Cole Kendall
Cole Kendall
Last Friday I had the great honor to visit the top producer of Italy's smallest DOCG, Manuel Biava at Az Agr Biava (http://www.aziendabiava.it/).
I met Luca/Zul at the Bergamo train station and we drove around 15 minutes to Scanzrosciate (a merger of the two towns, Scanzo and Rosciate, that happened in the 1920s). We went directly to the domaine where we met Manuel Biava.
The Scanzo vineyards are located on a fairly steep hill and the only wine produced is a red passito version of moscato. Red moscato is a difficult grape to vinify passito style, as it is fairly acidic. While production is pretty small (I found an estimate of 60,000 bottles for all producers), the wine was brought to the court of Catherine the Great by local architect Giacomo Quarenghi.
Zul could not resist bringing a few wines, so along with some lovely local salumi we had:
Faccoli 2013 Frnciacorta Rose' Brut a delicious rich wine (actually extra-brut)
Biava 2014 Moscato di Scanzo Secco; in years when the grapes do not get to the point where you can make passito wines, the juice is typically distilled into a marc/grappa. Manuel has experimented with a nonDOCG (obviously) dry wine. This light lovely version of dry red moscato was a very pleasant quaffer.
Biava 2012 Moscato di Scanzo Passito (barrel sample) and Biava 1990 Moscato di Scanzo were fascinating (photo below). The wine obviously evolves very slowly as the differences between the two wines were very modest. These wines had the typical aromas of incense, cinnamon and hints of sage. The 2012 was less developed than the older wine but is clearly heading in the same direction. The 1990 seemed much younger and appears to age much more slowly than other passito wines I have had (red and white).
Mozzi Sassella Riserva 'Grisone' 2011 was classic nebbiolo, with roses, cherry and tar.
Many thanks to Luca and Manuel for the memorable evening.
I met Luca/Zul at the Bergamo train station and we drove around 15 minutes to Scanzrosciate (a merger of the two towns, Scanzo and Rosciate, that happened in the 1920s). We went directly to the domaine where we met Manuel Biava.
Zul could not resist bringing a few wines, so along with some lovely local salumi we had:
Faccoli 2013 Frnciacorta Rose' Brut a delicious rich wine (actually extra-brut)
Biava 2014 Moscato di Scanzo Secco; in years when the grapes do not get to the point where you can make passito wines, the juice is typically distilled into a marc/grappa. Manuel has experimented with a nonDOCG (obviously) dry wine. This light lovely version of dry red moscato was a very pleasant quaffer.
Biava 2012 Moscato di Scanzo Passito (barrel sample) and Biava 1990 Moscato di Scanzo were fascinating (photo below). The wine obviously evolves very slowly as the differences between the two wines were very modest. These wines had the typical aromas of incense, cinnamon and hints of sage. The 2012 was less developed than the older wine but is clearly heading in the same direction. The 1990 seemed much younger and appears to age much more slowly than other passito wines I have had (red and white).
Many thanks to Luca and Manuel for the memorable evening.