August 8, 2008
New Arrivals, 800+ Italian Icons, Le Macchiole, and More

A Note from Sergio Southern Exposure Northern Exposure Le Macchiole Bolgheri Sampler Barolo Vintage Streak Via Mascarello

Two Ways to Complete a Wine Collection Wine Collecting Services New IWM Tastings Upcoming Passion Events…

If you’re on the lookout for some of Italy’s most value-oriented and adventurous wines, we’ve got the wine trail to take. Simply head south, where the winemakers of Puglia, Campania, Sardegna, and Sicilia are crafting their wines with artisanal care—and capturing the attention of both critics and wine enthusiasts with the fruits of their labors. The south of Italy often suffers the fate of the middle child: it gets overlooked in the face of its more prominent siblings. Therefore, we’ve assembled this sampler in order to introduce you to the wild beauty of the South’s viniculture. There’s a Sicilian sparkler with classic credentials, an “underground” red that’s the product of aging in amphora, a surprisingly spicy rosé, a model Mastroberardino Taurasi, and two spirited reinterpretations of the South’s most venerable grapes. Whether you’ve long treasured the wines of southern Italy, or you’re just looking for some reds to complement the dog days of summer, you’ll find it in Italy’s south.(read more)

Southern Exposure (includes the following):
Contini 2006 Nieddera Rosato…$14.85
(Sardegna—Nieddera)
Cos 2005 Pithos…$44.55
(Sicilia—Nero d'Avola, Frappato di Vittoria)
Mastroberardino 2003 Taurasi Radici…$49.50
(Campania—Aglianico)
Murgo 2004 Brut…$29.70
(Sicilia—Nerello Mascalese)
Paolo Petrilli 2004 Ferrau…$28.05
(Puglia— Nero di Troia, Sangiovese)
Valle dell'Acate 2005 Cerasuolo di Vittoria…$26.40
(Sicilia—Nero d'Avola, Frappato)




‡ Free Delivery in Manhattan

Sometimes a wine is about the vintage, sometimes it’s about the winemaker. In this sampler, however, the wines are all about place. In Northern Exposure, we’ve assembled expressions that are resolutely local in character, so you can experience the terroir of Italy’s North by way of its vine. You’ll find Liguria’s steep seaside vintages shown in a signature Pigato, Friuli’s rolling hills reflected in both a sincere and honest red and a pellucid archetypal white, Trentino Alto-Adige’s alpine vistas illustrated by a pair of unusual and trend-setting reds, and the Veneto epitomized in an extraordinary  bottle from a legend. Each of these wines makes a unique statement about the terroir—that ineffable combination of earth, air, and water—where it was born. Even if you don’t get a chance to visit each of the areas represented by this sampler, drinking these wines, you’ll feel as if you did. (read more)

Northern Exposure (includes one of each from the below):
Bruna 2006 Pigato Le Russeghine $28.88
(Liguria—Pigato)
Castello di Rubbia 2006 Terrano…$42.90
(Friuli—Terrano [Refosco])
Fantinel Sant'Helena 2006 Tocai…$24.75
(Friuli—Tai [Tocai Friulano])
Hofstätter 2001 Pinot Nero Barthenau…$79.99
(Alto Adige—Pinot Nero)
Quintarelli 2004 Primofiore…$49.50
(Veneto—Corvina Veronese, Corvinone, & others)
Tenuta San Leonardo 2001 Gonzaga…$59.95
(Trentino—Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot)





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Listen closely to an in-the-know collector’s discussion about Château Pétrus, and you’ll invariably hear comparisons being made to a few Italian wines—Masseto, Italy’s most famous Merlot, and, in certain knowledge exchanges, Messorio, the flagship monovarietal Merlot from Le Macchiole. Although one of the original Super-Tuscan estates, Le Macchiole has stayed on the outskirts of the limelight, eschewing the physical grandeur of its Tuscan neighbors, while nevertheless generating the nearly obsessive interest of astute collectors. Moreover, Le Macchiole has truly created its own niche in the somewhat densely populated Super-Tuscan category by choosing to communicate its intimate grasp of terroir through pure-varietal bottlings.

