Robert Vodicka
Robert Vodicka
I have been buying wines that likely are considered too old (and have therefore been priced low) just to give them a swirl (as well as a sniff and a sip or a gulp). I seemed to have embarked on this at about the same time as the dude from Norway who wrote of doing something similar recently (isn’t it good/a post from a Norwegian dude?) Below are the results of this kind of experiment with wines from Paolo Bea. The designations on the labels, as far as I can tell, do not match current bottlings but I believe that these were all lower-level offerings. Perhaps others with longer-term knowledge of Bea can contribute more information on this. I didn’t plan this but some of these notes might have some bearing on a recent complaint about Bea’s wines not aging well and a thread about aging Chianti, with Mr. Dalton I believe, suggesting that people wishing to avoid what he termed, the “Tuscan Tax,” look to Sangiovese from Umbria among other regions. Because I paid about $20 a bottle for these wines, I suggest that they were not subject to any “Tuscan Tax” of even a Bea Burden.
Wines drunk between March 2 March 4, 2012
1987 Paolo Bea Rosso di Montefalco According to the label: 70% Sangiovese, 15% Montepulciano and Trebbiano (does not say how much of each) and 15% Sagrantino. Brick with a brown tinge. Redder than I might have expected at this age though the color was not especially deep. Nose had cherries and damp earth/forest. Fruitier than I would have guessed but not cloyingly so. In the mouth, it was balanced though not particularly nuanced with some nice acidity to lift the finish. The fruit came out even more over the next 48 hours but remained in balance with the acidity. I was surprised at how alive this wine was. Perhaps like old-fashioned Chianti but maybe few people ever made them like this.
1990 Paolo Bea Montefalco Rosso According to the label: Sangiovese, Montepulciano and Sagrantino but no percentages given. I can’t read Italian but the label seems to indicate that this comes from San Valentino. So, it may be the equivalent of the wine that now has that name. Slightly deeper color than the 1987 with more red but still brown at the edge. Nose was muted and not much ever emerged which, I suppose, means that it was not muted, because that would imply that something blocked the aroma, but just did not have all that much to offer. With a fair amount of swirling and time, some cherry notes emerged but they were faint. This seemed most of the way gone. There was acid holding it together but it was not balanced. Over two days, the acid was almost all that was left.
1991 Paolo Bea Rosso (labeled as a vino da tavola). Grapes listed as Sagrantino, Sangiovese and Montepluciano in that order with no percentages given. Lightest and brownest of the three with some red hanging in there. Some cherries in the nose and bretty as hell. Initially, there was a moldy cardboard smell but that blew off. The funk, however, remained. Fruit was there on the palate and it was lively and funky. Both the fruit and the stink held for two days before I finished the bottle. I liked this wine the best out of the three and it was the most interesting for me. It paired really well with some funky Pecorino Toscano and held up to pasta e fagioli. However, I can imagine some people offering it as Exhibit A in a case against this kind of winemaking. I am interested in the thoughts of people who know more about chemistry than I do (my memories of my high school chemistry class seem to be limited to throwing around the wooden balls meant to stand in for atoms in constructing models of molecules, and 6.02 x 1023, the number of atoms in an average avocado or something like that). What creates these kinds of characteristics and how much comes from what happens before bottling and how much after?
Wines drunk between March 2 March 4, 2012
1987 Paolo Bea Rosso di Montefalco According to the label: 70% Sangiovese, 15% Montepulciano and Trebbiano (does not say how much of each) and 15% Sagrantino. Brick with a brown tinge. Redder than I might have expected at this age though the color was not especially deep. Nose had cherries and damp earth/forest. Fruitier than I would have guessed but not cloyingly so. In the mouth, it was balanced though not particularly nuanced with some nice acidity to lift the finish. The fruit came out even more over the next 48 hours but remained in balance with the acidity. I was surprised at how alive this wine was. Perhaps like old-fashioned Chianti but maybe few people ever made them like this.
1990 Paolo Bea Montefalco Rosso According to the label: Sangiovese, Montepulciano and Sagrantino but no percentages given. I can’t read Italian but the label seems to indicate that this comes from San Valentino. So, it may be the equivalent of the wine that now has that name. Slightly deeper color than the 1987 with more red but still brown at the edge. Nose was muted and not much ever emerged which, I suppose, means that it was not muted, because that would imply that something blocked the aroma, but just did not have all that much to offer. With a fair amount of swirling and time, some cherry notes emerged but they were faint. This seemed most of the way gone. There was acid holding it together but it was not balanced. Over two days, the acid was almost all that was left.
1991 Paolo Bea Rosso (labeled as a vino da tavola). Grapes listed as Sagrantino, Sangiovese and Montepluciano in that order with no percentages given. Lightest and brownest of the three with some red hanging in there. Some cherries in the nose and bretty as hell. Initially, there was a moldy cardboard smell but that blew off. The funk, however, remained. Fruit was there on the palate and it was lively and funky. Both the fruit and the stink held for two days before I finished the bottle. I liked this wine the best out of the three and it was the most interesting for me. It paired really well with some funky Pecorino Toscano and held up to pasta e fagioli. However, I can imagine some people offering it as Exhibit A in a case against this kind of winemaking. I am interested in the thoughts of people who know more about chemistry than I do (my memories of my high school chemistry class seem to be limited to throwing around the wooden balls meant to stand in for atoms in constructing models of molecules, and 6.02 x 1023, the number of atoms in an average avocado or something like that). What creates these kinds of characteristics and how much comes from what happens before bottling and how much after?