Category: Wine
Unti Vineyards Segromigno 2006
Unti Vineyards is a family owned and operated winery located in the town of Healdsburg in Dry Creek Valley, California. They own about 60 acres of vines, 35 of which are situated around the winery itself, that are planted with a wide variety of grape varietals, including Zinfandel, Syrah, Sangiovese, Petite Sirah, Grenache Noir, Mourvedre, Pinot Noir, Montepulciano, Grenache Blanc, Picpoul Blanc, and Vermentino.
As you can tell from that list of varietals, Unti’s focus is on producing a large part of its wines from Rhone and Italian varietals alongside the common California varietals Zinfandel and Pinot Noir. As a result, their list of current releases numbers 12 different wines, and there are a number of other wines they’ve made in the past that they are not currently offering.
The Segromigno is one of those wines that is not currently being offered. The last vintage they produced was a 2006, which this bottle is from. Named after a town in Tuscany, Segromigno is a blend of 92% Sangiovese, 4% Syrah, and 4% Barbera. The Sangiovese is from vines recently planted, whereas the Syrah and Barbera are from vines planted in 1998.
The grapes were harvested between September 25 and October 27. The wine spent 11 months aging in French oak, 15% of which were new barrels, and was bottled on September 10, 2007.
Unti refers to this as “a blended Cal-Ital”, and in some ways I think this is an apt description. If you’ve tasted many Italian-produced Sangiovese wines you’ll recognize several of the flavors in this wine, namely a sort of rich yet coarse dark red fruitiness. Added to that is a plush vibrancy that you find in some of the best Dry Creek Valley Zinfandels, minus Zinfandel’s spiciness.
The Segromigno pours medium ruby-red, the brushed red color of slightly overripe raspberries. The nose has vibrant raspberries and cherries, hints of creamy oak and vanilla, and a dintinct note of black tea. On the palate, the dark red fruit flavors remain dominant, underscored by vanilla and a hint of dark chocolate. The wine has a velvety, plushly textured body, with a brightening note of acidity. The finish continues the dark red fruit theme, yet a bit more vibrant and fresh tasting than on the palate, again underscored by slightly smoky notes of black tea.
This was a nice, very drinkable and enjoyable red wine, and I would definitely enjoy the chance to try some of their other wines in the future, given the chance. Perhaps on our trip out there later this month. Although, they’re only open by appointment, which may take more planning than we’re accustomed to…
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Nalle Winery Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel 2003
Nalle Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel. The words never cease to conjure up memories for me. This was the first wine that I really fell in love with, back in the mid-1990’s when I first took an interest in wine. I knew next-to-nothing about wine, and was simply casting about trying a wine here, a different one there, playing the field. At some point I read an article about zinfandel that recommended Nalle, along with a handful of other zins. A local shop not only had bottles of Nalle (a 1994), but a big picture that was taken from the deck of Doug Nalle’s house looking out over the Nalle countryside. That first bottle of Nalle Zin, combined with the romanticism of the photo on the wall to seduce me, forever to be a Nalle fanatic.
Since then I have had the good fortune to try other bottlings and wines from Nalle (they’re very difficult to find in this state), and also to visit the winery itself. During a trip to California a few years ago, we stopped by the winery on a Saturday afternoon, the one day they were open for tastings. It was a memorable visit where we got to try several of their wines, meet the winemakers, and even use their picnic table for an impromptu lunch amidst the vines.
Doug Nalle began producing wine under his own name in 1984, and just this past June celebrated 25 years of production. During that time he’s developed a reputation as one of the handful of zinfandel specialists in California, alongside such names as Paul Draper, Kent Rosenblum, and Joel Ravenswood. Each year since 1984 Nalle has produced a zinfandel made from grapes sourced from three separate growers in Dry Creek Valley: the Saini family, who farm the Nalle family’s home vineyard, Joe Ramazzotti who farms the Carreras vineyard, and Paul Bernier who farms the Sibary vineyard. The average age of the vines is 62 years old, with some having been planted as far back as 1880.
Two aspects of Nalle’s production stand out, namely his preference for low yields in the range of 3-4 tons per acre, and medium-alcohol wines, typically in the range of 13.5-14%. Zinfandel, historically a grape used in California for the production of bulk wines, is a notoriously vigorous vine producing anywhere up to 10-12 tons per acre. The grapes develop sugars quickly, oftentimes before the grapes themselves are fully mature. The result is a tendency for zinfandel-based wines to be rich, alcoholic blockbusters. During the past 10-20 years, this style of wine has been popular among some critics and consumers, and it is now increasingly common to find zinfandels of 15% and higher. Nalle’s winemaking philosophy runs rather counter to this trend.