In 2001, Le Macchiole took Paleo, one of its signature wines, into monovarietal territory, delivering a formidable expression of the estate’s work with Cabernet Franc. Indeed, Cabernet Franc does quite well for itself in Bolgheri, for the warm climate enables it to sufficiently ripen, thereby avoiding the greenness that it tends to exhibit in cooler areas and enabling it to achieve complexity. That special something between Bolgheri and Cabernet Franc reaches particular heights at Le Macchiole, where it displays a graphite dimension and spicy pepper. For contrast, we’ve included the 2000 Paleo—the wine’s final vintage as a Bordeaux blend (Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc) that’s drinking tremendously right now. Le Macchiole’s Scrio has always been a solo affair—a single-vineyard Syrah inspired by the wines of Côte-Rôtie (a passion of Le Macchiole’s late founder, Eugenio Campolmi). Scrio represents minute yields from two vineyard sources, and a rigorous selection process that produced a mere 400 cases in 2004.

To complete our house sampler, we’ve included Le Macchiole’s eponymous bottling, Macchiole, which is currently the estate’s only red blend. Originally conceived as the label’s second wine, Macchiole forewent this status beginning in ’03 when it emerged as a more accessible bottling. We’ve gone back to the penultimate bottling of the original here, when Sangiovese was King.

Le Macchiole Bolgheri Sampler
(includes one of each from the below):
Le Macchiole 2004 Scrio…$209.00
(Toscana—Syrah)
Le Macchiole 2004 Paleo Rosso…$93.00**
(Toscana—Cabernet Franc)
Le Macchiole 2003 Messorio…$229.00**
(Toscana—Merlot)
Le Macchiole 2000 Paleo Rosso…$89.99
(Toscana—Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc)
Le Macchiole 2002 Rosso…$29.70
(Toscana—Sangiovese, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Syrah)




** Indicates Prearrival
‡ Free Delivery in Manhattan

The late Bartolo Mascarello’s influence upon Sergio and the IWM staff arguably has been unequaled by that of any other producer. Thus, while other merchants have developed an intense preoccupation with the 2004 Barolo vintage, we’ve taken a step outside the frenzy to bring you a rare opportunity to taste the wines of the late Bartolo Mascarello and those of his daughter, Maria-Teresa, in an exclusive context—the historic Barolo Vintage Streak (1996–2001). This is one of the most important samplers in the history of the wine region, and IWM presents it with solo provenance.

In Passion on the Vine, Sergio recounts his first meeting with Mascarello, an occasion that transformed his entire relationship with wine. While he entered Mascarello’s unassuming office with cast-iron confidence, he left humbled and irrevocably changed. In the space of one solitary encounter, Sergio came to better understand not only what great wine was, but also that great wine was ultimately unknowable. As Sergio writes in his memoir, “This was the magnificence of Bartolo’s wine. It was constantly morphing, evolving, impossible to know entirely. You could experience it an infinite number of times and you would never be able to master it.”

This dedicated Mascarello sampler is of monumental import. These wines are, on both a fundamental and philosophical level, about patience, placing them far outside the frenetic, New York–minute world of tasting notes and scores. Indeed, on that fateful day Sergio was in a rush to leave, to move on to the next meeting, to find the next great wine. He was internally bursting at the time delay between the wine’s being poured and the act of “get[ting] down to drinking it.” Mascarello didn’t indulge Sergio’s worldly pressure, providing, in effect, an illustration of how to approach his wine. Mascarello’s Barolo is not simply a wine that demands patience over a long-term cellaring period; it demands patience once it reaches the glass. When Mascarello and Sergio finally begin drinking that’78 Barolo—from a bottle that had been opened two weeks prior—it was not what it had been when first poured. The wine’s profound change removed Sergio from all “wordly concerns,” placing him in a “labyrinth in which nothing made sense.”

We invite you into this very labyrinth through our Mascarello tribute that includes four of Piemonte’s heralded Vintage Streak years, in addition to the 2003 cuvée. We recommend that you accompany this purchase with a copy of Passion on the Vine, where you’ll find the complete account of Sergio’s historic meeting.

