Wine writer Peter Hellman of the New York Sun recently attended Wine Director Charles Scicolone’s class “Charles’ Greatest Hits,” where he tasted 10 of Charles’ favorite wines. The article below appeared in the Wed., May 2 issue of the paper.
There are still a few spots open for Charles’ May 9 class, “Chianti in All Its Glory.” To register, please send an email to register@vinosite.com.
To view class schedule, click here.
Next Monday, Charles will be attending the James Beard Awards where he has been nominated — for the 6th year in a row — for Outstanding Wine Service.
To celebrate Charles’s nomination, we are offering 9 of his 10 “greatest hits” at 10% off until Monday (online and in-store, subject to availability).
See the wines below.
A Traditionalist’s Top 10 Italian Wines
by Peter Hellman
New York Sun, May 2, 2007
Above: Wine Director Charles Scicolone with Brunello di Montalcino Consortium President Stefano Campatelli at I Trulli presenting the “Benvenuto Brunello” vintage tasting earlier this year.
Personal taste in wine is, for most people, blessedly apolitical. That’s not true of Charles Scicolone, the wine director of the all-Italian bottle shop Vino on East 27th Street and of the restaurant I Trulli. I have no idea for whom Mr. Scicolone casts his ballot on Election Day, but when he votes for Italian wine, he stands somewhere to the right of Silvio Berlusconi, Barry Goldwater, and maybe even Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Mr. Scicolone disdains “modern” winemaking practices of delivering plumped-up flavor impact via super-ripe grapes, high alcohol, and plenty of new oak, often augmented by high-tech interventions in the winery. He refers to such wines as from “the dark side” — Darth Vader wines.
Darkest of all in Mr. Scicolone’s eyes are what he calls “barrique” wines, which have luxuriated — possibly even fermented — in new 225-gallon oak barrels rather than the far larger, relatively flavorneutral wood vats called botti that are traditionally used in Italian winemaking. “Barriques impart nuances of oak, vanilla, and butter flavors that overwhelms a wine’s natural fruit,” he said last week at Vino. “There is a chemical compound in the barrique that is the same as in the melted butter product that is poured onto popcorn at the movies.” In Italy, the bathed-in-oak style was pioneered by the so-called super-Tuscan wines, notably Sassicaia and Tignanello.
What kind of wines does Mr. Scicolone like? “I’m looking for the least amount of interference in the winemaking process so that the flavor comes from the wine,” he said while he presented the 10 red wines he calls his “Greatest Hits” — all Italian, of course. Overtly fruity flavors are unwelcome in his top 10. “You’ll pick up flavors in these wines from the umami category like soy, mushroom, and balsamic vinegar,” he said. “Or the more masculine flavors: leather, mortadella, cedar, barnyard, even chocolate.” He also looks for an enlivening current of acidity as a foil to rich foods and as an aid to aging — rather than barriques.
So firm is Mr. Scicolone’s taste in wines that he stopped going to one of his favorite spots, La Pizza Fresca Ristorante on East 20th Street, because its extensive wine list was overloaded with barrique wines. “The owner called me to ask why I wasn’t showing up any more,” he said. “When I explained the problem, he invited me to bring my own wines to the restaurant.” Mr. Scicolone is once again a customer of La Pizza Fresca.
His predilection for the wines of tradition is not absolute. “The most revolutionary thing in winemaking since the Egyptians is cold fermentation to preserve the flavors of white wines,” he said. “It’s a modern technique — that of which I approve.”
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9 of Charles’s Top 10 On Sale
To celebrate Charles’ mention in the Sun and his Beard nomination, we’re offering 9 of his 10 greatest hits at 10% off.
This offer lasts only until Monday, May 7 (or sooner, if our supplies run out), so get your order in today!
Don’t forget: Monday is also the end of spring clearance, so don’t wait to place your online orders. View all of our current web offers by clicking here.
