Drinking Jove's Blood: A Tour of Tuscany with Sangiovese

Class transcript:

That wherever you are, the weather is better, that the skies are brighter, but at the very least, we have wine to warm our hearts, and Sangiovese, the very blood of Job, is the topic today. As we dive ever deeper into the magical realist novel that has become our lives in 2020, I'm hugely excited as ever to have you all with us. It finally happened this week; I lost any and all appetite for reading the news. Usually, you know, I read the paper every day, but it finally happened this weekend, you know, so I dove a little deeper into the …

Bill, you muted yourself. So much. Apparently, I muted myself, but I got an assist from the hackers there. I hugely appreciate that. That is a first for wine school. That is the first time that I've muted myself. I'm sure that on other occasions I've deserved to be muted, but I believe that's a first for the sake of this lesson. Thank you so much, Hacker family. You guys have some fabulous wines to drink at home, and I certainly hope you enjoy them, and I hugely appreciate the assist today and your ongoing support, as it were. At any rate, failing the news, which I lost appetite for, I have San Gervasi to dive into, as do we. Many versions on hand today. I count at least seven bottles on my particular table at our Revelers Hour studio.

I am going to advocate, as I often do, for multiple wine glasses, and that is not only to keep your dishwashers or yourselves busy after class. That is because, you know, I like to taste wine one against the next and to use one as a foil for the other, and all the more so with wines like Nebbiolo, wines like San Gervasi that are ancient, that have a distinct personality, but in the modern era are made in many different styles, and that's certainly the case for San Gervasi. And San Gervasi in particular is made in different styles for the sake of being a mono-varietal entity and at times be a blended entity, and we're going to talk all about that today.

So, you know, if you have multiple glasses to, you know, break out to pour the wines and taste them side by side, move from one glass to another. It's a really illuminating experience, I find, not least of all. For the sake of these wines. But, you know, we're going to pursue our course of study here kind of narratively. So, you know, I'm less concerned with, you know, kind of how one wine follows the next and more concerned with kind of creating a narrative arc for you all here around this grape, San Gervasi, which is the most widely grown varietal in Italy by a great deal, the most widely grown grape in Italy. Without further ado, we hit 4.04. And we're going to kick it off.

San Gervasi, the subject at hand this week, the very Blood of Job we are drinking. And, you know, as such, it was popularly assumed that San Gervasi, you know, descended from the depths of time, you know, that it was, you know, Job himself or his agent on Earth, Bacchus, who kind of manipulated the wild vine and made it into the San Gervasi that we know and love, today, that has, that view has been superseded by a more, you know, kind of scientific, modern version of the Sangiovese origin story, which we will, you know, unravel at length today. But I just kind of wanted to, you know, cast this lesson, you know, tonally for the sake of, you know, Italy as, you know, really this wellspring of wine, you know, versus France.

France, Italy claims more native grapes than any other country on earth, but the Italian system is anarchic. And I think the Italians, the way the Italians relate to wine is very different than the way the French relate to wine. You know, France has a very ancient relationship of its own with winemaking, but it's much more regimented, much more hierarchical. And I think therefore, you know, a much better branded product, you know, the French, they have, you know, the classified growths of Bordeaux. They have the Grand Cru, the Premier Cru of Burgundy, organized at the village level, or organized at the vineyard level, rather. They have, you know, the Cru of Champagne, organized at the village level. The Italians have been making wine for at least as long as the French have, if not longer.

You know, but they've been doing it in a much more haphazard kind of local fashion. So, you know, whereas the French have this very ordered relationship with the fruit of the vine, and wine, the Italians are much more emotional, much more primal in their relationship to it. And, you know, I feel like something about that, you know, comes forth in the wines themselves. I think, you know, you can have a very ordered relationship with the Cabernet Sauvignon. You know, you can be very deductive in ultimately, you know, the way that you pick apart a Pinot, even though it is a very sensual wine. But I think with wines like Nebbiolo, particularly with wines like Sangiovese, I like the way Oz Clark, you know, kind of positioned it as a wine for people that loved a bit of pain mixed with their pleasure.

So, you know, the Italians love tannic, Greek, they love high acid, you know, these are wines that you invest in and relate to emotionally and less cerebrally. That's not to say that, you know, you can't, you know, dissect them and appreciate them and understand them on an analytical level, but I think the initial response is much more, you know, emotional for these wines. And I want to understand them as such before we get bogged down in history and bureaucracy and all the, you know, kind of slings and arrows of the Italian regulatory regime. Before we kick into gear with a proper bit of verse, I want to bid one of our most loyal listeners a get well soon. Mary Burke is kicking it in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Those of you who are regular listeners, participants in wine school will recognize her and her husband, Richard, as the folks that participated from the Caribbean, literally from the Caribbean. They positioned a camera on their boat, Shibumi, so that they could participate while floating. That is a unique level of devotion to class. Mary also happens to be the mother of my business partner, Jill Tyler. She's been ailing. Mary, we wish you well. I hope you're listening, but if you're not, we are certainly thinking of you and loving you from afar. So cheers to you. Thank you, as ever, for the gift of your Sunday afternoon continued well-wishers for the sake of this class. There are all sorts of wonderful historical analogs for the sake of this lesson when it comes to enjoying wine and plague that I'm really excited to tease out.

We're going to kick things off with a a bit of Italian verse, naturally, from a Renaissance-era Italian poet who celebrated Sangiovese. At the time, he was celebrating a particular, you know, kind of designation of origin called Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, which we'll explore later in the tasting after we initially covered Chianti. But this is from his epic, book-length, kind of Inferno-esque poem called Bacchus in Tuscany, and what could be more fitting for a Sangiovese lesson. Dearest, if one's vital tide ran not with the grapes beside, what would life be short of Cupid? Much too short and far, too stupid. You see the beam here from the sky that tips the goblet. In mine eye vines are nets that catch such food and turn them into sparkling blood.

Come then in the beverage bold, let's renew us and grow muscular and in dancing and in feasting quips and cranks and worlds of jesting, let us with the laughing eye see the old boy time go by, who with his eternal sums whirls his brains and wastes his thumbs away with thinking miles with care. Hello, you knaves, the goblet's there. Fun bit of verse, makes a proper drinking song in and of its own right and, you know, fitting that he invokes, you know, the grape's blood, the vine's blood, because the etymology for the sake of, you know, this particular noble Italian grape is sanguis iobis in Latin, which is the blood of the king of Roman gods. But Sangiovese, a much more recent entrant into the firmament Italian noble grapes than you know legend would have you believe.

I think it's significant to start with Tuscany, the region before we seek to tease Sangiovese, the grape. I'm going to pull up a map of Tuscany here on the language board, and see whether the sources are here. Front. Tuscany is the heart of Italy. It is not the modern economic or cultural heart as such, but I think, you know, historically, spiritually, it is very much the gastronomic, the, you know, cultural dating back to the high Italian Renaissance in Florence kind of part of Italy. And I think for most of us, what we associate, you know, with Italian food and drink, you know, really comes out of this particular corner of the boot. Tuscany comes from a Truscan. The Truscans were the original Italians.

