actually had to trim the circumference because the pizza would have been too big for the stone. (Sorry I don’t have images of the process.) When we ate the finished pizza, the crust was thinner than I have ever achieved before, yet still chewy, not cracker-like, with a texture that had a little give and a rim that was slightly puffy. Fabulous, yes, but for me anyway, this technique is a little tricky, and over the past two months or so, I have had — it seems to me; LL is more generous –about a 25 percent failure rate, by which I mean that the crust was not up to a fine standard. I think I just have to keep trying to tune the method until I get it right.

The other change is that I began buying, at the Memphis Farmers Market, the hard white whole grain wheat flour from Funderfarm, a milling operation run by a young couple in Coldwater, Miss. The flour is not cheap — $8.50 for four pounds — but it’s ground the day before I purchase it, and it contributes wonderful texture and flavor to pizza. Now I can’t make a pizza with only the Funderfarm flour (the result is rather heavy), so I worked out a formula of about 40 percent Funderfarm hard white whole grain flour, about 50 percent King Arthur Bread Flour and about 10 percent rye flour from Whole Foods. All of these flours are organic.

We have also benefited from a bumper crop of local aubergines, including little globular eggplant; slim, tender baby eggplant; and pale lavender eggplant with faint white stripes. I slice these thin, marinate the slices in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, thyme and oregano, salt and pepper and then grill them briefly over hardwood charcoal. This is great on pizzas, especially in conjunction with pepper-cured bacon (as in the image above), and what’s interesting is that usually I can’t stand eggplant, it sort of
hurts my stomach. Ratatouille, yuck! I also like combining fresh tomatoes and marinated dried tomatoes on the same pizza, dribbling on a bit of the marinade as the final touch. (This image is of a small vegetarian pizza I made one Saturday when LL was traveling.) And recently I’ve been using four cheeses: mozzarella, feta, parmesan and pecorino.

Anyway, that’s what’s happening in My Pizzaworld. As far as wine is concerned, here are notes on the variety of wines we’ve had with pizza over the past few months. These were all samples for review.

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When Easton says “old vine,” they’re not kidding. The grapes for the Easton Old Vine Zinfandel 2006, Fiddletown, derive from the Rinaldi-Eschen Vineyard, some of whose vines date to the original planting of 1865, up there in Amador County’s Shenandoah Valley. Can there be an older vineyard still producing grapes in California? This is a beautifully balanced and integrated zinfandel, with loads of poise and character. The color is rich dark ruby with an opaque center and just a nod to cherry-garnet at the rim. Scents of macerated and meaty plums and red and black currants are permeated with smoke and cloves with a touch of leather and briers. In the mouth, the wine is rich and warm, displaying an intriguing combination of the savoriness of ripe, fleshy black fruit flavors with a sweet core of spicy oak and a touch of the grape’s brambly, black pepper nature. It’s quite dry, though, gaining a bit of dignified austerity and mineral presence on the finish. Nothing jammy, nothing overdone, and surprisingly elegant for an “old vine” zinfandel. Drink now through 2014 or ’15. Winemaker was Bill Easton, who also makes Rhone-style wines under the Terre Rouge label. Alcohol is 14.5. percent. Excellent. About $28 and definitely Worth a Search.
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The Grgich Hills Estate Merlot 2006, Napa Valley, asserts an individual character, unlike so many merlot-based wines that just taste “red” or like an imitation cabernet. From the winery’s Demeter-certified biodynamic vineyards, this intense and concentrated merlot delivers a bouquet of ripe black currants and black cherries etched with smoke and bitter chocolate and hints of lavender and Damson plum. A few minutes in the glass bring on a slightly roasted element, with flavors of black currants and blackberries permeated by cedar and dried thyme, all of these sensations cushioned by gritty, velvety tannins and fairly militant dusty, gravel-like minerality. The wine aged 18 months in a combination of French barriques and casks (that is, small and large barrels), some 30 percent of which were new. Such a regimen lends the wine shape, tone and seriousness without the frippery of toast or overt spiciness. Try from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 to ’18. Winemaker is Ivo Jeramaz, nephew of the winery’s co-founder and winemaker emeritus, Miljenko “Mike” Grgich. Alcohol is 14.5 percent. Excellent. About $42.
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The winery was founded in Australia’s Barossa Valley as Karlsburg Wines in 1973 by Czech winemaker Karl Cimicky; his son Charles changed the winery’s name to Charles Cimicky Wines when he took the reins. The blend in the Cimicky Trumps Grenache Shiraz 2007 is 55 percent of the first, 45 percent of the second. The wine spends 15 months in two-year-old French oak barrels that lend subtle spice and suppleness. This is a big, dark, rich and, yes, jammy red wine that bursts with aromas of ripe black currants, blackberries and plums swathed with licorice and lavender and crushed gravel. Despite the intense black fruit nectar-like ripeness, the wine is completely dry, even austere toward the finish, but it also just rolls across the taste-buds like liquid velvet couched in furry, chewy tannins. A little swirling unfurls notes of clean earth, new leather and smoke. This was terrific with the night’s pizza, but Lord have mercy, would it ever be great with a medium-rare, pepper-crusted rib-eye steak. Alcohol content is 14 percent. Drink through 2012 or ’13. Very Good+. About $15 to $18.
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La Mozza is jointed owned by Lidia Bastianich, her son Joe Bastianich and his partner is the restaurant business, Mario Batali. None of these celebrities — especially Batali — needs an introduction. (Mother and son also own a winery, launched in 1997, in Friuli Venezia Giulia, in the Colli Orientali Giulia D.O.C. region.) La Mozza was founded in 2000 and is located in Tuscany’s southwestern Maremma area. La Mozza Aragone 2006, Maremma Toscana I.G.T., could be called a combination of Italy and France; on the Italian side we have 40 percent sangiovese and 25 percent alicante grapes, and on the French side, specifically the southern Rhone Valley, we have 25 percent syrah and 10 percent carignane. The wine aged 22 months in 500-liter French casks; the standard French barrel is 225 liters, so theoretically, because of the greater mass of wine in proportion to wood, the oak influence with a cask is less, or at least more subtle. Not that the point matters tremendously for this dark, robust and vigorous red wine. Scents of red and black currants (and a touch of mulberry) are permeated by elements of graphite and potpourri, moss, briers and brambles and a bass note of mushroomy earthiness. Yes, there are intriguing, seductive layers in the bouquet, and if the wine is a bit more brooding in the mouth, that’s nothing that a little bottle aging won’t ease. The wine is well-balanced, but the emphasis is on dense but smooth, almost sleek tannins and rich, smoky black fruit flavors that need a year or two to develop. Try from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 to ’18. Alcohol content is a comfortable 13 percent. Excellent. A few months ago, the price range for this wine was about $38 to $42; today it’s about $28 to $35.

