TNs-- TWEC (TM) Italian Night Gathering in Toronto

Berserkers,

The expanded Toronto Wine Elitist Cabal ™ roster gathered once again on a sunny Toronto evening at board member Dylan Provencher’s lovely home for an Italian wine and food night extravaganza. Everybody really brought their A games with the food this evening as well as providing an extremely varied and interesting choice of wines. There was even a blind mini-tasting as part of the evening. Dramatis Personnae included myself, Jay, Mike G., Dylan, Chelsea, Sean, Peter, Ross, Nasrin, Walter and Rick. There were a huge number of surprising turns with the wines which we’ll see as the evening went on. On with the spectacular evening:

CODORNIU SELECCION RAVENTOS ROSE – This inexpensive 100% Pinot Noir Cava Rosé served as our aperitif while the guests rolled in and prepared their food. Quite ruby red in color, more along the lines of a Tavel Rosé or Saignée style Champagne. Extremely fruit forward on the nose and the palate with a ton of cranberry and tart red cherry flavors. Slight touch of yeasty flavor adds a nice accent. Veers ever so slightly towards Luden’s Wild Cherry Throat drops if you remember those. This wine is just slaughtered in reviews on the Internet and I have no idea why. While not complex, it was the only sparkling wine we had tonight that actually tasted like, you know, the juicy fruit it actually came from. I actually enjoyed it more than the Champagnes that followed! And this would be only the first wine surprise of the evening.

CHÂTEAU D’AQUÉRIA 2017 TAVEL – Speaking of Tavel Rosés, here’s one now. I believe this is actually my very first one. A deep crimson ruby in color. Lovely strawberry aromas. On the palate, fresh strawberries, cranberries and watermelons. It’s slightly candied on the palate but is then lifted by sharp tannins for a dry finish. I am far, far too manly to drink Rosés… and I loved this! What the what? Net research shows that Tavel is made by creating a red must and a separate white must before blending these together and then vinifying them as one wine. With the sole exception of a Domaine Ott, this is the first time I’ve ever found myself going gaga over a Rosé. What alternate wine dimension have I landed in tonight?!?

H. BLIN BRUT ROSE CHAMPAGNE – This Champagne was much lighter bodied than the Codorniu with a superior frothy mousse. Extremely crisp and fresh but… also extremely low on fruit. The only taste I am getting out of this is lees with a slight accent of watermelon fruit. It’s practically just a yeast smoothie. While I recognize its far superior structure, if I had to actually choose a preference based on flavor I’d actually go with the Codorniu. Color me surprised here.

MONASTERO SUORE CISTERCENSI 2016 COENOBIUM RUSCUM – This famous wine is made by a monastery of nuns with virtually no technology whatsoever. All hand grown and crafted, it’s an orange wine (aka a skin contact white) blend of Trebbiano, Malvasia, Verdicchio and Grechetto. The Malvasia has a particularly strong influence as the wine is very floral on the nose. On the palate, this is all saline and cream flavor with high acidity and a touch of bitters on the finish. A very unusual wine. Very much like an Italian version of a white Rhone blend. A little too much salt and not enough fruit flavor for my personal liking, though. Unfortunately, this would not be the only time I would write this particular note tonight.

PIEROPAN 2015 LA ROCCA SOAVE CLASSICO – An interesting nose of smoke and rubber. On the palate, all creamy vanilla, honey and lees. Very crisp mouthfeel. It’s like a cross between a Meursault and a white Rhone.

DONELAN 2012 VENUS – This Cali white Rhone blend of equal parts Roussanne and Viognier was nearly identical to the Ruscum in flavor, all saline and cream. The only difference was that it lacked the bitterness from skin contact tannins. Good structure with a slightly oily body, but lacking in fruit. They’ve succeeded in not being a stereotypical heavy Cali white but I would’ve preferred it to actually be done in that style.

HIDDEN BENCH 2011 PINOT NOIR – 2011 is notorious as a bed red wine vintage for Niagara, Ontario wines yet the few I have had from that year all ended up being pretty good and the same goes here. This was rich in body, creamy and tannic. Some black raspberry fruit is in there but the creaminess and the smooth tannins really carry this. Great structure and body to the wine. It actually tastes and drinks more like a red Bordeaux or Meritage blend than it does a Burgundy wannabe. Enjoyable, far more so than I thought it would be.

BRANCAIA 2007 ILATRIA – This Super Tuscan is a blend of 40% Cab Sauv, 40% Petite Verdot and 20% Cab Franc from Italy and, simply put, was superb. Rich tobacco, red fruit and smooth tannins make for a Bordeaux blend that outdoes many Bordeaux wines. Fabulous on its own and with food. I really shouldn’t have passed the bottle on but I did so before I actually tasted my glass. Lucky for everyone else I did. WOTN.

