Let’s turn our backs on Bordeaux this week, shall we? The 2005 Bordeaux primeurs campaign is progressing – did I say progressing? – painfully slowly. It’s as though the big Bordeaux cat has been throwing out little crumbs for the merchant mice to nibble on and is languorously taking its time over when to set the real slice of cheddar in front of them and watch them, and us, fight over those glamorous classed growths. Yawn, yawn. Let’s look to another country entirely for something we can really enjoy.
Poggerino is not a widely celebrated producer. It skulks at the end of the Gambero Rosso guide’s Tuscan chapter as an also-ran and has never to my knowledge hogged a headline. Although various Poggerino wines are available around the world (see links at the top and bottom of this article), I can’t yet trace this particular wine via winesearcher.
But it was the sheer and obvious quality of Poggerino, Riserva Bugialla 2001 Chianti Classico that led me to expand my own knowledge of the producer. Piero Lanza started making wine at his mother’s property in Radda in 1988 and took over, with his sister, in 1999. He’s a qualified oenologist and clearly very competent in the vineyard himself so this is not one of those wines carrying the heavy handprint of one of the popular oenologists that seem to fashion such a high proportion of Chianti Classicos available internationally today.
The estate has just 11 hectares (28 acres) of vines, practically all Sangiovese with a little Merlot for the Primamateria blend of younger vine fruit, on south-south-west facing rocky slopes. Riserva Bugialla is made only in the best vintages and this 2001 is already a glorious and delicious expression of Tuscan Sangiovese to drink now, although I would expect it to please for the next four or five years. It has the bite of the grape variety but the polish and sophistication of fully ripe fruit without any exaggeration or obvious straining for effect. Only ambient yeasts are used and the wine is matured first in barrique and then large botte. Oodles of balance and subtlety.
In the UK Lea & Sandeman are retailing this lovely wine at £19.95 per single bottle, £18.50 as part of a dozen bottles of any wine. To find an importer or retailer near you, use the links top or bottom of this article. To find out more about this estate see www.poggerino.com , a website that is also more sophisticated than the norm.
I’ll be reporting in detail on Brunello di Montalcino 2001 on Saturday with tasting notes on 66 of them, but here is additional, and already drinkable, evidence of the exceptional character of the 2001 vintage in Tuscany.