Dark Star Imports, New York.
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Yangarra Estate Vineyard, located in Australia’s McLaren Vale appellation, is part of the Jackson Family Wines empire. While the Yangarra wines are promoted as “100% estate grown,” the federally required designation on the back label mysteriously does not say “Produced and Bottled by …” but “Vinted and Bottled by …”; the implication is that the Yangarra wines (at least the ones shipped to the U.S.) are not made at the estate. Whatever the case, the Yangarra Mourvèdre 2008, McLaren Vale, is a wonderful, I’ll say it again, a wonderful expression of the mourvèdre grape. While a traditional component of the blended red wines of the Rhone Valley, Provence and Languedoc in southern France, mourvèdre is seldom bottled on its own except for a few instances in California and Australia. At first, this is all black: Blackberry, black currant, black plum, black pepper, black olive. Then a touch of dried red current enters the picture, along with sweet cherry and sour cherry, red plum, new leather. Give the wine a few more minutes and it turns into a glassful of smoldering violets and lavender, with overtones of bitter chocolate, espresso and dried thyme. The mineral element expands into layers of dusty granite and graphite that permeate the bastions of polished, chewy tannins. The wine aged 18 months in French oak barrels, only 15 percent of which were new, so the wood influence is sustained yet mild and supple and slightly spicy. This could mature for a year or two, so drink from 2011 or ’12 through 2016 to ’18. Production was 500 six-bottle cases; winemaker was Peter Fraser. Alcohol content is the now standard 14.5 percent. Excellent. About $29.

