It's a beautiful day here in our nation's capitol with the temperatures in the high eighties and a nice breeze, clear baby-blue skies - and people stopping by the store here in Cleveland Park to taste Alessandro's wines. Here are some of the pictures.
I will add more later about these four tasty wines that Alessandro tasted with our customers. We've had a great time here and there are lots more pictures to show that.
It's now later on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 11:28 PM and I want to add a few more notes to this tasting of Alessandro's at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 , sales@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com Tel: 202-363-4265.
We tasted four Italian wines tonight. We started with my personal favorite the NV ( non-vintage ) Brut sparkling wine from Franciacorta that hugs up to the Swiss alps. It's called MONTEDELMA ( $42.99 ) and I love the concentration yet also the froth, the cream, the taste that's immediate balm to any palate wounds. Just like liquid sunshine filtered through these Chardonnay grapes almost as if they had been soufleed- amazing really.
The DEGANI Valpolicella 2007 ( $14.49 ) which is made from a lot of the Corvino grape is an elegant, fruit-driven red that's medium-to-light-bodied and showing wonderfully now with no real bite or bitterness/ sharpness at all. It was a huge hit tonight : perhaps the biggest.
It was still beautiful this late afternoon around 4:30 P.M. when Brennan Downey showed up with Alessandro to drop him off before leaving. It was great to finally get Alessandro back to the store. It was still very much a beautiful afternoon with loads of bright sunshine and heat and still a refreshing breeze now and then. It felt good to look out our front windows and see the day of light and the new red awning and how it filtered, too through it : all a bit mesmerizing!
Funny, yesterday on my day-off I had gone to the annual Michael Downey portfolio tasting with many of their Italian winemakers and owners. I enjoyed that immensely : it was my favorite Michael Downey portfolio tasting yet . I think now I have attended three of them. I already blogged about one here on this site so you can use the search engine to find that one to read. I will also include a story of yesterday's with some of the gazillion pictures I took while there.
I started that tasting with the MONTEDELMA Franciacorta sparkling wine and I loved it immediately. It set the tone for the rest of that tasting : what a grand start! I tried wines with Alessandro ( three of these that we tasted tonight ) as well as the ANDREA OBERTO 2007 Dolcetto, $19.99 with Fabio Oberto, son of Andrea Oberto. He was standing at the station right to the left of Alessandro and so it was easy to taste through those wines including two Barberas as a Nebbiolo and two Barolos. I was snapping pictures like crazy and showing them to both Alessandro and Fabio. It was all a bit crazy as I had moved back behind the tables to stand next to Alessandro. He was pouring for people on the other side of the table where I should have been and I know I was providing a difficult distraction for him.
Alessandro did say when I spoke to him tonight that he loved my infectious enthusiasm and that it was contagious and that people noticed and warmed to it both there and tonight at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits where I manage the wine department with the help of Mike Martin.
The ANDREA OBERTO Dolcetto D'Alba 2007 had a bit more of an edge of lively, accented acids as well as a bit more spice backbone that made this medium-bodied wine much more of a food wine for me and less of one that I could sip all on it's own. I did like the balance and am happy to have it : and it, too sold quite well tonight.
The VERBENA 2007 Rosso di Montalcino was the surprise for me tonight : I was expecting it to be more tannic and closed. Remember, I had just sampled all of these and more the day before. I don't remember it being as fleshy and bright red, toasty-cherried with not a lot of bite. It was quite delicious, and that was within thirty minutes of having opened this bottle. I hope that they all open this quickly if people are going to cheat and drink these earlier than they should be. That's just my opinion, however that most people don't wait the required amount of time and drink them way too early. It was delicious tonight and with the right food would have been quite impressive.
Alessandro and I have known each other for about twenty-six years or so. He came over from Friuli where his father Franco Furlan has a very good winery with the same name. Over the years I have sold many cases of FRANCO FURLAN wines. We became friends as we worked together and as he charmed both my wife and my mother that think he is wonderful. I wrote about his excellent wines a few years ago with his family that he named " Pra di Pradis. I took a bottle of the dry Tocai white to the Outer Banks and so the blog is here on one of my other sites like the one called Qynothna.blogspot.com I believe. I loved those Pra Di Pradis wines : they were all so special.
Now Alessandro is helping other Italians market their wines here in the U.S. like Fabio Oberto. I don't believe that he is making any wines currently , but I may be wrong. We did not get much of a chance to talk this visit : it was a lot of business and the pleasure wrapped-in in business because of the wines and their high quality!
You're on a roll Alessandro and we do have to do dinner at our place here in northern Virginia on your next visit which I hope will include on evening with us where we can enjoy some wine and food together and not be thinking about selling it just then. What do you think? Caio Alessandro .... it's now 12:09 AM on Wednesday morning here at home in northern Virginia as I type these last words ( April 29th, 2009 ) and post this blog again. Cheers, TONY
