2019 Wine Travel Log #2: Tuscany, Italy

I was glad to be back home in Tuscany last Wednesday after the Barolo tasting in La Morra. I have had a house near Arezzo in a village called Il Borro near the town of San Giustino Valdarno since 1998. My two children grew up there. That’s why my son Jack, who tastes with my team, can speak Italian. So it was great to be around all my things again and catch up with some old acquaintances. It’s nice to be part of a small village community where you walk into the local supermarket or pharmacy and everyone says hello even though you haven’t been around for months.

My tasting office was full of around 200 samples, so I had to get to work quickly. They were all Brunello di Montalcinos, the most famous appellation of Tuscany and perhaps Italy too. They were from the newest vintages released on the market: 2014 regular bottlings and 2013 Riservas. I was tasting the wines with Nick Stock, our senior editor. We were not expecting much from the 2014 vintage as it was a wet, late and average vintage – in other words, it was hard to get the grapes ripe and make serious wines.

The 2014 Brunellos that we tasted showed freshness and brightness overall but lacked depth and concentration of fruit and structure. It was clearly the most difficult vintage for the region since 2002. The 2013 Riservas were much better quality as this is an outstanding vintage and showed cool and strong tannins backed with solid fruit and character. There are some top wines to buy and drink. The 2004s were mostly drinking beautifully and the small tasting of 50 wines underlined the excellence of the vintage. These are wines I always enjoyed from the beginning. I will write a report very soon to reveal the best of them.

We ended the Italy trip with a big party that I organized with 50 Brunello producers at the restaurant below my house. It was great to spend time with them and discuss the various vintages that we tasted as well as future ones such as the spectacular 2015, which will be released next year. I plan to do an early tasting of the wines in April. It should be great!

So we cleared up the tasting room over the weekend and packed our bags and left for Bordeaux to taste its newest vintage, the fantastic 2016. We have already tasted 300 wines and the results are excellent. It is indeed a classic year that produced outstanding wines with beautiful structure across the board. Stay tuned for another travel log later in the week. Catch up on my previous travel notes and check out part one of my wine travel log with thoughts from Barolo.