Marglin on Taste

Italy produces more wine than any other country, and it probably also produces more confusion about wine. The country is divided into 20 large wine regions, which are subdivided into more than 250 regions called DOCs (denominazioni di origine controllata), among which are superior regions called DOCGs (the g is for garantita, or guaranteed). The sheer volume of regions and producers can be hard to untangle. In the center of this thicket sits Tuscany, home to a 3000-year-old winemaking tradition — and today, many would argue, the most innovative wine in Italy.Everyone’s heard of one Tuscan wine: Chianti. For years, Chianti was the cheap, decent Italian wine, as ubiquitous as chardonnay is at bars today. Chianti was, for the most part, more famous than good, the kind of thing you’d order in the North End with spaghetti and meatballs. But the main grape used to make Chianti — sangiovese — is capable of reaching great heights, both alone and when blended with other red grapes.

Sangiovese is a very earthy grape; wines made with it taste like tea and have a foresty feel. It’s also very malleable. But you wouldn’t have known it to drink most Chiantis: because archaic laws dictated how much of which grapes could go into Chianti, any winemaker who blended in new varieties (or who used 100 percent sangiovese) wasn’t allowed to call the result Chianti. Then, 30 or so years ago, a few ornery and experimentally minded winemakers in Tuscany decided to try blending cabernet sauvignon with sangiovese — and try their luck at selling a Tuscan wine without the familiar label.

They figured that the fruity blackberry flavors of cab would complement the robust earthiness of the sangiovese, and they were right. The resulting wines, cutting-edge examples of what can be done in the region, have been nicknamed “Super Tuscans.” They’re often majestic and powerful, with flavor and poise and mysteries to match all but the very best that Bordeaux and California have to offer. Many are released at upward of $50 per bottle, and at auction you can pay several hundred for a Super Tuscan such as Sassicaia from a solid year.

Today, perhaps in response to the popularity of Super Tuscans, production regulations have been amended to allow Chianti to include up to 10 percent nontraditional grapes like cabernet, so even the traditional Chianti makers are blending up a storm. Sangiovese-merlot-cab blends with less intimidating price tags are on the rise, so you can still afford some pretty super wines from Tuscany, even if you can’t afford the true Super Tuscans.

For my money, the superest Tuscan wine isn’t a Super Tuscan at all: it’s a DOCG wine called Brunello di Montalcino, made from a special clone of sangiovese and aged at least four years before being bottled — three of those years in wood barrels. This makes for a big wine, and if you ever have a chance to try a 1990 Brunello, do so. Nineteen ninety-one was also pretty stellar, though not quite so out-of-this-world as ‘90. The ’92s are a mixed bag at best, and the ’93s are just being released, but they hold a lot of promise. If you want something less massive, try a Rosso di Montalcino, a plummier, fruitier wine that only requires one year of aging before being released. Winemakers put their best grapes into their Brunellos, but still, a lot of great fruit goes into the Rossos.

Tuscany also produces a superb white wine, Vernaccia di San Gimignano. These were once lean, tight wines that restrained their fruit and had a mean edge, but the recent trend has been to fatten these puppies up, making for a nuttier, mellower, rounder, and more flavorful wine.

Finally, at the end of a meal, conducive to la dolce vita is vin santo, a blend of malvasia and trebbiano grown in Tuscany (and elsewhere in Italy) that produces a lush, sweet wine. Vin santo is made by drying bunches of grapes in barns, then crushing the fruit and sealing the juice into little wooden casks with some of the previous vin santo (to initiate fermentation) for at least three years. The quality of vin santo varies a lot, but you have to love a wine that folks just call “holy wine.”

Try a few of these. Let me know what you like by e-mailing me at dave@taste.com.

** Conti Contini Sangiovese 1994 ($6.99, Martignetti)

A good spaghetti wine. A bit thin on the finish, but snappy and bright, with some earth and loam flavors. Pizza in the house!

*** Vigne Del Moro Chianti 1994 ($13.99, Bauer Wines). This 100-percent sangiovese powerhouse is fermented in cement vats lined with glass. The taste is all leather, and we’re talking Gucci. With espresso notes, plenty of tannins for structure, and a Godzilla finish.

**1/2 Rosso di Montalcino Castello Banfi 1995 ($16.99, Martignetti)

Full and round, with smoky and gamy flavors, some chocolate, and a touch of tea, but with a layer of fruit hiding underneath. The next best thing to Brunello.

**¹/2 Falchini Vernaccia di San Gimignano 1995 ($18.99, Bauer)

An opulent, round, and slightly buttery wine, with the slap, tickle, and bite so common in Italian whites (the bite is a hint of sharpness on the finish, but don’t ask me to explain the slap and tickle). Serve with mussels.

**** Poggio Antico Brunello di Montalcino 1993 ($39.99, Wine Cellar of Silene)

Big and earthy, with cedar accents and plenty of scents of the forest (think mossy stream banks), leather, and slightly muted fruit, with just a hint of vibrant red plum and a touch of Blue Mountain coffee.