In The Wines Of California, Stephen Brook writes that, “Nalle wants balance and fruit, and maintains that his wines are best enjoyed at up to six years old. He doesn’t want high alcohol – 14 degrees is ample – nor does he want powerful oak flavors. What he does deliver is stylish fruit and impeccable balance.” Towards this end, Nalle uses about 20% new oak barrels for each vintage, and always uses French barriques, citing his perception that aging in American oak lends a bitterness to wines as the reason for his preference.
All of the grapes are hand-picked, and then hand-sorted at the winery by Nalle and his wife and son. Vinification in open-top fermenters, and aging in oak barrels all take place at their hangar-like facility in Dry Creek.
I’ve always loved Nalle’s zinfandels because they deliver deep, resonant fruit while at the same time offering nuanced, mature flavors balanced against plenty of body without alcohol-overtones. They are eminently drinkable, and improve greatly from the start of the bottle to the last glass. And then there are the tongue-in-cheek labels drawn each year by artist Bob Johnson. Here’s a link to the one for the 1994 Zin.
The 2003 Zinfandel pours a deep,velvety ruby red, evenly colored from the middle of the glass to the rim. The nose is bursting with raspberries, black cherries, and viscous red fruit compote. The fruit theme continues on the palate, with raspberries, blackberries, and black cherries, underscored by a thread of resin and spicy ancho chili. The flavors are mouth warming, vibrant and fresh, kicked into high gear by a dark yet brightening acidity. The body is velvety with soft tannins. The finish highlights rich flavors of raspberry jam, and black cherries, and has a slightly tannic grip.
We opened this bottle of wine during one of the rare days this past June when the sun came out, and it seemed only appropriate to celebrate. I have to say that I was nervous, having moved this bottle from one apartment to another during the past three years, but it more than lived up to its billing. When we finished it we were entirely satiated. We’ve got one bottle of 2004 Zinfandel hanging out, waiting for another proper occasion, and I’m pretty incredibly excited about the chance to open it.
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Antonio Caggiano Tari 2004
Architect and photographer Antonio Caggiano began bottling wine from his own grapes in 1994, at first producing a Taurasi DOCG wine and later expanding production to include two other Aglianico-based wines and one white. Since then the wine’s reputation has steadily grown, and today Caggiano’s wines are imported by Michael Skurnik.
This bottle showed up in our house quite a few months ago, when I was hot on the trail of Aglianico-based wines. But as is often the case, our motley collection of wines grew haphazardly, my attention shifted from Aglianico, and this poor bottle languished in the shadows, waiting to be reconsidered. So as part of a recent push to drink the wine we actually have as opposed to buying new, we decided to open this bottle up the other night.
The Tari is Caggiano’s entry-level Aglianico wine. All of the grapes come from vines grown within the bounds of the Taurasi DOCG, but are considered too young by Caggiano to use in the Taurasi-labeled wine. Instead they use them to make this medium-bodied, more approachable wine. Aglianico makes up 80% of the wine, with Piedirosso adding 15%, and Fiano 5%. The Piedirosso and Fiano help to soften the wine considerably, and round some of Aglianico’s thornier edges. After fermentation the wine is aged 10-12 months in French barriques before being bottled.
The color of the wine is medium ruby red. The nose is intriguing with spices, tobacco, black cherries and dark red fruits. The palate is interestingly balanced, with an acidic undercurrent staged opposite a red fruit core. Some slight vanilla flavors emerge from the oak barrels, and lie alongside flavors of flinty menthol, grape skins, and black cherries. The wine is medium-textured and gentle, with some gripping tannins. The medium-length finish is all red fruit, with black cherries and raspberries kicking around.
A very pleasant, very drinkable red wine. It definitely displays some of aglianico’s characteristic elements, while still being very approachable.
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Bartolo Mascarello Barolo 1996
No wine holds my fascination in quite the way that Barolo does. And the irony is that until very recently, I’d only ever tasted Barolo on one previous occasion. And yet, the idea of Barolo has fired my imagination since I first began learning about wine.
Barolo is the wine produced in the DOCG of the same name, located in northern Italy’s Piedmont region. It is made from 100% Nebbiolo and is often cited as the purest expression of this finicky grape. Known as “the king of wines and the wine of kings”, Barolo is renowned for it’s remarkable aging potential and the miraculous grace and beauty that it acquires with extended aging.
Barolo is also ground-zero for the now two-decades old, international debate between traditional and modern-style producers. It is, in fact, where the whole debate took its starkest shape.
