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2001 Allegrini Volpolicella Classico - Printable Version

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- stevebody - 04-20-2003

"Lack the capacity to see another point of view"? Hey, I see the other point of view - I just don't agree with it and said so. Is that what set off this long and tedious debate? I see clearly the need, virtue, and, in fact, the inescapable reality of regions, zonas, microclimates, single-vineyards, and on and on. I buy and enjoy wines for those differences. What ANNOYS me, and always will, is the rigidity of assumptions made about what wines from those areas SHOULD taste like. If you can't detect and appreciate the regional characteristics in a bottle of wine such as the Allegrinis make without trying to impose a template on the flavor profile, drink something that fits your bill. This all began as, believe it or not, an honest attempt on my part to get Foodie to cough up his idea of what a Chianti is supposed to taste like, which still, in the midst of his umbrage at supposedly being patronized, hasn't happened. I DO get tired of that particular gremlin popping up in discussions both in the actual world and here; the notion that, because things are done a certain way in a certain place, anything that is new and different is suddenly suspect. In fact, the Allegrinis label Pallazo della Torre and La Grola as Red Table Wine Veronese. Tuscans mingled with French varietals are just called Toscano. But wines madeby the legal definition of Chianti, Valpo, etc., are entitled to be called that and the decision of what they'll ultimately tate like does and should rest with the makers, even if we don't like it.

Sheesh...


- Thomas - 04-20-2003

No, SB, this latest long thread got started when you piped up with a response to a subject that had not even come up.

But since you ask: in my view, Chianti, and all other wines, should represent their place. In other words, if a Tuscan wine reminds me of Napa Valley, I likely won't like it (might not fault the wine as a technical achievement, but I still won't like the outcome).

But that view has and had nothing to do with randery's comment and my desire for clarification of the comment.

You need to relax...


- Botafogo - 04-20-2003

>> What ANNOYS me, and always will, is the rigidity of assumptions made about what wines from those areas SHOULD taste like. <<

Steve, it is SO easy:

If a wine wants to use the NAME of a famous zona with a history and style associated with it then it MUST taste like that. If Sandrone and Altare want to make Nebbiolo IN the Barolo Zona that is jet black and 15% alcohol and tastes like Aussie Shiraz I thoroughly encourage them to do so, charge $500 dollars a bottle for it and get rich. BUT, they should also admit it is NOT Barolo, name it after their dog, their favorite Abba song or their grandmother and quit trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Perhaps we should adopt the conventions of the music world. We could have Roots Barolo, Crossover Barolo, Lite and Easy Barolo and Adult Contemporary Commercial Barolo???? Then at least you might have an idea of what you were getting when you bought a bottle of wine with a DOC(G) designation. After all, how would you feel if you bought a CD labeled as "Classic Country: The Bakersfield Sound" and it had Shania Twain doing a Techno version of "Six Days on the Road" and Billy Idol doing a heavy metal reading of "Okie from Muskogie"?

Roberto


[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 04-20-2003).]


- winoweenie - 04-20-2003

I'd love to order a case of Jazz Barolo. WW [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]


- Thomas - 04-20-2003

...or a case of Rock 'n ba-Rolo music.


- randery - 04-20-2003

....barol-over Beethoven. Boy has this thread become bare.

[This message has been edited by randery (edited 04-20-2003).]


- Botafogo - 04-20-2003

come on, You guys can make all the bad puns you want but I think the musical analogy is spot on...

Time to open a funky, earthy, expands for hours in your head masterpiece of typicity, Paolo Bea Montefalco Rosso Riserva, and order up a pizza!