They flourished in central Italy well before the Romans had, you know, suckled from Romulus and Remus and established their empire further to the south in Rome. The Tuscans were kicking it from the 8th century BC until they were subsumed into the Roman Empire in the 3rd century BC. They were making wine. They were deeply enthralled with Greek culture. They took it a step further. They borrowed from the Greeks, and they adopted the symposium. But even the Romans and the Greeks thought they took it a little too far. There were Roman moralists who were, you know, kind of tisking the Truscans for imbibing, luxuriating in food and drink too much. But, you know, that thirst for wine really kind of crossed over into the Roman Empire.

And it should be said that, you know, people have been making wine here since, you know, as long as anyone can remember. And they continue to do so through the Roman Era into the modern era. But unlike other regions that we've considered so far — so, you know, unlike Bordeaux, you know, unlike Burgundy, unlike, you know, certainly the noble, you know, regions of Germany and even Austria and parts of Spain. And, you know, the wines of Tuscany weren't really a commercial product outside the region until, you know, much later in world history. So historically, these were wines that people drank, you know, locally. Viticulture, agriculture was dominated in Tuscany by large landholders, the nobility, wealthy merchants, and, of course, the church.

It was conducted according to a system of mesadria, which is a form of tenant farming, a step shy of full feudalism, the idea being that, you know, peasants, that mesa, mesa means essentially half, the idea being here that peasants were entitled to half of their product, and they gave the rest over to the relevant noble merchants or, you know, high priest. There was a well-established locality. There was a local wine trade in Florence in particular. There was a wine guild as early as, a thriving wine guild as early as 1282, but these wines were traded mostly throughout central Italy. The more storied kind of famous wines of the time within Italy tended to be sweeter wines and tended to hail from further south in the Mediterranean, or they were dried grape wines from further north.

And even locally, the wines, you know, that people were drinking and celebrating. In prose, were dominated by white varietals. Actually, the first reference to Chianti as a source of fine wine, which is in 1298, was a reference for wine from white grapes, Bernaccia, chiefly, which has survived into the modern day as one of the noble wines of the region, and recently having been revived. But you also have Trebbiano and Muscat, actually Brunello, which is now the boldest. They're the most famous of Sangiovese, red wine in Tuscany. Historically, the best-selling vintages were devoted to Muscat, which still survives in some cellars to this day as a very worthwhile product. But, you know, that said, you know, the wine trade devoted primarily to white wine was thriving nonetheless and celebrated in the high Renaissance by figures such as Boccaccio.

And I want to linger for a hot second on Boccaccio's Decameron. So Boccaccio was writing in the 14th century. The Decameron is a fascinating work devoted to a bunch of essentially middle-class Florentines who are quarantined, and the very word quarantine comes from Italian, but they were quarantined during the early onset of the plague in Florence. And they were telling rivaled stories and enjoying food and wine, and they were enjoying food and wine as no one had before. Historically, you know, fine wine had been the province of, you know, the nobility, but what Boccaccio introduces is, you know, connoisseurship. Among you know, the middle classes that came to define, you know, the early and ultimately the high Renaissance, and you know, people found a way to get their drink on in the midst of plague,  then as we are finding a way to get our drink on now; one of the kind of ways they did that that has come back to the fore in Florence in particular has been through the use of these wine windows. I don't know if you all have seen this, I'll send out a link, but these are wine windows scattered throughout Florence. There are literally hundreds of them across the city. Historically, they actually would have been used to sell wine by wine merchants. So the Riscascolis of the world, the Antinoris, you know, these storied noble families that have been wine merchants in, you know, Florence for generations upon end would sell their wine this way. And it had the added benefit during times of plague of being an effective mode of social distancing.

So into the modern era, you know, we are beset by plague globally for the first time in well over a century. And these wine windows have come back into fashion, which, you know, feels really, you know, kind of poetic to me. And it's something that, you know, Florentines today have found a way to celebrate, you know, call it, you know, a bit of, you know, dark humor. But, you know, as such, I think it's really cool that, you know, there is this historic connection to wine in times of pandemic. And certainly a tradition. That is alive and well in the corner of the world that we are considering today. So what of, you know, our topic of study, what of Sangiovese? When does it really come to the fore?

So the earliest mention of Sangiovese could be in 1590 as San Giovento. But again, we're dealing with blood as a root word linguistically. And, you know, this looks kind of bloody regardless of what grape it's from. So, you know, scholars have thrown a bit of cold water on that first mention. It doesn't really enter the fore in the kind of modern annals of kind of larger scale Tuscan winemaking until the 18th century, which begs the question, is it the very blood of Job brought to us descended from wild vines or is it something newer? And it just so happens that there's been quite a bit of analytical work on this topic. And it has been discovered that Sangiovese is actually the offspring of a couple other grapes that are handcrafted.

Historically somewhat obscure, but well enough known to be genetically linked. And it's kind of cool because it comes from one of my favorite Italian grape names to pronounce. So for those of you at home, one of the parents of Sangiovese is, wait for it, Ciliegiolo. That top word is Ciliegiolo. Ciliegiolo comes from the Italian root for cherry. And it explains some of the fact that Sangiovese is a grape that struggles to take on color. So we talked about Nettles. Nebbiolo last week is a grape that struggles to take on color. And I sent around a link to a Gildsam article that kind of further sussed that out. And that has to do with the anthocyanins, the pigments in the grape skins. And not all darker grapes have the same number of anthocyanins that contribute to color stability in a wine.

That has nothing to do with the thickness of their skins, it should be said, or the harshness of their tannins. Nebbiolo is actually a lighter colored wine. You know, wine from Nebbiolo grapes, but Nebbiolo has thicker skin. Sangiovese, as such, actually has relatively thinner skins for a red grape, but, you know, shares the trait with Nebbiolo that it doesn't produce, you know, incredibly inky wines. And we'll come back to that for the sake of counterfeiting later on in this lesson. But part of that has to do with the fact that its parent, wait for it, Ciliegiolo, doesn't have a ton of, you know, inky anthocyanins. It has a lot of anthocyanins in the mix as well. The other parent is Calabrese Montelnuovo, and it is a much more obscure grape that hails from the toe of the boot.

It is therefore thought that while Sangiovese, you know, has its home and was first documented in Tuscany today, could have originated slightly further to the south. At any rate, you know, what are the properties of this grape? You know, what works about it? So, you know, first and foremost, it is very late ripening varietal. Which makes it well suited to warmer climates. And like Nebbiolo, it is somewhat finicky. It likes very poor soils. But it also likes very dry regions. It tends to need a lot of sun. But if it gets too much sun, it becomes very overproductive. So it's a little Goldilocks-y in a way that, like Nebbiolo, has made it somewhat difficult to work with outside of its home base. But in Tuscany itself, it is capable of the most profound and age-worthy expressions.

Of wine that you are likely to find in the world today. So we're going to consider the first historic heart of Sangiovese country and the Tuscany red wine kind of firmament. And that is Chianti. So, you see Chianti on the map of central Italy here. And Chianti is the region between Florence and Siena. Tuscany as a whole is incredibly hilly. Something like 80% of the land is covered in hills. It's not flat. There are some plains closer to the coast that are responsible for the Super Tuscans of the world. But we'll touch on that later. I keep throwing out teasers here. The heart of the Chianti zone stretches between Florence and Siena. And it was one of the first designations of origin to be established in the world.

