A Tuscan Wine!!!

I am excited to be starting with a wine from Tuscany!! I have chosen a red wine called Greppicante 2007.  This wine is from a winery, Tunta I Greppi.  Which is located in the esteemed Bogheri region in Tuscany.  It was rated  number 46 out of 100 for the best wine of 2009 from Wine Spectator magazine, take a look at their website Wine Spectator.

The winery is called Tunta I Greppi.   The journey of this winery was started in 2002 by two families, that grew up together, the Cancellieri-Scaramuzzi family's .  They added the experienced Landini family, who owns the Viticco winery, for their journey in creating a winery. Together they created the Tunta I Greppi winery in the esteemed Bolgheri region of Tuscany.

The winery created the Greppicante with three different grapes, the Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and the Cabernet Franc.  The Merlot grape has hints of berry, plum, and the currant.  The Cabernet Sauvigion grape has hints of oak, mint and eucalptus.  In some cases when the grape has a herbaceous or green bell pepper flavor.  This can be caused by pyazine which is mostly found in under ripedned grapes.  The last grape used in the Greppicante 2007 wine is the Cabernet Franc.  Depending on the region the grape is grown in it can creates a peppery perfume along with additional aromas such as tobacco, raspberry, black currants, graphite, cassis and sometimes violets.  All these grapes are used for blending and as a varietal wine, meaning the only grape used in a single blended wine.

Lets take a look at the label.

• The top word, Bolgheri is the region of Tuscany the wine was produced by.  
• Under that says Deminazion di Origine Conellea which is the Italian quality assurance category for wine the wine.  Look below for the Italin quality assurance levels.
• Then you have the name of the wine and year.
• Next you see the cypress trees, they are planted to block the wind from the vineyard.
• Looking at the botoom left you see the size of the bottle in ML and what vineyard the wine was bottled by.
• In the bottom middle you see the Winery's logo.
• On the bottom right you have the alcohol by volume and the town and county the wine was produced in.

The Italian quality assurance label for wine.The overall goal of the system is to encourage producers to focus on quality wine making.They always asure the region the grapes are grown in.

Here are the three levels of quality assurance for the Italian wine.

1. Denominazine di Origine - DO, which is seldom used
2. Denominazine di Origine Controllata - DOC
3. Denominazine di Origine Controllata e Garantit - DOCG - The difference in this one is they do a blind taste to for quality.

Now lets take look at the wine.  It is a dark burgundy color that doesn’t cling to the glass when you swirl it.  After swirling the wine I could smell the oak and black pepper.  Remember its best to smell at the top of the wine glass to get all the aromas.  You can smell the berries after the oak aroma settles down.  As I tasted it It had a smooth oaky and berry taste.  Yet after the smoothness ended the bitter taste of eucalyptus over powered the other flavors.

Wine spectator rated the wine a 92, and one of their critics said

"Deliver currant toasty oak and coffee aromas and flovors.  Full-bodied with a velvety tannins and a lot of rich fruit.  Very polished and attractive." JS (October 31, 2009)

I agree that this wine is a full bodied and has the velvety taste.  At the same time I believe the coffee aroma doesn't exist, I also believe the velvety feel doesn't last long due to the eucalyptus over powers it at the end of the taste.

I paired the wine with homemade spaghetti.  The full body of the wine complements the spaghetti.  It even tones down the bitter taste of the eucalyptus.