Roberto


- stevebody - 04-21-2003

"Taste like the place it came from"...STILL no answers. I responded to a topic that DID come up. It came up when Foodie asked why anyone would want to buy a wine that doesn't taste like what it says it is, in this case Chianti. Through all the oceans of verbiage that has resulted from this one exchange, NO ONE has offered the first hint of what the characteristics that make a wine a Chianti might, In Their Humble Opinion, be. instead, we have this blather about a wine "tasting like where it came from". Well, think what you want, but there are PLENTY of people who think the Alegrini wines that were slammed as un-Valpo-like taste very much like the terroir, the vineyards, the climate, and the Italian sensibility that surrounds them. If I'm getting this right, the heinous problem seems to be that some Italian producers are sneaking French varietals into the wines and that rains on everyone's cupcake. I think Italy has laws that deal with this, don't they? Aren't the content laws fairly clear, even to the extent that a good number of Italian producers have bucked at the strait-jacket they perceive and simply called the new wines Vin di Tavola? Roberto Guldener, if legend is correct, got fed up enough with the government's hidebound notions of what a Chianti Classico should be that he told them to go F___ themselves and the little Black Rooster they rode in on. Hence Terrabiance wines with names like Campaccio, Scassino, and Piano del Cipresso.

If a winemaker wants to make Barolo that is inky black, fruit-forward, and oaked to death, yes, as long as the Italian laws are obeyed, that person is entitled to call that Barolo. No qualifiers needed - Lite, Jazzy, nothing: Barolo. YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIKE IT, DRINK IT, RESPECT IT, SPEAK WELL OF IT, OR EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE ITS EXISTENCE. That's your privilege. You can even make some passive-aggressive little aside about it like, "Why would anyone want to drink a wine that doesn't taste like what it is?"

The catch is that, when you do it in public -which this forum is - you assume the risk that someone, sometimes, will call you on it; will respond with an opinion that challanges yours. I make a lot of declaritive statements in these forums. I don't know if they all stand scrutiny but I'm ready to learn, IF the person who responds to me is willing to make a cogent, rational argument for their position. Merely telling me that you think I'm an idiot is not a rational argument. I take a lot of static for my posts and I take it without whimpering and respond honestly and directly. Here's Honestly and Directly: I find the responses about regional character in this thread the same sort of reactionary moaning that you get from a roomful aging jazz musicians lamenting about these damned kids and their unmusical noise, as though jazz stopped when Bix Beiderbecke hung 'em up. In the end, it has about as much effect. The Allegrinis make the wines they make and millions of people love them. Ricardo Cottarella pulls off little miracles that offend purists and make millions for his clients while pleasing millions of customers. The maverick Barolo makers make their odd wines, none of which diminishes one whit the genius of Giacomo Conterno and his traditional Nebbiolos.

Wine, in short, Marches On. It changes, evolves, expands its definitions, and sometimes improves and sometimes wanes. Whatever the consensus definition of the ideal, representative Chianti, sometime in the past, THAT was thought to be heresy. If historical reports have it correct, the original Italian Reds were very, universally SWEET. Does that mean they should still be?

I'm done.


- Kcwhippet - 04-21-2003

Good. Time to give it a rest.


- Thomas - 04-21-2003

The original question I asked was, "why would you want a Chianti that is un-chianti?" The question referred to randery liking a wine that he called un-chianti.

All I wanted to know (SB can believe it or not--it's his agenda) is what randery meant by such a statement. In other words, if there was too much acid for him, the wine too thin, too earthy, too something.

What SB reads into a question illuminates his agenda, not mine.

I shall say no more, whether or not SB believes, understands and chooses to continue on and on...but I do accept the apology I know he intends [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/eek.gif[/img]

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 04-21-2003).]


- winoweenie - 04-21-2003

" hate it when a bunch of aging musicians lament about the kids making noise". If the aging musicians you're talking about included giants like Gillespie, Parker, Hawkins, Peterson, Fitzgerald, McRae, Brown, Torme, Johnson, Winding, Garner, Tatum, Shearing, Adderly, ad infintum the only criticism most of them ever made about the state of young musicians in the 60s', 70s', and 80s' that I heard was that none of them took the time to MASTER their instruments, but instead, after learning 3 chords started playing garbage. Genius is a gift that is given to a few and they pay their dues daily to nurture it. Thank goodness for a legacy of CDs that has preserved this for everyone. WW


- stevebody - 04-21-2003

No apology intended.


- Kcwhippet - 04-21-2003

Hey, WW, how about some of the younger crowd? Some of them seem to be trying to master their craft. How about Eric Clapton, Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughn (if he were still with us)?


- Thomas - 04-21-2003

Which is the third chord? I got two down on my piano ww...