So well before the noble estates of Bordeaux were classified for world exposition, in the mid-19th century, the Medici Grand Duke, Cosimo III, in the early 18th century, defined the Chianti zone. Now he defined it much more narrowly than the Italian government defined it later. This is the Classico zone. And actually the Grand Duke, Cosimo, defined actually the most famous historic villages, which are Rada, you can see here in the center, Gaiola in Chianti, and Castellina. So when he was talking about the Chianti, he just meant this belt of historic hilltop towns here. Greve was later added as was Panzano to that zone. But the Italian government basically leveraged the historic renown of this region. And expanded it somewhat cynically in the 20th century, when they were establishing the wine as a commercial product.

And they appended seven sub-zones onto the historic kind of part of Chianti. And they also failed to sufficiently and rigorously apply rules that would kind of regulate the wine so that it was as good as it was historically. So they basically allowed mass-marketed wine to be pawned off as Chianti. And that's how the wine region itself came to lose status globally. And we're going to talk about that in the context of our first wine here, which I think is really consistent with what most people think of when they imagine Chianti. This particular bottle, this is basically a hipster rebranding of the classic, 19th century's red sauce Italian in Fiasco Chianti, you know, kind of quintessential archetype. So this basket is called a Fiasco. It is made from swamp grass.

Making the Fiascos itself is an Italian tradition that stretches back to the days of the Decameron, so the 14th century. It was a way to basically reinforce, less expensive, less kind of cheaper glass. It was a way to blow a glass bottle that was spherical as opposed to flat, which is a harder production process and a way to stabilize the bottles on a table. And it should be said that, you know, this kind of looks cheap to us, you know, to this day. But, you know, in the 16th and 17th centuries, you know, both popes and peasants were drinking their wine out of Fiasco. Historically, the Fiascos would have extended all the way up the bottle.

But, when, you know, various merchants tried to create assorted any counterfeiting devices cheaply by affixing lead to the top of the bottles themselves, there was a move to, you know, bring the basket itself down the side of the bottle so they could affix said lead. But the Fiascos have survived mostly into the modern era as a marketing vehicle. Now, what about the wine contained therein? The wine contained corresponds more to a historical, historic recipe for Chianti than a kind of un, you know, adulterated version of the Sangiovese grape. So, historically, the recipe that we have for Chianti is derived from a wine, you know, kind of formulation that was devised by the Baron Bettino Ricasoli in the mid 19th century. He's a very important figure, Ricasoli, not only in Italian wine history, but in Italian history at all.

He was the prime minister of Italy. And, and he developed a modern recipe after reviving his family's estate. He was essentially a high-born Orcan who revived the estate, traveled Europe, implemented the best vineyard practices at his, you know, kind of family's historic vineyards. And he said that, you know, there are basically two ways to make good wine in Chianti. And one way was to take Sangiovese, which he considered, you know, the region's best native grape, and blend it with these other grapes that softened it. So, Sangiovese as a grape tends to produce wines, especially in a zone like Chianti that is much cooler, is defined by what, you know, in antiquity they called the mountains of Chianti. Grapes struggled to ripen outside of the most privileged south-facing sites.

So they would blend back grapes like Canaiolo, grapes like Colarino, and then white grapes like Trebbiano and Malvasia. And that was about freshening the wine and softening this harshly stringent acidic grape. And that gave you something, you know, that was paler in color and that was easier, easier drinking. Now, sadly, this model was debased and people ran with this diluted wine and made it on a commercial scale with incredibly high yields for all their grapes in a really cynical style that, you know, sadly hurt the name of Chianti as a brand. The great irony being that the Baron himself, Riccassoli said, you know, this recipe, you know, Sangiovese plus the occasional softening agent is good for fresh, younger wines.

But he also said that the most age-worthy wines could and should come from the best Sangiovese vines planted to the most privileged sites. It just so happens that people decided to run with the first recipe because it was easier, easier to extend as opposed to the one that required more scrupulous attention in the vineyard for the sake of aging. So it was not a single varietal entity. Things got further compounded when the Italian government established its designation of origin system. In the French, they call it the AOC system. In Italy, in France, it was adopted in the 1930s. Although the roots of it, you know, date back certainly to the 19th century, if not before, in Italy, that system wasn't created until 1963. It wasn't implemented in Chianti until 1967.

1967, the kind of the rub for more seriously minded producers in Chianti was that not only did the government say that you could blend white grapes in with your red, it said you had to. It said that to call your wine Chianti, you legally had to blend at least 10% white grape must in with your Sangiovese. So they prescribed this blended wine as the only wine that could be labeled Chianti. And that is why producers like the Antonelli family, that is, producers like the D'Anguido estate, looked to make wines outside the system. And that's why wines like Tignanello, which was first created in 1971, which is predicated entirely on red grapes, chiefly on Sangiovese. That's why wines like Salsiccia, which is predicated on Bordeaux varietals, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cab Franc.

That's why they came to the fore in the 70s, because the authorities had crowded them out of the market in Chianti proper. Now, that said, I think, you know, these are two wines that are made meticulously. This is a bougie straw basket wine, organic. It comes from an area on your map of Chianti, just east of the Classico zone. So that would be closer to Montevarchi here outside of Chianti Classico. And then you can actually see our other kind of wine of inquiry, Falsina, at the bottom of the map here. If I zoom in, Falsina is at the southern extremity, very close to Siena, much closer to Brunello. And as you go, it should be said, from the heart of the Classico zone and move your way south, the hills go from more steep and higher in elevation to much more gentle and rolling and lower in elevation.

So Falsina tends to produce wines that are softer and fuller-fruited than the wines of the zones to the north. And I think this is a really fun case study. So Falsina, starting in the 60s and 70s, really spearheaded this back to Sangiovese as a hundred percent constituent of the wine movement. And in the Classico zone, now it's actually illegal to add white grapes to the mix. So they have had this, you know, come-to-Jesus moment with their wines. And they've said that, you know, if we want folks to take our product seriously around the world, we need to make red wine entirely from red grapes. Now that said, you know, I think there is a place for the classic, you know, kind of Ricassoli easy drinking recipe as well.

And I think they're both enjoyable in and of their own right. You know, we are undogmatic here and I think they're both fun wines. Zoe, I've been talking for a good long while. I went like 30 minutes, which is, you know, somewhat embarrassing and hopefully folks aren't bored to tears. What are your tasting notes for these two wines? You know, what works for you about them? You know, how would you juxtapose them? I have always loved the Diamine. Back in the day, in the before times when we were a real restaurant, this was one of my favorite wines that we had by the glass. I love that it's so light and pretty and ethereal. It's just like bursting with raspberries and strawberries.

There's like a little bit of oregano if I like really want to pull hairs there, but really it's. But is it, is it really oregano or is it just because you think you're eating pizza or you think you're eating like a red sauce or ague? You know, I always wonder about those associations. Exactly. But it's so light and the searing acid is just like, it's so, so wonderful. Yeah. And not a, not a lick of tannins on it. You know, it is, it is, you know, smooth, approachable, easy drinking. It's not a wine necessarily that's built to last. But, you know, you can't really store it on its side anyway. So, you know, it is just kind of fresh and fun.

And I think the, the fiasco suits it as a, what about the Falsina as something a little more sturdy and serious? Yeah, definitely. Like much more intense fruits. It's very sappy as well. And then that's where I like those like very typical Chianti notes of, you know, like blackberries and blueberries, some prunes, and then all that like iron-sanguine feel to it as well. Yeah. Great. Totally. And, and, you know, for me, I like what you said about; you get much more density, much more extraction, you know, out of this wine. The color, you know, certainly a little darker for those of you at home, but again, you're in the Southern part of Chianti. There are a couple of different soils that are locally famous: Galestro and Alvarese.