Up until the 1990’s nearly all Barolo was made in the same fashion. The grapes were grown in abundance in the vineyards, and after being crushed the wine (including skins and stems) was fermented over the course of 10-20 days in untopped oak vats. Following fermentation, aging took place in large oak casks called “botti”. The result was a very dry wine loaded with tannins, that required decades of aging before really coming into its own. Nonetheless, the result was a wine that was considered sublime by those who had the opportunity to taste its best examples.
But in the 1990’s wine-making in Piedmont (and worldwide) began to drastically change. Many trace the changes back to Angelo Gaja who began aging his wine in French oak barriques in the late 1960’s. With barriques came a host of other changes including better selection and wine-growing practices in the vineyards, the use of roto-fermenters designed to extract pigment but not tannin from the grapes, and briefer aging in barrels, to limit the oaky tannins added to the wine. The result has come to be known colloquially as the international style, since wines from California, Australia, Spain, and Italy all began to present themselves and taste so similarly to one another.
These were barolos that were accessible and delicious at a young age, and understandably they found a receptive audience among wine drinkers. But with this success came questions – about the wine’s ability to age, about the lack of terroir, or typicity of the wine – and inescapably a backlash from traditionalist producers. Those producers who continued to practice more traditional methods spoke out, sometimes fervently, against the modernist producers, and with this debate arrived what has come to be seen as a schism of sorts between the two schools, modern vs. traditional.
While most producers have a foot in both worlds, perhaps using some percentage of barriques as opposed to 100%, there are those iconic producers who cling to one side of the debate or the other. Angelo Gaja is perhaps the most prominent of the modernists, and Bartolo Mascarello was perhaps the most recognizable of the traditionalists.
Mascarello’s father Giulio was one of the first prominent grower-producers of Barolo. He began producing wines in the 1920’s and first bought land in the Cannubi area of Piedmont in the 1930’s. At this time, and for several decades to come, Barolo was always made as a blend of grapes from multiple plots, in order to take advantage of the strengths of each individual grape-growing area. It was this family business and tradition that Bartolo took over in 1981.
As the modern-style Barolo gained in popularity and production, Bartolo Mascarello quickly rose to prominence as the icon for traditionalist Barolo producers. The following statement from A Wine Atlas Of The Langhe aptly sums up his winemaking philosophy:
Faithful to his father’s teachings, Bartolo always made a Barollo that had no truck with fashion, a wine traditionalist by conviction and philosophy. There was no technological wizardry in his cellar, nor were they any barriques. Bartolo’s Barolo was made with grapes from the family’s four plots at Cannubi, San Lorenzo, and Ruè in the municipality of Barolo and Torriglione at La Morra. As used to be the custom, Bartolo made no vineyard selections, which ‘would have brought success at the box-office, but would have betrayed tradition.’
In his later years, when he was no longer able to actively take part in the winemaking activities, he devoted part of his time to creating hand-drawn labels for the Barolo, culminating perhaps in his several “No Barriques, No Berlosconi” labels in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. You can find some images of these labels here, here, here, and here along with lots of info here about the Mascarello Barolos.
I became fascinated with Bartolo Mascarello’s wines before I’d ever had the chance to try any of them. The story that he and his wines embody is utterly romantic, and for someone who is so intellectually interested in wine it is unavoidably attractive. I was entranced with the notion of being able to try the most traditional of traditional Barolos.
And yet, Mascarello’s wines are very rare and difficult to find. And so I was immeasurably lucky to receive a bottle of the Bartolo Mascarello 1996 Barolo from my lovely wife on the occasion of our first anniversary. This was a bottle produced by Bartolo himself, and we hesitated only briefly before opening it a couple of days after celebrating our wedded bliss.
The bottle itself is artfully understated (you can see a photo here). The wine poured a medium-deep purple in the center, fading to a rusty-colored red at the edges. The nose was delicately fragrant, with scents of fresh cherries, strawberries, and mint, layered against a backdrop of earthy minerality. The wine’s flavors are fresh and vibrant, with notes of black cherries, raspberries, a trace of black liquorice, herbal mint, and brambly minerals intricately woven together. The tannins are fairly mild, noticeable but not overpowering, and lending the wine a nice, firm grip. Despite the tannins the texture is light, making the wine easily drinkable. The finish seems to go on forever, with flavors of cherries alongside hints of chamomile and anise.
All in all, this wine absolutely lived up to the hype. Of all of the wines that I have had the opportunity to drink, this was one of the very rare ones that combined an intricate delicateness with vivid flavors. What is more, the wonderful combination of fresh fruit flavors and earthy, herbal tones was mesmerizing.