DOMENICO CLERICO 2010 CIABOT MENTIN BAROLO – This young Barolo has strong drying tannins that require and have rich intense cherry fruit to match and yet another heavy saline component. Far, far too young to have been opened. I don’t think anyone here is surprised to read a Barolo note that says this wine must be laid to rest for a number of years. Structure is insanely good, though. You can literally taste the highquality, but all that means is that right now drinking it is an exercise in Wine Berserker intellectualism. Simply didn’t go with the food due to overwhelming it and nowhere near ready to drink on its own. Basically, we committed wine infanticide here. Hope I live long enough to one day drink a Barolo at its peak.

VINA TONDONIA 2004 RIOJA RESERVA – I believe Mike decanted this for a full day. Old school Rioja with lots of tannin and saline notes to accompany the rich Tempranillo plum and black cherry fruit. It’s the saline aspect in particular that marks this as old school as opposed to the sweeter style of modern Rioja. I enjoy both styles. This tastes like it has the stuffings to age for another 20 years to be honest. If you said it was a 2014 and not a 2004 I would’ve believed you.

SPECIAL MINI BLIND TASTING – ITALIAN SINGLE VARIETAL WHITES:

Rick brought us a fun quartet of bottles of Italian single varietal wines for a mini blind tasteoff. The clues we had were that they were all single varietal whites. Peter had us all laughing by aggravating Rick by deliberately guessing Chardonnay on each one. I may have the placings below wrong as I may have marked off my own rankings as the group’s so if anyone wants to chime in to correct, feel free to do so.

WINE 1: This was was full of white peach flavor and had a creamy palate. Group Score: 1 My Score: 2. It was actually a really tough decision for me for first place between this and the fourth wine. Revealed as the Cantine San Silvestro 2016 Roero Arneis. I’ve literally never heard of the varietal before this. Not sure why the group scored this so low.

WINE 2: This white was crisp and somewhat mineral but scored low to me due to a perceived lack of fruit. It seemed to impress the group far more than it did me. Revelead as the Fattoria Alois Ponte Pellegrino 2016 Greco. Group Score: 3 My Score: 3.

WINE 3: A very perfumed wine whose palate is substantially weaker than its nose led me to believe. Still, flavors of white peach and tangerine oranges there. Just not as strong as I’d hoped. Group Score: 4 My Score: 4. This was revealed to have only lost by one point. Revealed as the Tornatiore 2016 Etna Bianco.

WINE 4: Huge nose of aromatic peaches but unlike the Etna Bianco, this had intense peach and smoke flavors that lift on the end with very bright lemony acidity. Group Score: 2 My Score: 1 Revealed as the Nals Magreid 2015 Punggl Pinot Grigio. That reveal just blew the group away. As Peter noted, far superior to any Pinot Grigio ever tried before. Full of character and flavor, unlike cheap Pinot Grigio which tastes like watery lemonade. This was a huge surprise and a great find.

And finally, it was off to the dessert wines:

ALDOBRANDESCA 2011 ALEATICO SOVANA SUPERIORE – This unique and superb late harvest wine is made from the Aleatico grape. Distinctive rosewater aromas and flavors lift raspberry, muscat and green tea flavors. Surprisingly very light bodied wine given that it’s a late harvest and not too sweet. Extremely well done sweet wine that even sweet wine haters should give a try.

We did have one final wine to end the evening off with, a palate cleanser if you will:

PIERRE PAILLARD GRAND CRU BRUT CHAMPAGNE: Our finisher was also super yeasty and bready but unlike the H. Blin it save itself with a strong baked apple flavor. This is good but I would say Paillard’s Grand Cru Brut Rosé which I brought to our last get-together is much better.

And one final special touch:

THE INFINITY BOTTLE WHISKY: Dylan informed us that there is a tradition in Scotland apparently that when you have less than a 1/4 of a whisky bottle left you set it aside and later add the remains of another bottle you’ve tackled and so on until you wind up with another full bottle of whisky. AKA, the Infinity bottle. Essentially a miniature Scotch whisky solera only using random whiskies instead of any stylized blend. So we had a shot of this Frankenstein whisky and it actually was intriguing due to its contrasting incongruous nature. It had a rich deep Speyside like sweet entry and then it slowly evolves into a peat monster that won’t let up on the finish. Dylan did inform us that the dredges of a Bruichladdich Octomore which explains that. It was after he explained this that I noticed the label actually has all the components of the infinity blend written on it. Fun stuff to try but needs more Speyside in the blend to really beat that peat down.