Alvarese tend to be chalkier; Galestro tends to be kind of a bluer schist. But you get more clay in the Southern zone here. And as such, you know, you get a fullness to the wine that, you know, sometimes is, is, you know, very, you know, expressed very differently in the communes, villages to the North. But, you know, I think this is a sturdier wine. It has some tannic astringency to it, but it's certainly not unapproachable either. And I think, you know, as an introduction to the wines of the region, you could do a lot worse, you know, for something that costs, you know, $20, 20 some dollars. Any, any comments from, you know, the kids drinking at home? A lot about how the acid on the DMNA, just was very, very notable and was very unexpected.

I also think that that's compounded by the fact that it's a sleeper, that 14% alcohol. And so you're getting both of those textural elements pretty much on 11 out of a 10 scale. There's a good question about other wines in Italy that are red and white grape blends. Yeah. Wanted to talk about that. Well, actually, I mean, I think adding white to red is a lot more common than folks might imagine. And it actually can somewhat counterintuitively stabilize color in, in some red wines. And it, it also adds, you know, aromatic, you know, dimension to a lot of the wines. You know, I can't, I can think of a lot of Italian wines that are cherry red, you know, Chiarossa via Chiarosuolo, you know, Di Vittorio in Sicily or Chiarosuolo di Abruzzo on the, the Adriatic coast.

I can't honestly think of a ton of examples of Italian wines that historically feature co-ferments of red and white grapes. You know, I think historically there would have been just a lot more of that. You know, and, and Italy, you know, very much has a village wine tradition. So if you were making wine in your village, you know, you just happen to have a vineyard that, you know, had a little bit of both. And if the grapes were old enough, you know, Sangiovese, for instance, is a grape that has a lot of, you know, potential for, you know, clonal mutation and there are a lot of different versions. And anytime you have that, you know, every so often you get, you know, a random white vine that, you know, springs up in the mix and you tend not to worry too much about it.

So, you know, I'm sure a lot of the village wines were made that way, but I can't honestly off the top of my head think of another wine like Chianti that had a pre-prescribed recipe that, you know, legally mandated, you know, white grapes like Chianti did and still does in a larger zone or allows at the very least. Up to this day. Zoé, can you think of any? No. Yeah. I can't get that question in to you for a real reason. Yeah. Yeah. What else do you got? That's it for right now. Okay, go on. So we're going to kind of switch gears here and talk over about Chianti Classica versus these other historically important and well-known corners of the Sangiovese heartland of Tuscany, and three really like iconic bottlings here and three wines that you know I'm genuinely excited to taste with you all.

Before we get to them, just as a brief interlude, you know I like what Eric Asimov had to say about Chianti Classico. So he wrote a piece, I think last year, you know, that you know shared the same title as one of our flights. It was certainly like, it was essentially like, you know, Chianti beyond the basket, Chianti beyond the fiasco, Chianti emerges out of, you know, its kind of modern reputation as a bulk wine. And he's talking about the pleasure of good Chianti Classico. And he says, it's one of the most soulful wines I know. The best have a pure, deep red cherry flavor, sometimes deliciously tart or bittersweet, along with pronounced floral aromas and flavors and earthy minerality. The acidity is fresh and lively.

Tannins should be discernible, though not overly chewy, often with what I think of as a dusty quality, focusing the wine on the taste of the wine. And I think that's what I like about Chianti Classico. And for me, that's something Italian reds always have, is that bittersweet, is that, you know, you know, bright acid, but there's always this bitter herbal leaf. And for me, as someone that loves Amaro, it always brings Amaro to mind for me, you know, for better or worse. And, you know, excited for the sake of this next particular offering to focus on a Chianti Classico Reserva. So there are tiers in the Chianti classification scheme. You have Chianti Classico and then Classico Reserva. And it has everything to do with ultimately how long the wines are aged in barrel.

So in this case, Chianti Classico wines are required to spend a year. Reserva wines required to spend two years. And then there's an added tier. The Italians, as opposed to kind of starting from scratch and trying to define better, they're not going to be able to do that. They're going to be better for themselves, you know, how they want to organize things. They just kind of continue to add layers to their qualification system. And, you know, the latest layer for the sake of Chianti is the layer of Gran Selezione. And the Gran Selezione wines are essentially single vineyard offerings that are certified by a panel that are legally required to have four months of age. So the requirement there is essentially 30 months worth of age in barrel, as opposed to the two years for Reserva.

You know, that said, you know, these qualification systems only work if people are willing to ultimately abide by them and embrace them. And I don't know about you, Zoe, but I haven't seen a lot of Chianti Classico Gran Selezione wines on the market. I don't think, certainly, you know, more importantly, that consumers have really embraced it as, you know, something that they look for when they're, you know, seeking out the noble wines of the region, you know, for better or worse. But at any rate, we have a Reserva here, which is a widely used, you know, classification scheme for the wines of the region. And this comes from a really historic estate, Via de Ghecciano. It dates, the estate dates back to, you know, 1527.

They have records of exporting their wines to Great Britain as early as 1725, which is quite unusual for Chianti, not necessarily to export its wines as such, but to find a market for them in Great Britain that early would have been pretty ahead of the curve. Because, you know, even at that time, Great Britain, you know, would have been bringing in, you know, more German and French wine than, you know, Tuscan wine. In this case, we're dealing with 70, or 97, three splits of Cabernet Sauvignon, constituting, you know, a dash of salt for the 97% worth of Sangiovese. You have 20 months in a mixture of vessels, mostly 500 liter oak, and I would imagine most of that's neutral. And then some Barrique, 10%, 15% of the 10%, so that would be, that'd be 1.5%, I believe, is new oak.

So just, again, a dash, of salt, you know, much like the Cabernet Sauvignon is of new oak. And Sangiovese is a grape that can soak up new oak in a way that makes the wines, you know, more recognizably new oaked than they are recognizably Sangiovese, if that makes sense. So something you have to be careful with. But, you know, this is still, you know, mostly traditional with a dash of modernity. And a 2012, which was a historically warm vintage across the continent. I think you get a sense of that for the sake of the color and, you know, for the sake of the taste on this one. I think, you know, some of that dustiness that Asimov, you know, kind of pinpointed for the sake of this wine, I think you get, you know, a fuller sense of, for the sake of this particular offering.

Zoe, do you have any tasting notes for your sake for the Via de Gaggiano? For the Gaggiano is very powdery, chalky tannins. Super dusty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely some new oak on it. Not 100% obviously, but I feel like there has to be a little bit of new oak with that, like, charred vanilla pod that I'm getting that's just so, so fresh. But I really want to see where it goes in like 10 years from now, which is kind of the progression that I felt through the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano along with the Brunello. Yeah, and it's fascinating because from my money, it's still, you know, kind of very much tastes like a younger wine. And this billet, it should be said, is, you know, in, you know, kind of the southern reaches of the Chianti zone, so, you know, you're dealing with, you know, a set of conditions that's more favorable for fuller-bodied Chianti as opposed to, you know, some of the villages to the north that tend to produce the lighter, leaner wines.

