SipsBitesandSites

I got rather lucky the other night when I came across the chance to taste this well aged bottle of wine. Well, it actually wasn’t aged WELL, so I should correct myself here because it was stored in the most improper of conditions (not by me of course).  But despite that, this baby held up pretty well!  The label suggests that this wine has an aging potential of 10-15 years, well, I would not suggest holding this bottle any longer-that is if you happen to have one in your cellar….

So back to the wine…..Already turning that brownish-brick color, you could just SEE this wine’s age.  The nose, get this, smelled of slowly stewed prunes, unsulphured dried apricots, along with dark bitter chocolate that had been infused with green pepper and sprinkled with cinnamon. Unusual, I know, but really that’s what came to mind…or um nose!

On my tongue, almost no flavors of fruit, but there was a  flavor that brought to mind “green colored sweetart candy”  with a finish that dissolved into pure bitter coco powder. Yeah this wine won’t have much left to it in another year or two.  

So some info on the wine if you interested:  it’s a blended wine from the typical indigenous grapes from the Veneto region of Italy (mainly Corvina, but also some Rondinella, Molinara and a splish-splash of a few others perhaps).  It’s gone through the Ripasso process, meaning, after typical fermentation, the wine gets put into casks containing the left over LEES (a sediment of dead yeast cells) from a batch of Amarone.  So while the grapes used are NOT actually air dried like in Amarone, those left over LEES that the wine is aged with, do wind up giving the wine a richness, more body, and a more tannic structure than say a wine aged in regular casks. Yes, Italian Wine can be complicated…..just like Italian women!