It was great to get Giuseppe here to taste his family's fabulous Piemonte Italian reds ( a Rosso Langhe ( wow, so smooth, bright, elegant and thoroughly enjoyable now medium-to-light-bodied red blend of six grapes including Pinot Noir, 2006, $16.49, a Dolcetto 2006, $21.49 bit-tighter, heartier and dusty-dry red, a Langhe Nebbiolo 2006, $26.49 that was even tighter, more intense, less-open and tannic wine needing more time or food to balance / flesh it out and a SUBLIME, elegant, refined, fruit cherry berry strawberry extroverted, pretty Barolo 2006, $52.99 that just made everything right, everything perfect for such a great, serendipitous tasting here with Giuseppe.
Giuseppe went to the same oenology wine school as his father Aldo. He spent last year helping his father in the vineyards and the beautiful stain-glassed windowed " new " winery. He was in charge of his own barrels. Everyone had their own barrels to look after. Aldo would ask for reports on these barrels. He would not want to just hear the technical information. He wanted to know how many of his son's senses were being used in this process: smell, sight, hearing, tasting etcetera. He actually asked if Giuseppe could hear whet the wine was saying, what it was telling him? Love it!
I learned all of that last night after the tasting when I was invited to dinner with Giuseppe Vaira and Country Vintner rep Chris Pigott. We dined at Lia restaurant and had a grand time just telling stories. I asked what music Giuseppe liked and when he responded I asked him about some older groups like Blind Faith , Cream, John Mayall, Peter Paul & Mary and the Byrds. He had heard certain things but most not. I gave him my ipod and he flipped to these artists and with a sheepish youthful expression on his face he listened to them with one earplug in, the other out. He did not want to be impolite. He is so polite. He was really well-brought-up, I was impressed. So nice to see in a young man. He's 23 years of age and got his whole life ahead of him- a bright future indeed. With a younger brother in high school and a sister in college it was a treat to meet one of the younger Vaira generation!
Chris Pigott and I got to meet with David Bryant's help in 2005 at Vaira's home/winery and vineyards both Aldo and his wife. That was quite an enjoyable experience. We always sell the Vajra wines and got to taste last night the " new " vintages that will arrive soon. In the meantime we have the current vintages. Call Mike Martin or Anthony Quinn ( me ) for more info at : 202-363-4265 www.clevelandparkwine.com, anthonyquinn@clevelandparkwine.com. Cheers, enjoy these photos of last evening's really successful tasting.
As you can see I still use my signature photographs of taking pictures of the winemaker/owners seen through the wine glasses with their wines in the glasses. Seems only fitting putting the two together like this. What do you think?
We also had French winemaker Ithier Bouchard , directeur Commercial of DOMAINE TARIQUET, VDP des Cotes de Gascogne, southwest France tasting his exceptional dry whites. I will blog about that next. Reds from Giuseppe and whites from Ithier, not bad. The shop was rocking here last night! Cheers, TONY
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