That was a lot of wine and naturally we had a ton of food to go with it. We started off with a superb restaurant quality antipasto board from Peter and Nasrin. When we all listed our food contribs, they non-chalantly made it sound like they were just contributing a few cold cuts and cheese. Instead, we got a feast that could’ve served as a meal on its own:



We then moved on to the salads. I brought a Panzanella salad made with homemade multigrain garlic and olive oil croutons, red onions, avocado, and heirloom tomatoes dressed with homemade muscat vinegar, salt, black pepper and fresh herbs:

Jay made a homemade pasta salad with pasta, feta, veggies and Italian herbs. By himself. Without killing himself with his own knife. I’m still in shock over this one:

Mike made a fresh gazpacho accented by a few special ingredients to the traditional recipe including raspberries and almond extract:

Ross contributed a fresh Caprese salad with tomato, mozzarella and basil upon which he hand drizzled the aged balsamic in front of us:

And then it was on to the mains. Rick provided his amazing take on classic Vitello Tonello. He cooked a veal tenderloin sous vide and then made the tuna caper sauce not using bottled and canned mayo and tuna but first cooking the fresh tuna sous vide himself, making a homemade aioli, and then blending in the sous vide tuna and capers. Wow. This was an amazing dish:

Sean made a Chicken Parmigiana from scratch:

Not to be outdone, Walter provided a homemade lasagna from scratch that he and his daughter made using vegetables from their garden and handmade noodles they did themselves:

And Dylan provided the last main with a perfectly cooked Beef Wellington. We will conveniently overlook its British origins on our Italian themed night :


For the mains, Ross also provided a side of sautéed fresh Rapini:

Lastly, I provided a plated dessert of White Chocolate Kirsch Panna Cotta dressed with fresh Ontario peaches and strawberries, pomengranate molasses, and grated dark Toblerone:


And that covers everything for this fantastic evening. The wines were a bit of mixed bag for me with some truly amazing standout wines. WOTNs for me were the Ilatraia, the Rioja, the Aleatico and the Pinot Grigio. These highs were contrasted somewhat by some of the wines showing imbalance to me with a distinct salinity and lack of fruit. The salt notes were particularly annoying when there was nothing else in the wine to balance it out. I was suprised how many times I made that note on all the different wines. I do note that while the Rioja did have salinity, I also felt it was the only wine with that note to also show a lot of other components as well that made it enjoyable.

I like complexity in a wine as much as anyone else but I do insist that it does still have to show some of the characteristics of the fruit from whence it came. When all I can taste in a wine are salt, cream and/or yeast – flavors that are not actually natural to fruit in general or grapes in particular – it really does make me wonder if a winery is overworking a wine to the point that it is a Frankenstein of a beverage and not a wine.

Of course, the joy of such an evening is the great food and the company of generous friends who graciously provide the wines that allow me to learn these wine lessons for myself which otherwise would cost hundreds of dollars to figure out. A great thanks to everyone for coming together on this fabulous evening, their generosity in food and wine and to Dylan and Chelsea for once again hosting in their lovely home.

Thank you for the notes Tran which made me instantly salivate. A truly spectacular night which brought the best cook out of each of us. It will be hard to top any of these dishes, we might just have to drink better wines now!

The surprise of the night for me was the Punggl Pinot Grigio from Alto Adige. You could have easily passed this one on as an Alsatian with an creamy texture which I only encountered in some chards. Hence the heckling.

I wanted to weigh in more comprehensively but my notes have gone who knows whither, so this will have to be from memory. It was a really fun night, with the people and food perhaps outshining the wines for the most part, but still great interest in many of the wines.

The D’Aqueria was its usual decent presentation of Rose. I didn’t care particularly for the Blin Rose Champagne and the Paillard didn’t really show much—perhaps a trifle too cool?

Peter brought the Coenobium Ruscum and it was interesting, if somewhat sedate, but you could get that nuttiness in it. I only had a short sip of the Donelan and at the end of the evening and it was nothing to write home about.

Likewise, the 2011 Hidden Bench PN just didn’t take my fancy enough. This was out of mag and a somewhat difficult year here in Ontario, but while it wasn’t in any way overripe or stewed-fruit, it also missed some balance and fruit flavor, tending a bit too much to the earth-and-root side.

Ross brought the 2007 Brancaia Ilatraia, also out of mag, and it was superb. With leather and cocoa scents interweaved with good cedar-tinged berry, a lot of intrigue. Palate has grip and some acidity and also a suaveness and smoothness at the same time. This isn’t up with the Flaccianello from this year, but it’s not that far off either. My WOTN

I did slow-ox the 2004 Vina Tondonia Reserva for the day. Even then, it still wasn’t completely open, with the dark chocolate and dark cherry flavours mingling with stern tannins. Needs steak, but I did like this plenty.

Even less ready was Jay’s 2010 Domenico Clerico Barolo Ciabot Mentin. To me, this showed like an old-school Barolo, though I’ve been told Clerico is a modernist. Regardless, it was difficult to get past the kimono here. I am quite sure that a great wine is buried within, but you can’t find it right now. Leave many, many years.

The blind tasting was fun, if fair to say that none of the wines would be a buy for me. I believe I liked the Etna Bianco the best, as it had the most interest.

The 2011 Aldobrandesca Aleatico was very easy and pretty to sniff and drink. Like the lightest ruby port you’ll ever have.

A bientot,

Mike