Sovereign Wine Imports, Santa Rosa, Cal.
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Just as the Yangarra Estate Mourvedre 2008 mentioned above represents a Platonic embodiment of the mourvedre grape, the Nickel & Nickel Darien Vineyard Syrah 2007, Russian River Valley, performs a similar service for syrah. Syrah was planted in Darien in 2000 and 2001, so the vines have reached a point of development that should lend rich character to the wine and continue on a plateau of quality for 50 or 60 years. There’s a whole truckload of crushed thyme, marjoram and Oolong tea in this wine, as well as baskets of blackberries and blueberries imbued with hints of prunes, plums, lanolin and leather and an all-over sense of ripe fleshiness. The color is inky with a faint violet/purple rim; the granite and shale-like mineral element feels/seems inky too. So add the caprice of lavender, licorice, bitter chocolate and potpourri crushed by mortar and pestle and scattered on a smoldering field of wild flowers and herbs. Yes, I’m saying that this is a syrah that reaches a level of delirious detail, depth and dimension, and the deeper it goes, the darker and denser it gets, until you reach the Circle of Austerity and the Chamber of Tannins and the Rotunda of Oak. (The wine aged 14 months in French barrels, 42 percent new.) Despite those fathoms, the wine is surprisingly smooth and drinkable, huge in scope yet polished and inviting. Production was 974 cases. Alcohol content is 14.9 percent. Drink from 2011 or ’12 through 2018 to ’20 (well-stored). Winemaker was Darice Spinelli. Exceptional. About $48.
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Desiring something probably less complicated and certainly cheaper on a subsequent Pizza-and-Movie Night, I opened the Estancia Zinfandel 2007, Keyes Canyon Ranches, Paso Robles. Estancia was founded in 1986 on the old Paul Masson vineyards in Soledad, in Monterey County. The winery is now owned by Constellation. Keyes Canyon is in Paso Robles, down south in San Luis Obispo. The wine is touted on its label as “Handcrafted” and “Artisan-Grown,” whatever those nebulous terms mean. As is the case with many of the products from wineries purchased by Constellation, this wine says on the label “Vinted and Bottled … “; check your bottles of Mt. Veeder and Franciscan, also owned by Constellation. Actually what the complete line on this label says is “Vinted and Bottled by Estancia Estates, Sonoma Co.” So the question is: Where the hell was the wine made?

Anyway, I didn’t like it. I tried manfully for 15 or 20 minutes to coax something out of the glass that might resemble anything to do with the zinfandel grape, but all I got was a generic sense of smoky, toasty red wine that could have been cabernet or merlot. Alcohol content is 13.5 percent. Winemaker was Scott Kelley. Avoid. About $15.

Finally, LL said, “Oh, just open something else. Something better.” So I went looking and found the next wine.
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Yes, as you know, I’m the kind of guy who will open a Jordan Cabernet to go with pizza, but, damnit, the movie was going and we were chowing down and I had to grab something. And of course I’m not implying that a wine that costs $52 is necessarily better than a wine that costs $15; the case is simply that every wine should perform up to or better than its price range, and the Estancia certainly didn’t do that.

Anyway, the Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Alexander Valley, offers lovely balance, integration and harmony. The blend is 75 percent cabernet sauvigon, 19.5 percent merlot, 4.5 percent petit verdot and 1 percent malbec. Aging was 12 months in French (67%) and American (33%) oak barrels, of which 33 percent were new. The bouquet is first a tangle of briers and brambles, cedar, thyme and black olive with a background of iron and dusty walnut shell; a few minutes bring in the notes of black currants, black cherries and cassis. The wine is intense and concentrated, dense and chewy, with finely-milled tannins and polished oak enfolding flavors of spicy black currants and plums and a streak of vibrant acidity contributing a sense of purpose. A model of the marriage of power and elegance and a delight to drink. Try now through 2015 or ’16. The alcohol content is 13.5 percent. Winemaker was Rob Davis. Excellent. About $52.

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The venerable and extensive Badia a Coltibuono estate in Tuscany goes back a thousand years, to the time of patient, tireless monks toiling in the hillside vineyards. The property, now almost 2,300 acres, is owned by the Stucchi Prinetti family, descendants of Florentine banker Guido Giuntini who acquired the estate in 1846. In addition to wines from its own vineyards, Badia a Coltibuono produces a line under the “Coltibuono” brand made from purchased grapes from selected Tuscan vineyards. To that roster belongs the Chianti Classico “Roberto Stucchi” (or “R.S.”) 2008, made from 100 percent sangiovese grapes and aged six months in two- and three-year-old French oak casks and barriques. The Consorzio that regulates these matters allowed Chianti Classico to be made completely from sangiovese grapes, rather than the traditional blend with caniaolo, in 1996.

The Coltibuono Chianti Classico “Roberto Stucchi” 2008, a model of clean, fresh purity and intensity, offers an enticing, even an intoxicating bouquet of red and black currants, orange zest, potpourri, black pekoe tea and cloves. Things are a bit more subdued in the mouth, where the wine delivers a classic package of bristling acidity, moderately dense and dusty tannins and a touch of shale to bolster flavors of dried currants and plums with a hint of spiced and macerated black cherries, mossy tea and leather. Drink now through 2012 or ’13, to accompany grilled leg of lamb studded with garlic and rosemary; pasta Bolognese; sausage pizza; or a medium-rare rib-eye steak, sliced and sprinkled with sea-salt. 13 percent alcohol. Very Good+. About $15 to $18.

Imported by Dalla Terra Winery Direct, Napa, Cal. Tasted at a trade event.