2001 Allegrini Volpolicella Classico

[stevebody]

"Taste like the place it came from"...STILL no answers. I responded to a topic that DID come up. It came up when Foodie asked why anyone would want to buy a wine that doesn't taste like what it says it is, in this case Chianti. Through all the oceans of verbiage that has resulted from this one exchange, NO ONE has offered the first hint of what the characteristics that make a wine a Chianti might, In Their Humble Opinion, be. instead, we have this blather about a wine "tasting like where it came from". Well, think what you want, but there are PLENTY of people who think the Alegrini wines that were slammed as un-Valpo-like taste very much like the terroir, the vineyards, the climate, and the Italian sensibility that surrounds them. If I'm getting this right, the heinous problem seems to be that some Italian producers are sneaking French varietals into the wines and that rains on everyone's cupcake. I think Italy has laws that deal with this, don't they? Aren't the content laws fairly clear, even to the extent that a good number of Italian producers have bucked at the strait-jacket they perceive and simply called the new wines Vin di Tavola? Roberto Guldener, if legend is correct, got fed up enough with the government's hidebound notions of what a Chianti Classico should be that he told them to go F___ themselves and the little Black Rooster they rode in on. Hence Terrabiance wines with names like Campaccio, Scassino, and Piano del Cipresso.

If a winemaker wants to make Barolo that is inky black, fruit-forward, and oaked to death, yes, as long as the Italian laws are obeyed, that person is entitled to call that Barolo. No qualifiers needed - Lite, Jazzy, nothing: Barolo. YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIKE IT, DRINK IT, RESPECT IT, SPEAK WELL OF IT, OR EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE ITS EXISTENCE. That's your privilege. You can even make some passive-aggressive little aside about it like, "Why would anyone want to drink a wine that doesn't taste like what it is?"

The catch is that, when you do it in public -which this forum is - you assume the risk that someone, sometimes, will call you on it; will respond with an opinion that challanges yours. I make a lot of declaritive statements in these forums. I don't know if they all stand scrutiny but I'm ready to learn, IF the person who responds to me is willing to make a cogent, rational argument for their position. Merely telling me that you think I'm an idiot is not a rational argument. I take a lot of static for my posts and I take it without whimpering and respond honestly and directly. Here's Honestly and Directly: I find the responses about regional character in this thread the same sort of reactionary moaning that you get from a roomful aging jazz musicians lamenting about these damned kids and their unmusical noise, as though jazz stopped when Bix Beiderbecke hung 'em up. In the end, it has about as much effect. The Allegrinis make the wines they make and millions of people love them. Ricardo Cottarella pulls off little miracles that offend purists and make millions for his clients while pleasing millions of customers. The maverick Barolo makers make their odd wines, none of which diminishes one whit the genius of Giacomo Conterno and his traditional Nebbiolos.

Wine, in short, Marches On. It changes, evolves, expands its definitions, and sometimes improves and sometimes wanes. Whatever the consensus definition of the ideal, representative Chianti, sometime in the past, THAT was thought to be heresy. If historical reports have it correct, the original Italian Reds were very, universally SWEET. Does that mean they should still be?

I'm done.