February
10, 2008
Why Points Fail and 2003 Mascarello Barolo
In This Issue
A Note from Sergio
I’ve been writing this newsletter for several years,
during which time I’ve covered many subjects—individual
vintages, accounts of my travels in Italy, and profiles of
the special people behind the wines. In so doing, I’ve
tried to give my readers a panoramic view of the multifaceted
realm of Italian wine. People often ask me what some of my
favorite “notes” are, and I invariably refer
to the piece we’re revisiting today.
At Italian Wine Merchants, we refer to the piece simply
as “84 Points,” as
it incorporates many of our philosophies concerning not
only Italian wine, but wine in general as well. I’m
particularly proud of “84 Points,” and
I’m pleased to present it along with a selection
of other wines that, like the Mascarello 2001 Barolo,
have been underappreciated by people who believe that
the taste of wine is quantifiable.
My best,
Sergio
For more accounts of Italian wine, food, and life reserve
my new book,
Passion on the Vine: A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Family
in the Heart of Italy.
When
84 Points Is Better Than 100 and 2003 Mascarello Barolo
 (photo:
Bartolo and Maria-Teresa Mascarello)
In early March 2006, I got an email from my friend, the
Italian wine writer, staunch naturalist, and infamous contrarian
Franco Ziliani. Can you believe this? he wrote. They
gave Mascarello’s 2001 Barolo 84 points. He attached
a review from the nation’s leading wine magazine. Very
funky, the review said. Smells like a warm
room with two wet dogs in it.
Sure I can believe it, I wrote back. What? Are
you surprised?
Mascarello’s 2001 is, in fact, a gorgeous wine, with not a hint of damp
puppy to it. Franco theorized that by giving the same score to the Barolo as
they had to a $7 bottle of ’02 Yellow Tail Chardonnay, the publication
was making a personal attack on the Mascarello family, who never gave any credence
to the press and often refused to even send samples; on top of that, the magazine
had never understood Italian wines. Franco was furious, and rightly so—but
I wasn’t. I was thrilled. I called my friend Robert, the US importer of
Mascarello. Robert is an unorthodox fellow; he prays that his favorite wines
garner low scores, just so he doesn’t have to interact with journalists
and label chasers.
“Bobby,” I said. “Congratulations on your 84 points!”
“Thank god for small miracles,” Robert said.
Next, I went to my partner Perry’s office. “Did you hear about the
Mascarello score?” I asked.
“I was just about to double our order,” he said.
Finally, I called Maria-Teresa Mascarello, the daughter of the late master Bartolo
Mascarello and the estate’s head winemaker. “Maria-Teresa, you made
an amazing wine and got a crappy score,” I said. “Congratulazioni.”
“I could not be more relieved,” she said. “My father would
be so happy to know that our wines won’t be wasted on the wrong people.
Getting these wines into the hands of the right people is the only way to ensure
that we’ll be here another 100 years. Those scores mean less than nothing
to us, you know?”
Did I ever. When it comes to a truly great wine, sometimes a bad public perception
of the drink is the best thing that can happen to someone like me. I learned
that the hard way, back in 2000.
It was a cool fall morning, and I had gotten to work early. I was expecting my
first shipment of Bartolo Mascarello 1996 Barolo and I was too excited to sit
around at home. As soon as I arrived at work, my phone rang.
“Where were you last night?” the vice president of a major wine merchant
asked. He and some of the country’s most influential buyers had met for
a tasting of 1996 Barolos.
I told him I had another event, but the truth was that I hadn’t needed
to try Barolos from the vintage again—I already knew which ones I loved.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” the VP said. “The Mascarello
was terrible.”
“Terrible?” I asked.
“Dreadful,” he said. “Like a rosé, and with no fruit.
Who makes these wines now anyway?”
I told him that Bartolo Mascarello himself had become wheelchair-bound in recent
years. For a time, a man named Alessandro Fantino worked in the cellar. Eventually,
however, Maria-Teresa was ready to take over as chief winemaker. Bartolo remained
the inspiration and motivation behind the estate, but his daughter did the physical
work.
