+MUST TRY+Vernaccia di San Gimignano (by Fontaleoni)
Italy: San Gimignano (Siena Province), Tuscany
100% Vernaccia
2009
89 pts
$13.99
Wow! If you like a gentle floral bitterness (soft) in your white, along with a distinct nuttiness and a smooth dry finish (lingering minerals), this wine is for you! The Fontaleoni Vernaccia also features apple juice throughout. That's a lot going on for fourteen bucks, and it all works together well. The length is also quite good. Picked this up at Kafka Wines on Halsted last night, never having heard of the Vernaccia varietal. Just coincidentally, Dana and I were talking a few hours before about a possible visit to the Medieval town of San Gimignano in Tuscany, and when I saw this wine from the same town, well...I had to give it a shot. And am I glad I did. Turns out Vernaccia was the first wine to earn Italy's D.O.C. status back in the sixties, and has a history possibly dating back to the Etruscans (and Medieval Popes and Kings loved the stuff). The name may reference the Latin word for "vernacular," or local, or perhaps the beautiful Cinque Terre village of Vernazza, with the grape, some suggest, getting its start in Liguria before being transplanted to Tuscany. Either way, this is a new and exciting varietal for me, and one I look forward to exploring further. At Kafka, they've placed the wine under the "Fruity" section, but I'm not sure that's where it belongs. I get more flowers and minerals and nuts than fruit, although the fruit is there. I highly recommend this one!
No comments:
Post a Comment