And we'll get to taste some of those northern wines a little bit later in the class. We're going to move now, though, to Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, which is one of those hugely confusing, you know, kind of wine regions for the sake of those of you at home. This is a picture of the, the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. This is a picture of the, the map of the zone. And you can see Boscarelli, the, the winery is right here, you know, kind of further down in the plain, closer to, you know, the valley floor from the village itself. And then there's a separate subzone here as well on the other side of the valley. The region itself is historically cartoonishly beautiful. I'm going to post a picture of the town of Montepulciano.

And Montepulciano is kind of fascinating. I think of the, the three wines that we're drinking today, you know, for the sake of the flight, Vino Nobile, Brunello and Chianti. Vino Nobile is, is the less, the least well-known. They tend to refer to Sangiovese there as Pruno Gentile. And historically it was a blend there as well. But this is really the most historically significant corner of Tuscany for Sangiovese production. So, you know, for Chianti, you know, you're talking a region that, you know, didn't have its heyday until, you know, the, the 18th century. As early as the 16th century, the 15th century even, the wines of Montepulciano, as we saw in the opening poem, were being celebrated as the king of wines. Pope Paul III was a huge fan.

The Sienese elite were huge fans. Siena, south of Florence, had its heyday in the 13th and 14th centuries during the early Renaissance; Florence peaked in the, in the late Renaissance. And really, the story of Chianti in the fortified towns there is one of the Sienese and the Florentines, you know, fighting over those villages over the centuries. And that's why, you know, those fortress towns are as cartoonishly beautiful as they are to this day. But the local wine, it tends to be fuller in body than you'd find in Chianti, but still has some of the aromatic depth that you would find in the greatest wines of that region. And has some of the heft of Brunello, but slightly more reined in, you know, that said. And, and it's kind of a halfway house.

People, you know, very often say for the sake of Montepulciano that, you know, it has this like tea leaf-like dimension to it on the back end. And, you know, I think that's something that, you know, a lot of these Sangioveses have centrally on the finish that, you know, kind of bitter, you know, kind of, you know, crushed Bailey-like astringency. How did the Vino Nobile compare to the Chianti in your mind, so? I thought that it was much lighter and much brighter, but I did get more of the chestnut and like nice, bright, plummy aspects to it. It was definitely more, I guess, had greater finesse is the best way of saying that. We have a tasting note that definitely has a lot of anise on it as well in comparison, but it's just much more streamlined and light.

And again, I think it's just very young too, so I can't get as much, I think, as, as I want to. And, you know, I think this is stylistically a contradiction between these two wines, and you see that throughout the region. So historically, the tendency was to age these wines in large neutral oak and vessels. They're massive, and the oak is important less for its signature flavors than as a means of oxidizing the wine. As, you know, kind of wine tastes evolve, particularly in the 90s, you know, 80s and 90s, local producers tended to, you know, chase scores and age their wines in newer oak and in smaller vessels that imparted more heavy-handed oak flavor. I think you definitely get a sense of that for the sake of the Chianti we tried.

It feels, you know, stylistically more modern. Boscarelli is really celebrated within Vino, you know, the multiple-tasting region, but it's also, you know, the more traditional wine-making practices. So this is, you know, entirely in, you know, it's vessels of various size but, you know, more predominantly larger vessels that are entirely neutral and that purity of fruit in this wine. You know, part of that is subject to the fact that it's only 2017, but, you know, part of that is subject to the fact that they've used those larger vessels that don't impart flavor of their own. And, you know, for me, they claim, you know, that 15% oak, or whatever it on 10%. But I think the Chianti tastes like it has a little more new oak than that.

And, you know, I think especially, you know, I don't want to delve too deeply into national stereotyping, but, you know, these winemakers' claims about how their wines are aged, you know, you always need to take them with a grain of salt, not least of all when it's Italians who are making these claims. And, you know, I feel like the Via di Gaggiano is perceptively more of a new oak influence, whereas the Vino Multiple Ciano has this really lovely purity about it. And, you know, that herbal leap of Sangiovese comes out more in a really wonderful, you know, kind of way to my mind. Whereas I think, you know, with the Chianti, you get more of a pronounced oak influence on that wine. And then lastly, we're going to consider Montalcino.

And I have a map here. You know, we talked about, we talked about the qualification, the kind of, the means by which the Italians kind of entered the modern era and classified these individual zones. And Chianti was very problematic. But in Montalcino has been relatively straightforward. Montalcino doesn't have the history that Chianti does as a delimited winemaking region. Locals knew, have known for, you know, centuries that, you know, there is good wine to be had here. But in the modern era, really to one producer, Biondi Santi, that, you know, there is a thirst for these wines. And you can see Biondi Santi there in Montalcino itself at the top of the hill. You're at the top of the hill here. And then you can see our producer, Constanti, here for the sake of this particular map.

And Biondi Santi, they were, you know, these guardians of tradition making wine from a hundred percent Sangiovese. And that's significant because Brunello, which is a local synonym for Sangiovese. So instead of, you know, Prunohentile or Sangiovese in Chianti, they say Brunello, which essentially means kind of, you know, kind of little fat, you know, one, because, you know, these, this is Sangiovese Grosso, which is a larger, very clone of Sangiovese. And historically in the modern era, all of these wines were unadulterated Sangiovese. By law. And as such, the color tends to be lighter than the wines that are blended out. So if you see Brunello and it's inky in the glass, you know, it's probably likely that, you know, there's some malfeasance afoot. And there have been scandals in Brunello.

There was Brunello Gate in 2006 through 2008, you know, whereby the Italian government first, and then even the relevant US authorities, cast doubt on the fact that Brunellos were a hundred percent Sangiovese, but by law, it is a hundred percent Sangiovese wine. By law, it has a ridiculously long Ellevage, which is to say time in barrel, historically it would have been four years, all in neutral of Botte. They've whittled that down now to three and then two. But you know, these historically significant producers that were making wine and bottling it themselves, and really Biondi Santi was the first, dating continuously back through the tail end of the 19th century. But Costanti, the wine that we're drinking, has an equally long history that dates back just as far.

It just so happens that they were only really bottling these wines for friends. They didn't start commercial production until after World War II. What's significant in Brunello is where the vineyards are located. So you see the another cartoonishly beautiful hilltop town here. But historically, the greatest wines came from the top of this hill. But in the modern era, the appellation, you know, the designation of origin was extended to include vineyards at the bottom of this hill as well. And the two wines are very different. The wines at the top tend to be much higher in acid, much more elegant. The wines at the bottom, you know, tend to conform more to the stereotype of the like big fucking red wines that people were drinking. And so, you know, it's a very different kind of wine.

Or into in the 80s and 90s and early aughts. You know, people tended also to eschew the larger oak boutiques for the sake of embracing, you know, this newer breed of wineries as these wineries kind of grew. And, you know, this is a zone that has exploded, literally exploded. So, you know, in 1960, there were 11 winemakers commercially bottling wine, including Biondi Santi and including Costanti. And they occupied 157 acres. 11 producers, 157 acres. Now, there are over 180 producers occupying almost 5,000 acres. That's crazy. That's exponential growth. And, you know, they can't actually, because Brunello is an UNESCO World Heritage Site, they can't, you know, expand anymore. So all of the acreage they can devote to vines has been devoted to vines, which is also part of the reason that these wines are so fucking expensive.