- Botafogo - 04-21-2003

Alicia Keys, Slow Jam R&B Classico Riserva!

Casandra Wilson, Modernist Jazz Singer with roots in the terroir so deep you can smell the gin on Bessie Smith's breath when she sings.

Charlie Hunter, swingingest Jazz guitarist alive today but not afraid to mix it up with the Hip Hoppers and school them on where it all came from (in their case Malian Griots, Cab Calloway and Johnny Otis' "Signified Monkey" a personal favorite of our patron saint Jerry "Curmy" Mead)

ALL are "modern" in that they don't sound like Benny Goodman or Aretha Franklin BUT have a DIRECT tap into the terroir of American Music.

As The Hook use to say "It's in 'em and it's GOT to come out...Boogie Chillen'!"

Roberto

PS: Steve, just what exactly do you do in the Wine Biz and why would I not be surprised if it involved a large "brand building", liquor dominated importer or distributor?

[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 04-21-2003).]


- randery - 04-21-2003

Guys, can you let it be? (Beatles).


- Kcwhippet - 04-22-2003

Nah. Too much fun.


- Thomas - 04-22-2003

it's c and then f and, what? a-sharp? Nah, that doesn't work--sounds like Let It Bow!

I got it: c, f and d-sharp. Nah, that sounds like Let It Boing!

Let me try c, f and e. Yuch, that sounds like Let It By!

Let's see: c, f, g. Got it--the secret of Rock and Roll!

[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 04-22-2003).]


- stevebody - 04-22-2003

You think that because you see me as a guy who's trying to erase differences between wines. Which says a lot more about your views than mine.

I work - as a hobby - at a retail wine shop in Seattle, Esquin Wine Merchants. I don't own it and have been, in fact, a tremendous thorn in the side of yahoos such as Stimson-Lane and Gallo, having blown the whistle in print here in Sea-patch about those loathsome, notorious "corporate sets" that Gallo installs in supermarkets as the LCD wine list. For that, I was honored to get a call from our local Gallo hoods, threatening legal action if I singled them out for any more grief. As Edward Bennet Williams once said, when told he'd made Nixon's enemies list, "An honorable man can receive no higher honor."

I own three restaurants in the Eastern part of the US, which have made me more $$$ than my grandchildren can spend. I was a chef for 30 years but finally decided, about a year ago, that wine was my true passion. I work at Esquin as a lowly sales clerk and write about wine for several online sites and three newspapers back in North Carolina and Tennessee.

In these parts, I have a very modest reputation as a very good wine salesman, who can sell large quantities of wines I believe in. I have no alleigence to any winery, distributor, or wine conglomerate and have pissed a lot of people off (primarily Stimson-Lane and all that overblown Ste. Michelle stuff) by doing exactly what you read here: taking exception to narrow assumptions.

My customers know me as a nice guy who always greets them with a smile and my distributors know me as a nice guy who an't buying crap, no matter where it comes from, who made it, what regional characteristics are showing, or whether Parker, the Spectator, Tanzer or anyone else thinks it's great or not. I get to know my customers, pinpoint their tastes, show them new wines that reflect those tastes and, if it's possible and curteous to do it, try to help them understand and accept better wines.

It annoys me no end that the entire tenor of the responses here have been tinged with the assumption that I don't care about terroir or regional character. Nothing I've ever written here says that and it's not even close to the truth. What I've said and still believe is that considerations of terroir and traditions of wine making can be great for posterity and continuity of greatness or can be crutches for perpetuating sloth and low ambition. If you want to think I'm some heathen sent bto trash traditions of winemaking, go ahead. I refer to the above quote.


- Botafogo - 04-22-2003

No, Steve that assumption comes from the fact that I have never seen a post from you here that was not insulting someone or promoting fairly commercial wine styles. I will believe you that that is not what you are about but it doesn't show in your behavior here. The fact that you also never seem to be able to use three sentences when twenty five will do led me to think you might be a PR flack. Stictly observational anthropology....

But then again, re Gallo et al, any enemy of my enemy is my friend (even if he seems to need to drink less coffee and more wine).

Roberto

[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 04-22-2003).]