If I never try a Bartolo Mascarello Barolo again, I’ll be satisfied, as this was a superlative wine. Fortunately, we were able to pick up a bottle of the 2007 Bartolo Mascarello Dolcetto d’Alba recently, and I very much look forward to trying that. Yes, it’s not in the same league as the Barolo, but I believe that with this winemaker in particular you can rest assured that every wine you have the opportunity to try will speak vividly of its authenticity. In tasting these wines you’ll be able to gain a sense of both where the grapes were grown and who produced the wine.
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Rosenblum Cellars Rockpile Zinfandel 2004 Rockpile Road Vineyard
The first wine that really caught my attention and got me excited was Zinfandel, and specifically the 1994 Zinfandel from Nalle Winery. At the time I didn’t know anything about wine, and had not really tasted very many wines. And so Zinfandel quickly caught entranced me with its combination of spicy, peppery red fruit and soft tannins that make for such a wonderfully accessible and exciting red wine.
Since then, I’ve pursued Zinfandel in its many incarnations from California, but always end up coming back to Dry Creek Valley and a handful of producers including Nalle (my perennial favorite), Ridge, and Rosenblum. These days, I drink Zinfandel much less often than in the past, but I never fail to be bowled over by a really great bottle.
The catch with Zinfandel is that it is a grape that, depending on growing conditions, can very easily produce a big, hulking, overbearing red wine. This is why the Zinfandels from Dry Creek Valley have always been my favorite. For the most part, the growing conditions in this AVA produce Zinfandels that take advantage of the grape’s dark, red fruit flavor profile without indulging in its high-alcohol, huge body tendencies. There are definitely exceptions to this rule, but the wines from the above producers that really capture my attention are the ones that generally have more finesse and subtlety than the Zinfandel fruit bombs that are all too common.
And so a few years back I bought a couple bottles of the 2004 Rosenblum Rockpile Zinfandel, and stashed them away to wait for a good time to open them. The wine had gotten rave reviews all around, and the uniqueness of the AVA and its growing conditions really caught my interest.
The Rockpile AVA was approved in 2002, making it one of the newer AVAs in California. Of the AVA’s 15,400 acres, 150 are planted to a variety of red grapes, including Zinfandel, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petite Sirah. The vineyards lie between 800 and 1900 feet above sea level, and most importantly, many of them are above the fog line. The result is that the temperatures, and daily temperature swings, are more moderate than at lower elevations, and the grapes are exposed to constant sun during critical growing periods, ensuring full (very full!) maturity. Rockpile used to be part of the Dry Creek Valley AVA, but in response to the consistently unique quality of the wines produced from fruit grown there, it was determined that it warranted its own AVA status.
That unique quality basically boils down to wines that have serious depth and heft, and loads of dark, jammy black and red fruits. Think blackberries and black cherries on steroids. These are wines that satisfy the way a really great holiday dinner is satisfying. After drinking them you feel full with the wine’s richness, and satisfied in an almost gluttonous way. You wouldn’t want to eat a meal like that every day, but when you do you really treasure and savor the experience.
This is the 2004 release of this wine, and so it has been residing in our cellar for nearly three years now. It weighs in at a massive 16.3% alcohol! I haven’t been able to dig up any information about the percentage of zinfandel in the wine (although it has to be at least 75%), or the number of new oak barrels used. The label indicates that it came from the Rockpile Road vineyard, within the Rockpile AVA. (In a 2004 article, the Wine News indicated that of the 9 vineyards in Rockpile, the majority incorporate the word “Rockpile” into their name in some fashion.)
The wine pours a deep, inky purple, with a viscous surface texture. The nose is rich with vanilla, blueberries and blackberries, and a trace of smoke. The palate is velvety and mouth-coating, with very soft, warm tannins. Lots of dark, red fruits just saturating the palate, accompanied by a hint of black pepper and a trace of vanilla. The same flavors continue through on the finish. The vanilla flavors from new oak are very well integrated with the wine’s fruit flavors, and were not obtrusive at all. On the contrary, they offered a nice counterpoint to the spectrum of dark fruits, highlighting the fruit flavors more so than they would be without that counterpoint.
A wholly enjoyable wine that went superbly with the barbecue dinner that we ate with it. This may not be my favorite style of zinfandel wine, but it really hit the spot on this occasion. What is more, it made me look forward to going back to a bottle of Nalle’s Zin and revisit the more balanced style of Zinfandel that I enjoy so much.
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