“Yeah, I thought so,” the VP said. I nodded silently and watched
the deliveryman bring the cases into the store. As Perry took the clipboard to
sign for the order, I wondered if I had enough time to sprint from my desk and
tackle him to the floor before he touched pen to paper. Instead, I sat still. “I
heard that these were once great wines,” the VP continued. “But I
figured that someone new had started to make them because they’ve really
fallen from grace.”
“Well, nice to hear from you,” I said weakly, and put down the phone.
For a moment, I was confused. When I had tasted the wines a few months earlier,
I had known that they were remarkable. Nebbiolo had thrived that year, and many
Barolos—not just Mascarello’s—reminded me of how the 1989 vintage
had tasted when I first tried it in 1994. The 1989 vintage is now widely recognized
as the best year from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, and the ’96 displayed
that same restraint, that same complexity and depth. That’s why I’d
ordered 50 cases.
Suddenly I forgot my befuddlement and panicked. My fledgling business couldn’t
handle this sort of loss. If I was wrong and this guy and his friends were right,
I might have to close the shop; I’d be ruined. I began to take long, deep
breaths.
“Uh oh,” Perry said, turning around. “What is it?”
I told him about the call; the color drained from his face. Before we could steady
ourselves, two my friends, a wine writer and a buyer, walked into the store.
“Aha!” the buyer said. “I see you got in a bunch of ’96
Mascarello.”
I inhaled and exhaled, inhaled and exhaled.
“I hear they suck,” the writer said. “Open a bottle for us
and let’s see.”
We went to the back room and uncorked the bottle. I watched their faces as they
took their first sips. Then I took mine.
“Too lean,” said the buyer.
“Too austere,” said the writer.
“Not velvety enough,” said the buyer.
“Not round enough,” said the writer.
“Ungenerous,” said the buyer.
“Lacking in the midpalate,” said the writer.
“Nothing there,” said the buyer.
“You gonna try to return the wines?” the buyer asked.
“We’ll see,” I said.
“So,” Perry said when they left, “what do you think?”
“It’s one of the best glasses of wine I’ve ever had,” I
said. It was just as I’d remembered—a rare gem. Like any great wine,
it wasn’t fully developed, but I could taste its potential, and it was
extraordinary. I realized what had happened: The people who first tasted the
vintage were modernists; they craved fruit, jamminess, deep color, readiness.
And they had no context; they’d only heard about the excellence
of a Mascarello Barolo, but they’d never actually tasted one in its youth.
They passed their opinion onto their friends, and their friends came in ready
to hate the wine. I ordered another 50 cases.
“I’ll make sure all of my clients lay a case down,” Perry said. “In
a few years, we’re going to make so many people happy.”
And we did. As I expected, the ’96 never received much press. What had
happened to me on a small scale had happened to the entire vintage. Civilian
opinion of the wine was clouded by the preconceptions they’d been handed.
The year passed without much ado, and in 2001, when the ’97s came out,
people went nuts.
But after several years, everyone had to recognize that the true splendor lay
in the ’96s. These wines are in it for the long haul, wines that have only
just begun to show what they’re capable of. Today, it’s common knowledge
that ’96 is a fantastic vintage. I was at a dinner recently, drinking the
Mascarello Barolo, when I heard a familiar voice. I turned around to see my friend,
the buyer, glass in hand.
“I always knew this Mascarello was killer,” he said. “People
didn't get it back then, but man, these ’96s are smoking!”
This is the story I thought of when I decided to offer the Mascarello 2003 Barolo
today. It’s the story I think of whenever I see a deep and beautiful wine
flattened by ratings. It used to make me sad, but now I see it as an opportunity
to help place these wines with the “right people” of whom Maria-Teresa
spoke.
The journalists who rate these wines miss the essence of Italian wines—you
can’t judge them with scoring systems, mechanically drinking dozens at
once and expecting them to be ready because you want them to be ready. Rather,
you have to comprehend how a wine will bloom, how it will unfold. It takes more
than a numerical breakdown of midpalate and fruit to predict that.
Remember the Mascarello ’89 I was comparing to the ’96? It’s
widely considered one of the best Barolos ever made. And back when it came out
in 1994, the same major magazine sampled it. Like biting into a handful of
walnut scraps, they said, with wet earth and menthol overtones to the
modest plum and prune flavors struggling to be heard over the noise. Then
it gave the wine a 76.