- Le Muraglie 2001 Ezio Voyat
was $36, now $32.40 - Colle Picchioni Vassallo 2002 Di Mauro
was $42, now $37.80 - Aglianico Ris. 2000 Tenuta del Portale
out of stock - Carmignano Ris. 1996 Villa di Capezzana
was $48, now $43.20 - Grato Grati 1982 Villa de Vetrice
was $38, now $34.20 - Barbera Dragone 1990 Dezzani
was $36, now $32.40 - Ghemme Breclemae 1996 Cantalupo
was $50, now $45 - Barolo 2001 Mascarello
was $80, now $72 - Tradizione del Nonno 2003 Pichierri
was $38, now $34.20 - Amarone Classico 1999 Bertani
was $86, now $77.40
When one thinks of the wines of Piemonte, one often thinks of single varieties: Nebbiolo, Dolcetto, and Barbera, not to mention Freisa, Bracchetto, Ruche, and Pelaverga, all of which are grapes traditionally vinified as “mono-varietal” wines. However, in the past, Piemontese wines were often made with more than one grape. Even the noble Barolo had some Barbera in it, a practice that Angelo Gaja has brought back. Therefore, it comes as no surprise today to see the number of blends coming out of Piemonte, both those which use traditional grapes and those which add international varieties. These wines are sometimes less expensive than, let us say, a Barolo or Barbaresco.
Meet Winemaker Serena Palazzolo
“Nunc est bibendum.” (“Now is the time for drinking.”). This famous line by Latin poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BCE) were probably inspired by the Aglianico del Vulture that he drank in his youth in Basilicata (the region that forms the insole of Italy’s boot). Indeed, he grew up in the shadow of Mt. Vulture where the volcanic subsoil of the highlands is ideal for creating mineral-driven, complex, structured red wine. From the writings of Latin authors like Pliny and Columella, we discover that southern Italy abounded in grape varieties and sophisticated vine-growing techniques. Indeed, when the Greeks began to colonize Italy in the fourth and third centuries BCE, they were so impressed with the Etruscan viticulture they found there that they called the Italic peninsula Oenotria, the “land of wine.” Today, winemakers in the south have “re-discovered” many of the ancient varieties through careful grafting of DNA culled from Roman ruins with modern-day rootstock. Vino and I Trulli’s Operations Manager Jim Hutchinson leads participants through a guided tasting of southern Italy’s ancient grape varietals.
It is almost that time of year again when we make our annual pilgrimage to the wine fair in Verona, Vinitaly. It is the largest wine fair in the world and this year we are all going, Nicola, Jim Hutchinson (our Operations Manager), Jeremy Parzen (our Marketing Director), and myself.
Last week, we spoke about how the Italians make wine to suit almost every taste and every occasion. They can make wines that are very traditional, make wines that are very international in style, and many wines that fall in between. If someone comes into Vino and says, “I want a wine that tastes like a Californian wine,” or “an Australian wine,” or a wine from almost anywhere in the world, we can almost always find a wine to make that person happy.
We have to admit: we were a little surprised when a writer from New York called to tell us that Nebbiolo and Croatina (a grape that we also know fondly as Bonarda) have significant quantities of melatonin, a hormone that, among offering many other possible health benefits, can help the mind unwind. Do we care all that much about melatonin? No. But we sure do like how these wines taste.
Often, people will ask the same question when they come into Vino: Why do you just carry Italian wines?
In the late 1860s, the Iron Baron Bettino Ricasoli hailed Sangiovese as the grape that “married best” with the Tuscan soil and he wrote the first official formula for Chianti, with Sangiovese as the primary grape for the blend. In the 1880s, Tancredi Biondi Santi produced the first Brunello di Montalcino by experimenting with growing sites and different clones of Sangiovese. The Brunello grape (also known as Sangiovese Grosso and Prugnolo Gentile), he discovered, was ideal for making long-lived, complex red wines. In the 1960s, Nicolo’ Incisa della Rocchetta, owner of the legendary race horse, Ribot, released the first vintage of Sassicaia as a vino da tavola or table wine, the first Super Tuscan. Inspired by the wines of Bordeaux and its famous Graves terroir (named after the “gravelly” soil), he had planted Cabernet Sauvignon in the pebbly soil of Bolgheri (hence the name Sassicaia from the Italian sassi meaning “pebbles”). In the twenty-first century, the legacy of these historic wines continues to resonate across the globe. Some would even say that they should be credited with the current renaissance and overwhelming popularity of Italian wines today. Wine Director Charles Scicolone leads participants through a guided tasting of some of Toscana’s greatest wines.
Lazio is known for Frascati but what people don’t realize is that it is one of the best places to grow French varietals. These red varietals, basically, Cabernet and Merlot, in my opinion, do better in Lazio than in any other part of Italy and even better than in some places where they are the native grapes.