For years, maybe even centuries, the Loire Valley has been France’s number five wine region. (The top four are Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, and the Rhône Valley.) But being down at number five doesn’t mean being in the cellar, as it does in professional sports — or rather, it does mean being in the cellar, but in a good way. In its many distinct appellations, or subregions, the Loire makes a bundle of wines worth laying down in your wine cellar, as well as a boatful of winners ready to drink now.Three primary grapes are grown near the Loire River (pronounced “lou-are”): the main white grapes are chenin blanc and sauvignon blanc, and the main red is cabernet franc. The best-known appellations are Muscadet, Anjou, Chinon, Vouvray, and Sancerre, but there are more than a hundred different wines produced here: full-blown reds, rosés, sparklers, dry whites, and unctuously sweet whites. These last, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, are all the rage right now.

The Loire offers some real values at the moment, because the region doesn’t have the same cachet — in America, at least — as the other major regions. In the 1970s, Sancerre became the darling white of Paris wine aficionados, who took to the sauvignon blanc-based wines of Sancerre and its neighbor across the river, Pouilly-Fumé. (Pouilly-Fumé, incidentally, gave rise to the Mondavi name for sauvignon blanc: “Fumé Blanc.”) As more and more of the bourgeoisie turned to Sancerre for their white dinner wine, the price was driven up. Now, however, the broad range of white wines available, including a plethora of sauvignon blancs from around the world and the abundance of ripe fruit from two stellar recent vintages, ‘95 and ‘96, have brought Sancerre back to earth.

In many years, winemakers in the Loire Valley must make do with underripe fruit, owing to the less-than-ideal weather conditions and to archaic French laws governing the harvest. But both ‘95 and ‘96 yielded fruit that was both copious and perfectly ripe. Couple that mature fruit with the New World style of fruit-forward winemaking being adopted by many of the region’s winemakers, and voilà, beaucoup des vins terrifique. Indeed, the ample supply of ripe chenin blanc (along with its quality) has created a corresponding demand for the sweet whites made from the highly acidic chenin blanc grapes grown near the Layon, a Loire tributary.

Chenin blanc generally creates super-sharp (and slightly sour) Vouvray and other starkly dry white wines, as well as numerous sparkling whites that are lighter and far less refined than Champagne. But when the fruit gets really ripe, it’s made into wine classified as demi sec (partly sweet) or moulleux (sweet, caused by the noble rot, botrytis, that grows on the grapes in October). The demi-sec wines, such as those suggested below, go well with spicy foods; the sweet wines, including the Domaine Des Baumards Quarts Des Chaumes that I reviewed two weeks ago, are like honey when drunk by themselves, and are also great with dessert.

Muscadet, near the Loire’s mouth (and the Atlantic), makes a light, refreshing white wine that can be slightly pétillant (an almost-fizzy feeling in the mouth). Look for those labeled Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine. Meanwhile, Anjou’s rosés are as famous as its pears, but red gamays (the Beaujolais grape) of gentle fruitiness are produced here as well. Chinon reds, made mainly from the acidic and intense cabernet franc, compete with those from Bourgueil across the river for the mantle of best red Loire. Both are worth trying, either young or old.

One store that’s long and strong on Loires is the Wine Cellar of Silene. It didn’t fit into my last column on the area’s best wine stores, but it belongs in their company: with depth in French, Italian, and American wines, it draws customers from well outside its Waltham location. General manager David Bergman and his staff are almost religious about wine, which might explain the mythical figure in the store’s name (Silenus was Dionysus’s wine steward). I’ve always been impressed with their ability to suggest quality California wines — for example, they turned me on to the Lockwood Merlot and “discovered” Philip Togni long before the vaunted Robert Parker did. The address is 475 Winter Street, in Waltham (Exit 27B off Route 128); hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tastings, organized by region, are held Fridays from 5 to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 2 to 4:30 p.m.

**1/2 Sancerre 1996 Cuvee des Moulins Bàles ($12.99, Wine Cellar of Silene, Brookline Liquor Mart)

Crisp, fruity, edgy, with lush pineapple stripes and a nose of green apples. None of the vegetal characteristics that sauvignon blanc is famous for, but some hints of what the French call pipi de chat in its aroma. A summer supper wine to serve super-cold, perhaps with cheese and fruit.

**1/2 Vouvray Domaine Bourillon D’Orleans Sec ($9.99, Wine & Cheese Cask)

Crisp and dry, with clean flavors (and a touch of Granny Smith-apple bite) that will freshen up any summer day. Serve cold on a picnic or by the pool with fish from the grill. A solid value.

*** Chinon Les Varonnes du Grands Clos 1996 Joguet ($22.99, Wine Cellar of Silene)

Excellent cab franc/cab sauvignon blend, chock full of lush, dark berry fruit mixed with earth and coffee. This wine, though still awfully young, is reminiscent of a pastoral meadow after a long spring rain. One that I would hold for a while, but it can be drunk now with an hour or so of air.