Bartolo Mascarello 2001 Barolo (84 points)
Bartolo
Mascarello 2001 Barolo…$90.06
Latest Mascarello Offer
While the 2001 is about structure, the 2003 privileges approachability, given
the ripeness of the vintage. While it offers expressive notes of delicate red
fruit, roses, and licorice, the wine nevertheless demands patience. As you
await further development, we recommend experiencing Mascarello’s style
through some of the region’s purest expressions of Barbera and Dolcetto.
Bartolo
Mascarello 2003 Barolo…$96.95
Bartolo
Mascarello 2005 Barbera d’ Alba…$39.19
Bartolo
Mascarello 2006 Dolcetto d’ Alba…$26.82
More Mascarello Barolo:
Bartolo
Mascarello 2000 Barolo…$198.00 (1.5L)
Bartolo
Mascarello 1999 Barolo…$107.95
Bartolo
Mascarello 1998 Barolo…$83.87
Bartolo
Mascarello 1995 Barolo…$107.95
Why
Points Fail
Ruggeri
NV Prosecco…$18.15
(Veneto—Prosecco)
Wine is a highly ratings-conscious world, but you don’t
have to drink by the scores alone. The biggest seller at
IWM year in and year out is an 84-point Prosecco—it’s
also the traditional start to an Italian meal and thus,
the toast that commences each and every IWM event. How
do we account for the disparity between its popularity
and score? And, more to the point, why do we pour it? Oddly
enough, the review accompanying that 84-point score was
right on—capturing the wine’s simple, good,
accommodating nature. This simplicity, this charm, is the
essence of everything you want in a Prosecco. Unfortunately,
an 84 doesn’t inspire confidence in the Prosecco
experience, with many consequentially losing out on an
excellent aperitif. Don’t be one of them—none
of us at IWM are.
Bruno
Giacosa 2004 Nebbiolo d'Alba…$39.90
(Piemonte—Nebbiolo)
Here is another 84-pointer—one of the finest expressions of Nebbiolo to
be released in recent years. Again, we encounter a scenario in which the
tasting note is completely out of sync with the rating. Indeed, it’s certainly
out of keeping with a wine that offers a gorgeous floral perfume and superb integration
on the palate, achieving a striking balance between finesse and ripeness. This
wine is a technically artistic expression that affords the most tasteful of introductions
to the ’04 Barolos. However, if your cut-off point is 90, or even 85, you’ll
overlook this rare Nebbiolo—a wine that drinks in the heights of its category.
Quintarelli
1999 Valpolicella Superiore…$85.95
(Veneto—Corvina, Rondinella, Molinara)
This is a case of one critic’s opinion against that of more than a hundred
IWM guests. Sans access to reviews or ratings, those who have encountered this
baby Amarone from the Veneto’s maestro have been struck by its transfixing
aromatics and remarkable resemblance to many full-fledged Amarones. When some
of the newly Quintarelli-obsessed return to the real world of ratings and find
that such a wine merited only 85 points, they are, appropriately enough, stunned.
This shock, however, is truly priceless, providing an unmitigated lesson in how
scores fail to measure up to what’s in the glass. What more pleasurable
way to learn that lesson than through a bottle of Quintarelli?
Biondi-Santi
2001 Brunello Annata…$158.00*
(Toscana—Sangiovese Grosso)
Ironically, the wines of Brunello’s foremost pioneer are among the lowest-scoring
of the region. The estate’s Annata bottling routinely receives a
score falling between 78 and 87 points. Why is this? Opulence and approachability
constitute the desired fashion these days. A Biondi-Santi Brunello, however,
is a different kind of beauty—a reserved, impeccably composed expression
that will reveal its complexity over the course of several decades. Hence, the
raves come years later, when critics are exposed to mature bottles; their former
ratings certainly don’t imply such transcendence. (View
Biondi-Santi’s
landmark bottles.)
* Indicates prearrival
Passion
on the Vine
 Passion
on the Vine:
A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Family in the Heart of Italy
by Sergio Esposito
Advance Praise
“Without qualification, the best book about Italian
wine today, if only because Sergio Esposito understands
that its mysterious greatness is in its poetry—the
earth, its diurnal magic, the ghosts of great-grandfathers. A
beautiful, boldly sentimental memoir.”
