Podere Poggio Scalette "Il Carbonaione" IGT 2001

[jmcginley1]

My first "super tuscan." Oh man wow is this wine good. I work at a nice Italian resturant, and a man who came in alone ordered a bottle of this for himself. I was fortunate enough to be given the remaining 1/3 of the bottle. By the time I tried it, the bottle had been open for about 90 minutes (not decanted though, so minimal oxidation had occured I assume.)

It was nice to see a pure Sangiovese with such wonderful balance.

The nose had an beautiful bouquet with blackberries standing out as the dominant smell. I spent two minutes swirling and inhaling before I finally tasted this wine.

This was the best Italian wine I've had to date. Wonderfully structured and balanced. Full bodied, but not oppressive. And the finish was elegant. Silky tanins that lingered wonderfully, but remained subtle.

[This message has been edited by jmcginley1 (edited 04-14-2005).]

[wondersofwine]

Is it a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and/or Merlot with Sangiovese? You mentioned pure Sangiovese but I though the Supertuscans were blends that have some grapes not normally allowed in Chianti wines. I'm especially fond of the Sangiovese/Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend from Ciaccia Piccolomini called "Ateo" (the Atheist).

[jmcginley1]

I am sure this is 100% Sangiovese. Super Tuscans are good-great wines made in Tuscany that don't follow traditional DOC/G rule sets. Not all are blends. Some can even have grapes that would allow them to be classified at a Chianti if they wanted, but the winemaker opts to not get classified. This gives the winemaker the freedom to change up the blend in future vintages without loosing classification. IGT has a lot less strict ruleset than DOC.

They started because 30 years ago, Chianti wasn't a very good wine. Rules governed that at most, only 70% of the wine could be Sangiovese, and 10% HAD to be white grape juice. So Antinori made Tignanello(the first "super-tuscan"), an 80% sang, 20% cab in an effort to improve the world's image of Tuscan wines. At the time, Italy only had to levels of classification, DOC, and Table Wine. Making this wine was a huge risk because Antinori was trying to sell an expensive, non-clasified table wine.

Other companies followed suit, making their own, non-DOC wines in Tuscany, eventually causing winemakers in Chiant to change the rule-set of chianti(in an effort to improve the overall quality of the wine) to include more sangiovese and also to not require the blending in of juice from white grapes.

Years later, IGT was added as another level of classification, to remove wines like the Super-Tuscans from being called TW-table wine.

This all being said, "Il Carbonaione" is pure Sangiovese, Tignanello is 80sang/20 cab, and others are different blends, with merlot, canaiolo and other grapes coming into the mix.

You'll never see the words "super tuscan" on a lable, and the term itself is an unofficial classification for great, non-DOC/G wines coming out of Tuscany.

[This message has been edited by jmcginley1 (edited 04-19-2005).]