But, you know, Brunello, much more successfully, for whatever reason, than Chianti, has captured, you know, has gained traction internationally as one of these, like, cult entities, as a wine that people collect, as a wine that people immediately recognize as, you know, a luxury brand. And, you know, those things, they tend to, you know, be as much about marketing, as much about scarcity, as they are about the, you know, intrinsic, you know, worth of the wines. But it should be said that Costanti here, you know, they're very much old school. You know, I think people would be, you know, surprised by how brick red this wine is in the glass. And, albeit, you know, fuller embodied at 14%, how elegant it is and how herbal it is.

Zoe, were you pleasantly surprised by the freshness of this wine? Absolutely. Super sour cherry, super fresh. I had a lot of blackberry, little touch of orange. I had a lot of oak, but so powerful in comparison to the Vina Nobile, but just lovely. And what's kind of crazy for me is that, you know, seemingly almost, you know, we're going from, you know, ostensibly a cooler region to one that occupies a halfway house, to one that, you know, you know, makes the most robust wines. And I feel like for the sake of the flight, things have gotten progressively more elegant and delicate. And, you know, I don't know how much that says about. You know, the innate qualities of these designations of origin.

I think it says as much about the, you know, unique situation of the vineyards and also the, you know, abilities of the winemakers. And, you know, this is an expensive wine. You know, it retails for, you know, well over $100, even with a really aggressive retail markup. But, you know, it is one of those wines that I think justifies the price tag. And, you know, I think it's a great wine. You know, it is a, it's one of those, for me, it's like my favorite kind of quote unquote big fucking red wine. Because, you know, it is satisfyingly toothsome. But, you know, it's that like, you know, you know, velvet glove and an iron fist, you know, kind of thing where, you know, it's big, but it's light on its feet.

You know, it's like the dancing hippos. You know, it just, it does what it does, but, you know, it does it so beautifully. You know, it's like swearing in Italian. You know, it's just like, it's like so loud. But so poetic, you know, by the same, you know, in the same way that I think, you know, is what, you know, great wine should be. You know, and in the same way that, you know, Riesling sometimes can be so delicate, but so powerful. You know, this wine kind of does, you know, the yin to that yang. You know, it's so powerful immediately, but so delicate and precise by the same token. Any comments about the Flighto or anything else that's, you know. Particularly relevant or irreverent for the sake of our dialogue?

Yeah, absolutely. I love the idea of saying dancing hippo for the wine, by the way. We have a comment that it should be its own section in the wine store as well for the Velvet Glove, Iron Fist types of wines. How long do you think that Brunellos should sell for? Yeah, I mean, that's a really, that's a great question, you know. And for me, the 2015 on this particular, in this particular instance is showing really well. I'm a big believer that, you know, if a wine is not enjoyable in its youth, then, you know, no amount of time will make it enjoyable in, you know, its older age. You know, that said, you know, if you don't like tannins on a wine, then sometimes it definitely pays to play, you know, that waiting game for the sake of these offerings.

You know, I think that. You don't, you know, have to lay down these wines. I think part of, you know, the, you know, majesty of Brunello is that legally these are wines that they wait to release until they think they're worth drinking by law. You know, so you shouldn't have to wait on them. And I find the wines, you know, from, you know, the Biondi Santi, from the Costantis of the world, you know, they are enjoyable in their youth. But there's certainly things that you can lay down for the better part of two decades to three decades. You know, I think, you know, the most important criteria here being just the storage. So, you know, how you age a wine is, you know, vastly more important than the mere fact of aging it.

And, you know, old wine is just hugely fragile. And, you know, aging, even aging something at home in a small, you know, wine fridge, you know, kind of is less. You know, ideal than, you know, having a wine stay at the cellar and getting it directly from, you know, an individual producer. So, you know, that, you know, kind of individual, you know, arc of how was this wine treated? Where was it stored? Supersedes, you know, these broader, you know, kind of criteria considerations of age ability. But, you know, something like this, you should be able to enjoy in, you know, 2050. If you're. If you're treating it right. But, you know, by the same token, you don't have to. You don't have to. I think you can.

But, you know, I don't believe that, you know, you're doing this wine a disservice by opening it today and enjoying it today. You should be able to do both. And I think those are the most, you know, some of the most profound drinking experiences that you can have is being able to do both. Being able to, you know, get a few bottles of something and, you know, opening one now. And then, you know, maybe a couple years from now. For something that's special, you know, marking time with the wine and, you know, treating it as a living thing that it is and letting it age with you and understanding how, you know, maybe that, you know, it's like maybe my 18 year old self. Maybe it was like a little too much.

Maybe I was too into my feelings. You know, maybe, you know, I was, you know, now I look back at that and I was like, what, you know, what a loser. But by the same token, you know, I like to think, you know, other things that I was doing. Yeah, it's a pretty, pretty cool dude. You know, and then like the mid-20s version of yourself. Oh, yeah, maybe, maybe he looks a little lost. Maybe that wine is going through, you know, a dumb phase. Maybe we shouldn't be drinking this. And then, you know, hopefully now, you know, we're self-actualizing or something along those lines. But, you know, wines are like people that way. And I think they should be appreciated as such as opposed to, you know, dogmatically saying that like, you know, you know, yes or no, you should be drinking this.

You know, I want, I want all people, you know, when they're drinking wine to be living. The mystery as opposed to, you know, chasing the best experience, you know, try it. It's more, much more poetic, much more, you know, illuminating to, you know, try to understand the nature of the experience as to, as opposed to, you know, ascribing a point score to it or, you know, some, you know, value to it, you know, for better or worse. That was very beautiful. I think everyone enjoyed that. It reminds me of; it reminds me of the; there's this like a great Chappelle show skit. Where he's like Dave Chappelle through the ages and, you know, he's looking back on his younger self and that, that, that skit, you know, as do many Chappelle's go, skits resonate with me quite a bit.

And, you know, I do like personifying wine and I think it is, is really important to understand wine as a living thing because, you know, not all wine is a living thing. I think, you know, Yellowtail is dead. You know, it is long since dead to the world. You know, that is; there are a lot of wines. You know, those are, they're alcoholic beverages, but they're like alcoholic soft drinks. They're not wines. You know, when I say 'wine' and when I say 'wine' is a living thing, I'm talking about wines that, you know, are made by people with love on, you know, almost exclusively a smaller scale and express a sense of place. Now, you know, that sense of place may defy us.

You know, we may be more or less attuned to sussing it out, but, you know, it's there. And sadly, that's not the case. You know, that's actually like a really tiny sliver, it's a much smaller sliver of the wine, you know, you know, market than the vast universe of wines. And I'm not saying like, sometimes I enjoy dead wines too, you know, like sometimes, you know, mass marketed, you know, wine flavored drinks or wine like soft drink things are enjoyable and they have their place. But, you know, when I'm talking about wine, you know, you know, as a poetic living being, you know, this is, this is what I'm talking about. So, wine is a living thing. We'll get back to more questions.

I just want to tackle these last two, because I was pleasantly surprised that people wanted to drink these. And, you know, when I, you know, for the sake of, you know, those of you participating remotely, you don't, you know, get to appreciate this quite as much. But, you know, when I buy wine for the store, you know, I'm throwing a lot of stuff at the wall. And sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised that whole lot of things sell and, you know, sometimes things, you know, don't sell. And I think the fact that I. I described this as Sangiovese Gonçalves, you know, people wanted to lean into that. And so these wines sold better than I anticipated. And I was stoked about that, because they're some of my favorite expressions of, you know, wine from this grape.

