A sad day in Dirtville (file under "ass" redux)

[Botafogo]

Here's some context for you:

If you are coming from, say, Vitiano (faceless, chemically manipulated Umbrian Merlot) to Avignonesi then it would seem a step in the right direction. BUT, If you compared it with wines from the same winery from as little as ten years ago, you would see they are running HARD towards the middle of the bell curve.

Two years ago we remarked on two things re this winery at a party they hosted in Verona for 2000 of their distributors and final consumer vendors worldwide:

A) They spent gigabucks on food, renting a castle and an opera performance yet NO ONE ever addressed any of us on a group or individual basis about anything (including such basics as "Hello", "good evening" or "thanks for supporting our wines"). VERY strange...

B) They had over fifty wines from various wineries they controlled all set out on one big table, ranging from Avignonesi to Spanish properties to Aussie and Chilean stuff and they ALL tasted the same (overextracted and way over oaked) except one Spanish wine that they had just bought but not changed the vinification of yet. That's the one we drank with dinner!

which leads us to

C) we haven't sold their wines in years (we were drug to the dinner above by their distributor here in a vain attempt to show us how much the wines had "improved").

Roberto

[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 08-13-2001).]