—Bill
Buford, author of
Heat |
As a young child in Naples, Sergio Esposito learned to
appreciate the deep relationship between food and wine.
Sitting at his kitchen table, he watched his mother, father,
aunts, and uncles as they paired local dishes with simple
country wines. So it seemed inevitable that the boy who
savored thimblefuls of Sangiovese mixed with water would
grow up to become America’s foremost authority of
Italian wines. When his family immigrated to America, they
were welcomed by their well-meaning relatives with a bland,
uninspired meal, and his mother would soon discover that
it was not easy to find the ingredients she needed to create
authentic Italian dishes. Clearly America’s palate
was in need of a makeover and as a young man Sergio was
inspired to open Italian Wine Merchants, a shop dedicated
to bringing the most authentic Italian wines to America.
Passion on the Vine is Sergio’s evocative
memoir of his journey from Italy to America and his frequent
trips back to his homeland, some with his growing family
in tow. He takes you to the cold hills of Friuli, the world-famous
cellars of Piedmont, the sweeping estates of Tuscany, the
windy beaches of Le Marche, and the lush fields of Campania.
Along the way he introduces a cast of remarkable characters,
not the least of which are his own mother and father—at
times exasperating but always endearing. You’ll also
meet the man who introduced Italy’s wine and gastronomic
heritage to the world; a ballroom-dancing winemaker who
bases his farming on the rhythm of the moon; and an obsessive
prince who destroys his vineyards before his death so that
his grapes will never be used incorrectly.
A very personal celebration of food, wine, and family that
no one will be able to resist, Passion on the Vine is
quite simply the most beautiful love letter to Italy you
will ever have the pleasure of reading.
IWM
Wine Experiences:
A
Study of Italy's Thinking Whites
February 23, 2008 1:00–3:00 p.m., $75.00
A white that drinks like a red? A Trebbiano that has achieved
cult status? Winemaking techniques that predate Christ?
These tantalizing subjects will be discussed—and tasted—in
IWM's most unusual seminar dedicated to Italy's quality
whites.
In the world of wine, white tends to take a back seat to
red. Oftentimes, this status is linked to issues of longevity
and complexity that affect the credibility of the category.
However, there are certainly exceptions to this generalization.
The beautiful, pale golden wines of Italy—fresh, interesting,
and replete with terroir—can be found from coast
to coast. These deeply flavored wines accurately express
the true characteristics of their respective regional grapes.
And yet, one is tempted to ask: is there a white equivalent
of traditional Barolo that offers unyielding depth, complexity,
and longevity in both youth and maturity? Are there whites
that can withstand aeration in a decanter for hours as
well as challenge the seasoned palate? This tasting of Gravner,
Valentini, Radikon, Quintarelli, Movia, and other exceptions
to over generalized whites should prove any lingering skeptic
wrong and help others see the value of cellared whites.
Buying
Wines of Longevity
March 1, 2008 1:00–3:00 p.m., $125.00
Do wines really evidence an appreciation in value and a complementary qualitative
development on the palate? What can you expect from a 2001 Barolo in 20 years?
Will the highly applauded 1997s age even 15 years? Do you need to spend $100
for a wine to last two decades?
IWM will uncork some “monuments to wine” that are destined for a
long life, as well as showcase what you might expect to discern in them with
age, given the proper care. This tasting will feature legends such as Gravner,
Sassicaia, and Bartolo Mascarello. These are wines for serious enthusiasts—wines
for special occasions that are certain to pique the senses, elicit conversation,
and provoke thought.
All participants will receive a complimentary IWM Cellar Account (for a duration
of one month)—an industry-defining tool that enables you to manage and
analyze significant aspects of your cellar in a virtual environment. Artisanal
cheeses and regional antipasti will complement this tasting.
Participants Receive:
• Tasting Booklet that includes IWM’s proprietary notes
• Sampling of regional foods prepared by IWM chefs paired with each wine
tasted
To learn more about IWM's Studio Regionale Saturday Tasting Series or to make
a reservation over the phone, contact Michann Thompson at 212.473.2323, x106.
|
