Grillo

S

SFJoe

Joe Dougherty
OK, so my experience with varietal grillo is pretty limited. Grappoli del Grillo I've had a few times and loved. After that...I can't recall.

A grillo tonight smelled totally of NZ SB--the 2008 Di Giovanna. Is that a yeast effect as I suspect, or is that a weird varietal expression, or do they blend?
 
Yeah, I know what you mean about that one. It has a weird, dirty character to my palate. Some people (who have written books) really dig on it. Not for me.

Serramarrocco is good. Feudo Montoni is decent. De Bartoli is without peer.
 
Levi, or other wise folk,

any notion how the Di Giovanna gets to be that way? Any other grillos smell like SB to you?

I couldn't finish my pour of this.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
It's not much but it's official.
Click to expand...
Well, this seems pretty likely:
"Inoculation of selected yeasts"

Is 25 August a typical date to start harvest in Sicily? I don't want to get all dogmatic about hang time, it's really a question of what kind of wine you make in the end, but is that early for the native varieties?
 
Oh, lawdy. Riccardo Cotarella Himself.

But thanks for the research.

How does Cotarella feel about flavorsome yeast in general, do we know?
 
Grillo for me tends to recall Pinot Blanc in it's variations rather than Sauvignon Blanc. It has the ability to have mineral character, but it tends towards a boardness on the palate. At the same time, it is usually fairly mute on the nose, even with the finest examples. Those producers looking for more of a floral character might blend Inzolia with Grillo to achieve it. Grillo is quite widely planted in northwestern Sicilia, being as it is, a mainstay of Marsala production.

See A16: Food + Wine for loving and frequent references to Di Giovanna. There is some other book, too. I'll have to double check before I can say which. Repeatedly at the local distributor's tastings I have found the range of wines not to my liking. I was told that the winery recently completed biodynamic certification.
 
California (most of it) falls in the latitude range of Sicily. End of August is ripening for early varieties: for me it means Gamay, and when I was making it, Pinot Gris.
 
In another vein, more like the boatloads of cheap crap, I had the Feudo Arancio Grillo (vintage 2005?) and found it very tolerable for the $4.99 I paid for it. Decent floral aromatics, nice little green streak, more acid than expected. Noone's going to mistake this wine for something from the Loire or anything, but acidity approaches balance. Now at $9.99 or SRP it's not nearly as good a deal, but far more drinkable and enjoyable than I'm used to seeing for $5.

If this costs me my hipster credentials, I'll happily trade them in, especially if it helps my wife finish writing her dissertation...

cheers,

Kevin
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Oh, lawdy. Riccardo Cotarella Himself.

But thanks for the research.

How does Cotarella feel about flavorsome yeast in general, do we know?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that 'selected yeast' should be assumed to be chosen to add aroma or flavor; for example I asked one of my Alto Adige producers if they used selected yeasts* and he said yes, he did, but was careful to point out that he used three different yeasts for each wine and avoided the types that are know to add aroma.

*Guilhaume from Terroir had been told by the previous importer that the wine was fermented with indigenous yeasts...
 
originally posted by Oliver McCrum:

I'm not sure that 'selected yeast' should be assumed to be chosen to add aroma or flavor;
Click to expand...
I don't make that assumption. It was just one hypothesis about how the wine got to taste the way it did.

Which I'm still curious about.
 
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