17
Jul
2014
- Details
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Category: Uncorked Tonight
(April 19, 2014) ... A friend of ours came up with the idea of an appassimento dinner, complete with Italian sized portions and number of courses. She had a couple in her collection from Ontario, I provided a number of others from Italy, Argentina and yes an Ontario as well.
We kicked things off with a Masi 2007 Campofiorin, a ripasso style wine and considered to be a 5-star wine by the folks at Masi. The nose started out a little on the funky side but it was the palate that saved the day here: smoky, earthy, and black cherry; finish proved to be deliciously long and supple.
From there we moved into the Ontario wine, a the Colaneri 2010 Insieme, there was a touch of volatile acidity (nail polish remover) on the nose, but if you could get over that the palate proved to be soft and supple with cherry and chocolate, along with hints of mocha and vanilla. A noticeable sweet hint of red fruit along with a mouth-filling richness - talk about holding your own amongst the big guns to come, it did!
We popped the cork on the Argentinean bottle next, a blend of Corvino and Malbec created by Masi called Passo Doble under the Masi Tupungato name, the 2007 was what I had so that's what I brought. Quite smoky with cassis and blackberry and a nice chocolate note that runs right through the middle. It needed quite a bit of time to come around but once it did it developed more complexity adding pepper, cocoa and raspberry to the mix that was already there. Now I would like to point out there were 5 people at this dinner gathering and this one proved to be a favourite of one of the guest's as he finished the rest of the bottle himself.
We'd come to the main course so it was time for the big guns to come out ... Amarone and Amarone-style: Cave Spring 2006 and 2007 La Penna started us off. The '06 showed softness, yet with a richness of cherry and blackberry on the nose; palate kicked the cherry up a notch, adding smoke to a red berry mix, then came cassis and a steady stream of tannins. The '07 was deeper, richer, darker, chocolaty-er, and the tannins seemed a little more integrated. This was the better of the two wines for structure, finesse and power ... It still has a long life ahead of it, and if you have 5 years to spare I'd leave it be till then.
Our last wine was an Italian Amarone (the real kind) Fabiano 2005 Riserva Amarone, a bottle I brought back from Italy a few years ago. This one seemed very sweet to me, it had mocha smoothness with lots of fruit in the realm of black cherry and plum.
A really excellent night of wine, food and friendship ... And maybe, just maybe, one or two people walked out a little tipsy.