So, first, this is the broader zone of Chianti, and I referenced the seven sub zones. So, you have Châali Artini, Colicinesi; actually, Colicinesi actually makes some really kick-ass wines, but Chianti Rufina is the one we're concerned with first. It is kind of just directly due east of Florence. It's even higher in elevation in many places than the Classico zone. So, La Piana is one of the foremost producers, pretty much the foremost producer of roughly two dozen in Rufina. And I love this wine. It tastes like tea finings, but in a really cool way. I love the way it leans into the herbal persona. Of Chianti, and actually, you can see it on the Classico map as well. It is basically in kind of like the westerly corner of this easterly zone.

So, what do you like about this particular offering? Well, having the Il Borghetto in comparison, and having the Il Borghetto be like so Burgundian in style, as I hate to say, but it's totally true. The beef stock, the mushroom, still very pretty floral. So, then all that stuff. That whole cluster. But then in comparison to the Salva Piana, which is, you know, fresh wild berries to me, but like the thorn and the bush, I get like more of those like tobacco sweet, tobacco leaves as well, along with like the theme of chestnut around the board. Your tasting notes are always better than mine, Zoe. It should be said, because you said the chestnut thing, and that's just like, that took me to this chestnuts roasting on the streets of Paris place that I want to live in.

Well, I still don't even know if that's an associative property or not. No, no, no. I think, actually, I genuinely enjoy tasting with other people, because I find very often, you know, maybe it's psychological, but you are very good at, you know, teasing out tasting notes. And, you know, I do find it, you know, it's like a ping. You know, it's like that, oh, that's that thing I couldn't put my thumb on that was there the whole time. And I think that like a chestnut, you know, piece. And then, you know, this is a wine that leads with herbs. You know, there's fruit there. But, you know, for me, you know, I think it's herbal first and then fruity secondarily. Super old school, neutral oak on the vinification. And I love this wine.

And, you know, it is, you know, you're talking, I mean, in the interest of full disclosure, I probably pay like $14, $15 for this from a wholesaler. You know, this is stupidly good. And, you know, I defy you to find, you know, a wine that is this, you know, just multifaceted, you know, and refreshing, honestly, you know, at this kind of price point. I really adore it. And then this one's a little more expensive. But what's cool about it is, you know, on the nerdy winemaking side is that it's fully whole-cluster. So most red wines before they're added to the fermentation vessel are taken off the stems. That said, the stems very often have a lot to add to the mix with some grapes more than others.

And it's fascinating to me because Sangiovese is a grape that, you know, thrives in a lot of these warmer climates. So this is a producer that they're further north in the Chianti zone. But, you know, you're in a zone that is benefiting from global warming. And so there's less of a struggle to ripen grapes. And you're getting, you know, stems that are fully what's called lignified. That refers to stems going from green to brown. And usually when you throw grapes in whole cluster, which entails just basically, you know, throwing a whole bunch of grapes into a fermentation vessel as opposed to plucking them from the stems. You want lignified stems because they contribute, you know, more kind of like spicy peppery aromatics as opposed to astringent greenness. And I think that's pretty intuitive.

But any time one of your nerdy winemaking friends talks about lignification of stems, you know what they're talking about. It's an annoying word. I won't use it anymore. I promise. But Sangiovese, I think, you know, should be added to the mix with stems more often than it is. Stems have this like counterintuitive effect on a wine. They both dampen acidity and dampen the production of alcohol in a really interesting way. Just because of the way they contribute potassium and other chemical constituents to wine during the fermentation process. And because of the way that they allow the, you know, ferment to ferment. To oxidate and aerate. And this feels like a herbal softer Chianti in a Burgundian way. As you alluded to. And that whole stemmy thing is something that they do very often in Burgundy.

And then cement that alert. This is a wine that is aged in cement. And, you know, that tends to, you know, in my mind, you know, kind of, it can soften the wine. But I think it adds this kind of like primacy to some of the more, you know. You know, it's kind of secondary and tertiary tones. So it makes a wine a little more herbal. A little more, you know, bright briny than it would have been otherwise. And, you know, these are both wines that, you know, I think, I like to think that I would blind this as Chianti. I don't know what I'd blind this as. You know, I was talking, you know, Zoe, we were talking about this.

And, you know, if someone told me after the fact that it was Sangiovese, then I think I would like totally perk up. But, you know, I might guess that it was Cognoni. I might guess it was something else. Just because of, you know. The way it expresses on the palate. You know, it's bright and acid driven. But, you know, the astringency is not quite severe. You know, there's a chewiness to it. And an elegance to it that, you know, feels apart from the wines of the region. And as such, it should be said that this cannot be certified as Chianti Classico because it doesn't see any oak. But also because this tasting panel wouldn't sign off on it locally as representative of the Chianti Classico Subzone. Which is fascinating.

So, you know, these are both kind of Chianti's off the beaten path. In a lovely way. And I think part of the really cool thing about Italy is it is a bit anarchic. And, you know, they tend to add layers upon layers of bureaucracy to the mix. Without stopping to, you know, just kind of fully codify the system. Or reorganize. Or who's the lady? The lady that, like, wants people to simplify their lives and reorganize everything? Marie Kondo. Yeah, I feel like the Italians need their own Marie Kondo, like, you know, in their bureaucratic life. But, you know, they're not about that. And that, I think, especially when you're learning wine, can be really maddening. But I think, like, as you dive deeper into it, you just learn that, you know, there's so much great juice to be had.

You know, who cares if, you know, we can't make any sense of it. What do you have for a question, Zoe? Oh, something to bring up. Josh and Rachel had a great point that they opened up their bottles about an hour and a half earlier. So the Brunello is tasting much different as it evolves. If you wanted to maybe speak to oxidation after. Yeah, I mean, so, you know, old wine very much genie in a bottle scenario. Especially when it is treated with a bit of sulfur prior to bottling. You know, these are, you know, wines that are more or less expressive depending on a real sweet spot. In terms of, you know, how these various, you know, ultimately very fragile chemical constituents that, you know, kind of make their way to our, you know, kind of olfactory bulb.

You know, they express very differently depending on how they're exposed to oxygen. Some of them shut down really quickly. Some of them open really early. And some of them need, require a bit of oxygen. Especially early in their life. And Brunello, young Brunello, definitely a wine that benefits from more exposure to oxygen early in its life. And I will say, you know, these, the three wines we tasted for the sake of the flight in particular, they all still taste like they're on the young side of their progression. And I will say that was one of my favorite things about tasting. This is, you know, shameless self-promotion and referencing a former class with Mark Hosher. But we got to taste through these different vintages of the Chateau Moussard. And we tasted 1997, 2000, and 2003.

And between the 2000 and the 2003, there was this real phase shift in the wine from kind of older wine to younger wine. And I think, you know, people assume that, you know, with aging in wine, it's just even curving. But I do find that that's not the case. You know, wines pivot, you know, quickly and suddenly. And, you know, they also plateau. And so, you know, I think, you know, very often a wine will go from a younger version of itself to an older version of itself, you know, in an instant. And then it will kind of, you know, stay in the same place for a while. And, you know, I think these are all wines that are still, you know, either, you know, youthful or early adolescent.

