CWD: 2001 Sella Lessona San Sebastiano Allo Zoppo
- Thread starter MLipton
- Start date
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
If Sella made an eau de vie, would the name be Sella Vie?
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ian Fitzsimmons
Ça, c'est drôle.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
As Levi thinks highly of Sperino, I picked up the first bottle I saw: Proprieta Sperino 2017 Rosato "Rosa del Rosa". Nebbiolo and vespaolina. This is a terrific rosato: minerally, cherry-tinged perfume, a substantial mid-palate and a finish that knocks around the inside of my mouth for a good long time. I'm not a big fan of rose but this is pretty impressive.
Thank you, Levi. I'll try to walk down the red aisle next time.
Bill Lundstrom
Bill Lundstrom
i buy this wine every vintage. its ages well too.
Bill Lundstrom
Bill Lundstrom
i should have said near term aging. I've had a couple mags with maybe 3 or 4 years on them and they were quite good
Levi Dalton
Levi Dalton
Huh, I have never had this wine. My rosato game is lacking in general.
Thanks for the tip.
OK, so last night I shared a bottle of the Sperino Lessona 2011 over dinner. Upon opening, it showed a decent veneer of oak and some kind of furry tannins, not the kind I generally associate with nebbiolo. After being open a bit, it came into better harmony and we ended up enjoying it. It's a bit on the modern spectrum and much darker in color than C&G Lessona. Overall, very good but not great to me. A wine I'll happily enjoy, but not one I'm sure I'll be putting in my cellar.
We also had a really disappointing bottle of 2013 Girolamo Russo Etna Bianco Nerina. It seemed to already be tired, which was a bit of a bummer as I've liked the reds and am on a carricante kick lately. I'm not sure whether this was representative or an off bottle. The color was a bit on the golden side as well.
Courtesy of the wine director we also had small glass of Radikon pinot grigio, which was essentially a rose, that paired very well with the escarole slad with anchovies. He also shared a small glass of 1999 Radikon merlot, which was pinot noiur but made from merlot. Last, but not least, we had a small glass of Ariana Occhipinti's desert wine from nero d'avola. I've not had it before and it was kind of awesome. Served cool it combined some sweetness and fruit with fresh acids and nice tannic structure. Great way to end the meal.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Say wha?
Levi Dalton
Levi Dalton
Pictures might be fun. Everybody loves pictures. These were all taken recently, about a month ago.
*edited to add: I am sorry these are all sideways, I am not sure why that happened or of how to easily fix it. Sorry.
This is a cut in Ghemme, in one of Ioppa's vineyards. This is a kind of clay. It would crumble in the hand.
This is a rock outcropping in Bramaterra. The nearby soil was yellow.
Also Bramaterra, this time where Colombia & Garella is. They are expanding the cellar and you can clearly see the red soil in the construction clearing.
A vine in Colombera & Garella's home vineyard in Bramaterra.
The recently acquired used botte in the Colombera & Garella cellar.
*edited to add: I am sorry these are all sideways, I am not sure why that happened or of how to easily fix it. Sorry.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Nice photos, Levi.
I guess, with global warming, that clay soil is going to go up in value: it holds water longer.
I guess, with global warming, that clay soil is going to go up in value: it holds water longer.
Levi Dalton
Levi Dalton
It isn't so undervalued now, but rather very much a part of the makeup of some of the most sought after wines around the world. I have had the sense at times that some critics have responded to soil types without perhaps explicitly realizing it, ranking higher some wine qualities that are soil derived. I think Parker was a clay guy, for instance. Clay attributes are the standard reference markers for what we think of as a normal wine today, in my opinion. Heavy limestone, granitic, sand, or volcanic soils give wines that seem to our palates exotic in comparison, and we love them for that, but clay is the standard reference for top quality wine.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
Chalk! Tufa!
Indeed, I like wine from Ghemme.
