2001 Brunellos in Westport, Connecticut

On Saturday night, Asher Rubinstein and his wife Deborah invited six ‘couples’ to his magnificent new house in Westport, CT, to try some 2001 Brunello di Montalcinos and a clutch of other 2001 Tuscans. They provided an inspired spread of cold cuts to accompany the wine. It’s been a while since I have focused on Brunello di Montalcino - mired in some controversy in recent years for not, in some cases, being true to its appellation - and especially not a horizontal.

Here are some brief impressions of the individual wines, and I will wind up with some general observations at the end:

-          Caprili: Sophisticated and lively attack, decent fruit, no harsh tannins but fell away a bit at the finish

-          Camiligliano: Smooth and velvety, smooth attack, chocolate-y notes but over easy

-          Lisini: initially showed some nice structure, delicious wine and initially expressive then went soft on me

-          L’Chiuse: Smooth refined chocolate-y nose, aggressive tannins on themid-palate, reasonable finish

-          Altesino: Mellow attack, harsh aggressive tannins on the mid-palate, then not a lot

-          Ciacci Piccolomini D’Aragona “Pianrosso:” Smooth attack, over-ripe, raisiny, over-cooked, little balancing acidity

-          Livio Sasseti “Pertamali:” Alluring, sweaty horse saddle attack, some alluring blackberry kirsch notes on the mid-plate, one of the better wines, but still too easy and low in acid

Super-Tuscans:

-          Montevertine: That’s more like it; lot going on here with some fab animal gamey notes, nice and complex, not taut at all but the best balanced wine and easily wine of the night.

-          Felsina Rancia Chianti Classico – not a S-T but a bit anonymous

-          Felsina Fontalloro – off-puttingly sweet attack, very much out of character with this wine, but a much more serious mid-palate.

Conclusion: This was a fascinating insight into modern Brunellos and Tuscans. The wines are enjoyable to drink and are clearly enhanced by food. But the overall impression is that these wines lacked ‘typicite’; they lacked ‘grip’ and ‘tension’– like you would get, for example, with a ’95 Lamarche burgundy, or patting a cheetah’ s stomach (which I did in South Africa in 2006). Many of these wines were over-easy, unbalanced with insufficient acidity to balance the alcohol. I expected very different wines from the lauded 2001 vintage. Still it was a fascinating insight into a region that has been off my radar for a while. I suspect that Brunellos offer some of the poorest value for money these days, and why not stick to younger more vibrant Rossos? Salvioni’s 2007 springs to mind. But, still, many thanks to Asher and Deborah for a splendid first outing for the CWC (Connecticut Wine Circle); my – arguably harsh - evaluation of the wines should not be construed the wrong way. It really was a fun evening and I met some interesting people.