It's now Wednesday morning, November 11th, 2009 at 9:03 AM as I have just finished reading the Washington Post newspaper ( I love the newspaper - don't let them all disappear online! ) where Dave McIntyre writes about Spain's Mencia grape from Bierzo, Spaain. He talked about how it has to now make it on it's own : how it was often referred to as a distant cousin of the Cabernet Franc grape ( not true the experts say ) and how it had a race with the Priorat wines ( and how Priorat ultimately won " perhaps because its main red grape, grarnacha ( also known as grenache ), is more familiar or because its inky, dense, heavy and high alcohol wines hold more appeal for American wine writers, importers and consumers. Bierzo's wines feature moderate alcohol ( usually around 13 to 13.5percent ) and enough acidity to balance a wide variety of foods. They are not blockbusters, but they are food friendly ,... ".
I loved these words and they sunk right to my core being and resonated loudly, triumphantly and with such conviction that they will never die in me. It was great to read them this morning : thank you Dave and Lilly. I suspect that Lilly is quite helpful to you Dave in both the tasting of so many wines and the editing perhaps? She deserves some credit I am sure for the excellent slew of wine articles that you have posted in the Food Section weekly of the Washington Post newspaper now for a year ?
I like the Mencia grape and have carried many of them over the years at Cleveland Park Wines and Spirits. I am also a great fan of the French Loire valley Cabernet Francs where I first cut my teeth on them years ago as my mother and I drove from Paris down into the Loire wine country and found ourselves in a cold wine cellar in the town of Bourgeuil drinking their Cab Francs around 10 AM or so.
But this is not just about Mencia : it is about IL BORRO and also very much about Salvatore that answers quite promptly all of my emails to him. I applaud that and treasure it as someone that enjoys interaction with others on thoughts, feelings, impressions, opinions, etcetera. It's nice to get a response, any response : and promptly is even better as then the exchanges remain fresh and hopefully warm and lively and informative. They have for me with you Salvatore.
Salvatore, thanks for responding to my last queries about your family's excellent book that you just gave me and my daughter on our visit there to IL BORRO ( Thursday, Oct. 29th, 2009 ) and that you signed the cover of for us when I asked you to please do so. You informed us with a smile that it was the very first copy that you had signed on the cover. Thanks.
I got back to the United States with the book Salvatore which I indeed did pack and I started to really look at it once back here in northern Virginia just outside of Washington D.C. I noticed immediately that my copy was in English and I appreciate that very much. It's easier on my eyes as I do not speak or read Italian. However, knowing both French and Spanish ( and having learned Brazil's Portuguese fluently as a two-year-old- through-eight-year-old back in the late fifties as my father was a foreign service career officer ) I can make some sense of Italian. I just have to have confirmation that the words I hear mean what I think they mean.
Before heading for Italy on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 I made a point the night before to read out loud upstairs some of Marco Bacci's family book called IL CASTELLO DI BOSSI. It was tough going at first but I read at least one and a half pages of it and I felt triumphant and pleased as it was a start for me to what I suspected would be listening to a whole lot of Italian and really soon. I contacted you Marco but never got a response. Did you receive my emails? You book by the way is also beautiful and I treasure both books that are both signed. Cheers to you both.
But again I veer off my main mission and that is to write here a passage from IL BORRO written by Niccolo d"Afflitto , the oenologist. He's worked with the Ferragamo family developing a modern vine growing and wine production there at the family's estate. He " wrote that a great wine is appreciated first for its bouquet and then its taste ". This is what he said exactly : " the greater the wine, the more mysterious it is, it is a music that enchants and does not let itself be deciphered immediately; it has many flavors and a thousand fragrances ", page 117 ( Il Sole 24 Ore, 23 September, 2001 ).
I love these words, too and again they go to my very core and feed my every fiber and atom and cell and infuse/charge and ignite me like women that are all beautiful to me and give me along with family, food and wine and all the magical arts my raison d'etre. That's enough for me ; believe me - all so very heady and intense and all-consuming.
I agree with Niccolo and look forward to meeting him on my next visit to IL BORRO. He speaks with a real understanding of what a wine is at it's very core and best.
I too love the bouquet of a wine and am always intrigued by that and then by the taste that follows. So often the two do not match as the wine is not really ready to drink yet. Today we by and large rush everything and drink almost everything before it's time and thus rob ourselves of many of the flavors and the tastes as well as harmonies and developments that can really occur only with the slow passage of time with the wine having been virtually forgotten off somewhere in a cellar far from greedy eyes and a tongue eager to taste it.
I love the idea of " the more mysterious it is ". That's key : I never want a wine to give me everything at once. I always want to be charmed and cajoled, entertained,questioned and tweaked, pocked, prodded, teased and caressed by the bouquet first and the never-ending evolution of flavors and tastes as they unfold and unwrap themselves like some wonderful gift or beautiful woman to my eyes, my tongue, all my senses as they, too soar like the many birds everywhere and dive deep into both earth and water like both every water creature and underground dweller. I'm so tired of just playing it safe with my taste sensations and always being able to clearly see and taste in that to me more and more boring and secure middle range. I also don't want to simply be beat senseless by the strength of the alcohol and the " new " wooden staves of oak!
I want to gasp with excitement and cry with twinges of anguish and joy and surprise and feel things as often as possible for the very first time without prejudices and prescribed/known story lines and scenarios that have all been spelled out neatly and concisely by others already for me.
Why bother having the experience at all if it is not mine?!?
Why even sip the wine then drink it if I know everything already beforehand? Why bother?
I want to inject myself into both the bouquet and the flavors of the wine. I want to find space to do so : to stretch out so to speak my hands, arms, legs and fingers as well as my tongue once surrounded/enveloped by the wine's flavors/taste and magic. I want to get aroused, to feel joy and passion and youthful energy and lust and romance and utter pleasure as if never happier than now feelings as I try on each and every wine for size, fit and feel as I like to say often.
I want all of this and I still find it in many a wine. I was dubious of the IL BORRO red as it is a blend of the three grapes Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. What are they doing I immediately said to myself? What madness is this coming from Tuscany? I told Salvatore immediately all of my concerns and my fears when I first met him with his export manager way back in September of 2003 I believe?
It does concern me just a wee little bit that the alcohol on this blend is 14%. I don't remember noticing it when I tasted it with you Salvatore a couple of weeks ago? I liked it : I was being courted by both it's bouquet and it's flavors. Too bad we did not have time to enjoy the wine over a meal and an hour or two? It would have won me over even more this way. As it was I was very pleased and I think I said it could stand some more bottle age?
I'm very sensitive to drinking wines young and before their time. I often find myself questioning out loud how much more time it would be before the wine was optimally ready to be enjoyed : where all it's flavors, nuances and evolutions had had sufficient time for the elements to assert themselves and live in complete harmony with the other. That's when I want to drink any wine; I'm willing to wait, I still have time. Even though today I am like a bottle with some bottle age I still have time to grow and to mature and to reflect and to entertain both myself and the family and friends and guests around me.
Thank you Salvatore, Niccolo and Sara. I look forward to reading more of this excellent book each and every week for quite some time. I like learning about Tuscany from it and it also helps keep alive this marvelous week that I just shared with my daughter there in wonderful places like yours Salvatore.
I will comment more as I go along and read more. I love how your book is about all of IL BORRO and not just about the wines. Everything exists within a context and though I love wine as do all the things I mentioned already above I firmly believe that wine is just one of the ingredients of life and our pleasures/triumphs/treasures/wonders/magic and more.
Cheers, TONY
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