His inheritors seem to like volcanic soils: I looked up the makers' sites to see what they say about the soils underlying the ten 100-point wines of Issue 233:
- Aubert/CIX: "very white soil that looks like sea salt"
- Aubert/Lauren: "The gravelly Goldridge soil"
- Aubert/UV-SL: no mention
- Colgin/Tychson: "a rocky east-facing slope containing some of the rarest volcanic soil in Napa Valley, known as Aiken Very Stony Loam"
- Colgin/IX: "it is nestled in hillsides of rocky volcanic soils"
- Dominus/Napanook: "volcanic, well draining soils"
- Eisele: "this 38-acre vineyard is planted on well-drained cobbly soils"
- Morlet/Beckstaffer-To Kalon: "Gravelly, loamy and clayish deep soil"
- Morlet/Sonoma: "Goldridge and volcanic mélange"
- Peter Michael/blend of three vineyards: "shallow rocky soils", "thicker soils and an eastern facing exposure", and "Rocky volcanic-origin Rhyolite"
Did you mean this kind of thing or more like everyday wines?
Levi Dalton
Levi Dalton
Jeff,
This can be a difficult discussion to have, because there is a lot of imprecision in the language often used, and because there is an extensive amount of travel that is required to have some direct knowledge of the areas. In terms of language, one problem is that wine writers will often switch mentions without clarifying between topsoil and what might be referred to as bedrock or mother soil. Another is that what the words imply can be opaque. Another is that there are terms which geologists use that are different from what lay persons (such as wine writers) use.
To briefly take up some of your points, without spending all day on it because I have other things to do:
You may not realize that chalk is a kind of limestone. You may not realize how loaded of a term "tufa" is, and how many different meanings that particular word can bring with it, in terms of soil types that differ. You may not realize that "loam" is clay and sand together (sometimes with silt).
You are perhaps thinking that Ghemme is a place that has a lot of clay and is the basis of what my next post took up, which is that clay and top wines are synonymous. I was referring to these regions when I was saying that clay and top wines are synonymous:
Pomerol: clay (with gravel and sand off or outlying on the plateau)
Saint-Emilion: clay/limestone for the best wine, sand/gravel for the lesser wines
Burgundy's Cote d'Or: clay/limestone
Chateauneuf-du-Pape's La Crau plateau: clay/sand/limestone covered with large stones
Barolo: clay/limestone
Valpolicella's Negrar Valley (where Quintarelli is): clay/limestone
Bolgheri: clay, clay/sand, sand
Abruzzo: clay/limestone
Marche: clay/limestone
Rioja: clay, clay/limestone, or alluvial (depending on the sub-region)
Barossa Valley: red clay and loam
Willamette Valley: clay and sedimentary or clay and volcanic
Napa Valley floor: predominantly loam (clay and sand), with some alluvial and volcanic
What I am saying is that clay and the great wines of the world are synonymous. Clay is dominant or a key dance partner is most of what we think of as the great wines that are sought after. That is why I said clay is far from undervalued today in the wine world.
When I said Parker, I actually meant Parker the man, not the current lineup of critics working at The Wine Advocate. Parker liked the sort of fullness in the mouth and the deep character, the solidity in the palate that one gets with clay based wines. The problem, and this had all kinds of ramifications, is that he didn't like the rustic tannins that could also come along with clay based wines, and trying to refine those tannins often led producers to higher ripeness (which meant higher alcohol). That is a clay issue. If Parker had preferred wines based on sand, we might have had a whole different curve to the predominant issues of winemaking in the 1980s and 1990s. Parker would have been noting perfume and lifted aromatics, while the fine tannins would have been a given. Own-rooted vines would have figured more prominently in his discussions, perhaps.
If you go back and look at the list of wines that you highlighted, and you really get into what is underlying in those wines, I believe that you will find clay to be a key component. For instance: "Goldridge" = loam, and loam = clay and sand together.
Perhaps go on a deep dive into what is out there in the soil types of the wine world, you might really enjoy it. I have. At the same time, I don't want to try to pass myself off as an expert in this field, as I am not a geologist.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
I imagine vignerons also might choose a vineyard spot that is a little different from everything else in the vicinity, which adds another thing to sort out.
I don't know how these may affect what soils appear above them but, yes, I know that chalk is a limestone and loam is sand+silt with a little clay.
I see.
Interesting. So, this offers a basis for why conversations between different wine advocates (lowercase 'a') often have a 'talking past each other' feel to them: they don't have a fundamental agreement on what should be sought.
More and more, I find myself asking questions that are answerable based on the soil type. You may recall I asked you here, a few months ago, about whether aeration or pop-n-pour is superior for older Barolo? Your answer was to look at the soil.
Thank you for the extensive reply, Levi.