Featured Wines - February 2013

Château Barreyre is one of the finest petits châteaux in Bordeaux and 2009 was one of the finest vintages in Bordeaux on record, so our tasting panel’s expectations were high. The 2009 Château Barreyre did not disappoint, offering a bold aroma of cassis and ripe red berries, deftly laced with enticing floral tones. Balanced and superbly structured, with plush ripe tannins that will allow for further maturation (if you have the patience), each sip brings a complex mix of nuanced flavors reminiscent of black cherry, cedar, and vanilla.

Vesevo’s 2011 Falanghina blends the full tropical flavors of Falanghina with the salty freshness of the nearby Tyrrhenian Sea. To whet the appetite, fresh scents of green apple, lime, and sea spray splashed with a dash of quince spring from the glass to tantalize the nose before magically re-emerging in the wine’s fresh, invigorating mid palate. Crisp and zesty from start to finish, Vesevo’s 2011 Falanghina makes a convincing case for the ancient Falanghina variety, one of Italy’s oldest and most revered grapes.

Bodegas Gormaz’s 2011 Ribera del Duero Tempranillo more than lives up to the estate’s growing reputation for delivering delicious, fruit forward wines. This old vine Tempranillo sports a dark, captivating robe of regal purple, but even more enthralling is the wine’s voluptuous bouquet, which is resplendent with the scents of ripe dark berries, spring woodlands, and wild herbs. Richly fruity and loaded with flavor, this youthful, opulent and ripe offering fills the mouth, making it a true pleasure to drink from start to finish.

Forget any insipid Verdicchio from fish shaped bottles you may have experienced in Italian restaurants or cheap seafood shacks because the 2011 Bisci Verdicchio di Matelica adds a whole new dimension to the Marches’ most popular wine, offering up an alluring nose of dried pineapple and fresh summer fruits. On the palate, subtle floral tones and gentle fruit flavors mingle with refreshing minerality. You won’t find oak on this wine or encounter any smoke and mirrors, just pure elegance and charm.

Sergio Gomba’s 2008 Querciola Barolo combines elegance and prodigious power. The result is a classic, long lived Barolo of tremendous depth. The 2008 Querciola is extraordinarily deep in color, and with extended aeration the wine blossoms in the glass, presenting the scents and savors of wild berries, forest woodlands, and aromatic herbs. Great fruit is layered into strong ripe tannins, which makes for a balanced, polished, and complete Barolo that will offer outstanding drinking for up to two decades.

Morgadío’s 2011 Albariño Rías Baixas comes across as both brilliant and precise, exhibiting sophisticated fruit flavors and pinpoint minerality. Dry, pure, and beautifully scented, it exudes an aroma of freshly picked apples and pears and fills the mouth with fresh, racy flavors before finishing crisp and bracing. This is a wine for people who appreciate a truly dry, statuesque white wine of breed, flavor, and noble bearing that will continue to develop in bottle for at least another year or two.