And have yet to graduate to that older wine status. And as such, there are definitely wines that, you know, like a gem-like bottle, need to be handled the right way for the sake of oxygenation. That was terrible. I'm sorry. I apologize to all of you for that reference. But hopefully, Xtina is listening right now. So, there you go. What else do you have? Could you compare and contrast the aging requirements and how bottles are held back between Barolo, using Nebbiolo versus Sangiovese? Yes, and no. So, yes, insofar as historically, I think. So, it should be said that just in terms of how I relate to wine and what I find interesting about wine, you know, aging requirements like to pass, to become like a master Sommelier, you know, is something that you have to pour over.

Something you get quizzed on. Whatever. It's not something that I find terribly interesting. You know, it's something that, you know, for me, kind of suits the whims of, you know, these various bureaucratic entities across disparate zones of the old world in particular. More than it does, you know, satisfying the drinking public. And then scientifically for me, I find, you know, a lot of other aspects of the way that wine is made. You know. Just in terms of like, you know, how things interact one to another, you know, during fermentation, you know, how different grapes relate one to the other, you know. And then I think there's a, you know, there are bigger questions of, you know, for the sake of different vessels, how do wines age as opposed to for the sake of, you know, 24 versus 36 months in oak, you know.

And so, it's a blind spot. I'm sorry. Probably going to give everyone the wrong answer. But I will follow up with the right answer later. To the best of my knowledge. So, I think the, the, the, the, kind of gold standard in Barolo is three years worth of age prior to release. And that's historic standard. That has been gradually whittled down for the sake of more modern producers that want to age and break and make wine that's more approachable earlier in its use. So, I think it's like two years now. Plus additional time in bottle. Historically, Chianti was all over the place. But it's a year for the entry-level wines. Two years for the Reservas. And then 30 months for the Grands Etats.

And then in Brunello, Brunello prides itself on having the most stringent aging requirements in the world. Historically, it was four years in bottle. In the modern era, that's been whittled down to like three and then two years, to the best of my knowledge. You know, again, like, the, the devil is in the details here, though. So, you know, what you're aging a wine in is much more important than, you know, the mere fact of a number of months or years that you're aging it. And then, significantly, also, like, how many times are you transferring it from one vessel to another? Because that is much more significant as a process of adding oxygen to a wine than other processes. And then, you know, there's so many, you know, variables, you know, that, you know, are more significant.

Than the mere fact of what some, you know, guy in an Italian, you know, office, you know, deems worthy for the sake of wines. Which is not to diminish the question, you know, at all. Because, you know, these things are worth knowing. And especially if, you know, you want to get, you know, your Master Somme certification. These are things that you have to know. But, honestly, you know, they're things that I would rather, you know, read about. And, you know, designate to the, like, less essential, you know. Kind of compartments of my gray matter. That was a terrible answer. What else do you have, Zoe? It was great. I thought it was great. What dead wines do you suggest? And when was the last time that you drank Yellowtail after saying that?

Oh, great question. So, excellent. Actually, excellent question. Bingo. So, or this is a Jameson. That's a bingo. So. I actually tasted. I don't know if it was here or at Comey. I tasted the staff on Chardonnay. And I threw Yellowtail into the mix. As an oaked example of Chardonnay. What was really horrifying about the tasting is, you know, people love to throw out those tastings. So, I did at Tail of Goat, we did a lager tasting. We did a Tecate versus German non-alcoholic beer tasting. And they, it was like split. People couldn't tell which was which. It was divided evenly. And this, for those of you, this is Bitburger Drive was the non-alcoholic beer. People couldn't tell one from the next. And I almost felt like I was, you know, carrying out a commercial for Bitburger Drive.

And I had to assure people that this was not a German beer commercial. The horrifying thing about Yellowtail is people immediately recognized Yellowtail. And it was because it just tasted so manipulated. It tasted like oak chips and, you know, I don't know, like just horrible chemical additions. And maybe, they don't have to capitalize in Australia, but probably watered back. It was just, it tasted manipulated and cynical in the worst possible way. It tasted, again, it tasted like wine-flavored product more than wine. And I think actually, like, that's just a wine that, and actually, like, it got good scores in its infancy. It's just, they're making so much of it now that's impossible to make at scale in a good way. I think some grapes do better than others for the sake of wine-flavored beverages.

So, like, Pinot is terrible as a wine-flavored beverage. Pinot Grigio does pretty well as a wine-flavored beverage. It's the chicken breast of the wine world. You know, you could throw it on a forming grill and it'll be like, you know, fine. You know, it'll be okay. I'll drink it at a wedding. Mazel tov. You know, red wine, I think, is a lot harder to do well in a, you know, kind of, you know, wine-flavored beverage context, which is why I always want to add bubbles to things because bubbles make them, you know, that much more palatable. You know, Sabi Bee actually is, like, somewhat enjoyable as a wine-flavored beverage. Because most of it comes from New Zealand and actually the Kiwis; they do pretty well with wine-flavored beverages.

They make a shit ton of wine, but it's actually mostly wine, even though it's obnoxious. But it's still kind of good and at least it's refreshing. And, you know, for me, at the very end of the day, like, that's what I want out of my wine-flavored beverage. I'm trying to think of, like, a wine-flavored thing, red, that I would, like, reflexively enjoy. The Italians do it pretty well. Like, some of the Sardinians, like, wine-flavored beverages are pretty good. The wines are okay. You know, I don't know. They just get, you get, red wines just, they just go to this, like, raisinated place that I don't enjoy. You know, some people want to drink that. Like, more power to them. You know, it's totally like a personal taste thing.

But you know, and then part of it, too, is you know the fact that it's something that I privilege such as I do. But at the end of the day, like especially in, like a catering, like catered wedding sense, I would rather drink you know cheap Mexican lager than bad wine. Because I think cheap beer is just it's just like a better product you know in terms of value added than cheap wine. I feel very strongly about that. I'm going to toast. We haven't toasted yet. And Heidi in particular gets very upset if we don't toast alone together. As always, I want to celebrate Sangiovese, maddening as it is, paired with pleasure as it is. A grape that embodies so much of what I love.

About wine, which is that, you know, it is both a pleasure to peasants and poets. It is something, you know, equally, you know, thirst-quenching as profound and age-worthy. And, you know, we should be able to have both under the same umbrella. So cheers to you all joining us. Did you have anything else for Zoe? No, that's all I got. Oh, wow. That was perfect. And Zoe, you're in the shadows. You're entering your vampire state, for better or worse. The staff has cut you off. Thank you, one and all, for hanging out this long. If you had, big ups to the hackers for taking me off mute at the beginning of this lesson. Just as a bit of foreshadowing, we're going to be tackling Aglianico next week, which is kind of the least known of the noble Italian grapes.

But honestly, the one I'm kind of most excited about, because I came of age as a wine drinker, drinking southern Italian wines at Two Amy's, and it's been a grape that I've always really adored. And thereafter, we're going to have a very special edition of Wine School, kind of like an after-school special, but devoted to wine and food pairing. And we're going to raise a little money for a mental health nonprofit. Thank you. Thanks, Steve, for being so close to my heart. So, you know, coming attractions for you all. I hope you have a lovely week in the midst of the magical realist novel that we were all living, and take pleasure in wine and the other simple pleasures in life. My best wishes and love to you all. Cheers.