Mascarello Vertical Sampler
(includes one of each from the below):
Bartolo Mascarello 2003 Barolo…$96.95
Bartolo Mascarello 2001 Barolo…$117.57
Bartolo Mascarello 2000 Barolo…$108.63
Bartolo Mascarello 1999 Barolo…$118.95
Bartolo Mascarello 1998 Barolo…$105.19






** Indicates Prearrival
‡ Free Delivery in Manhattan

Here’s the question: 26 Magnums of the most sought-after wines in the world, or 800+ bottles of Italy’s finest wines? A few weeks back, IWM featured these 26 DRC magnums from the historic 2005 vintage in Burgundy. The $400,000 parcel sold and at that amount the wine is more likely to be an investment than a collector's obsession. Rare wines have recently been shown to outperform most traditional commodities, and these large formats will certainly reward an investment objective.

But at IWM, we also consider this investment from another angle—namely, what the individual could receive by investing half of that $400,000 in Italian selections. Just the other week our Cellar Management Division created a proposal for a client who was looking to obtain a complete cellar of Italy’s Finest Wines (we’ve included the proposal here). The list we developed included a small portion of mature vintage wines that are ready for consumption today, but it was primarily comprised of wines meant to be enjoyed over the next three decades. The list began with jeroboams from our Granbussia Millenium package, as well as the Barolo legends-to-be from the structured vintages of 1996, 1999, 2001, and 2004. These exceptional vintages formed the foundation of the list, and to complete it, we added a spectrum of Italy’s quality wines—Barbaresco, Amarone, Brunello di Montalcino, Super-Tuscans, Taurasi, and Montepulciano.  The first column ran through legendary producers such as Gaja, Giacosa, Mascarello, Sandrone, Antinori, Scavino, Biondi-Santi, Soldera, Valentini, Fiorano, and Mastroberardino, while the second column focused on the iconic labels, including Sassicaia, Masseto, Solaia, Redigaffi, Case Basse di Soldera, Monfortino, and Granbussia. More than 800 bottles from Italy’s greatest vintages, producers, and wines featured in our debut Italy’s Finest Wines proposal.

Again, we pose the question: 26 Magnums of the most sought-after wine in the world or 800+ bottles of Italy’s finest wines? There is no right or wrong answer here. Each individual has different objectives and tastes. And whether the budget is $500 or $500,000, most enthusiasts and collectors need help finding and purchasing the wines most appropriate for them. Fulfilling this need is the focus of both IWM in general and our special Cellar Management division in particular.  If you are interested in learning more about our program or receiving a customized cellar proposal, please contact us at 212.473.2323, x101. 

Italy’s Finest Wines Collection… $222,589.00
(Click for a complete PDF wine list and pricing.)

IWM SPECIAL OFFERS
A new feature available to collectors is our Special Daily Offers that features extraordinary offerings from blue-chip Bordeaux to vintage Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley. Last week, we presented the 2005 releases from the renowned Domaine de la Romanée-Conti estate, which we have included below in the company of France's Domaine Huet l'Echansonne. If you would like to receive these offers on a regular basis or view a complimentary online demo of our wine collecting software, please send a request to our Cellar Specialists.

Domaine Huet Vouvray

Domaine Huet 1976 Vouvray Clos de Bourg Moelleux…$112.00

Domaine Huet 1985 Vouvray Moelleux…$88.00

Domaine Huet 1986 Vouvray Clos de Bourg Moelleux…$79.00

Domaine Huet 1988 Vouvray Clos de Bourg Moelleux…$121.00

Domaine Huet 1990 Vouvray Haut-Lieu Moelleux 1er Trie…$189.00

Domaine Huet 1990 Vouvray Clos de Bourg Moelleux 1er Trie…$189.00

Domaine Huet 1995 Vouvray Clos de Bourg Moelleux 1er Trie…$99.00

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Domaine Romanée-Conti 2005: Assorted Case(Original Wood Case [OWC])
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2005 Romanée-Conti (1 bottle)
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2005 La Tâche (3 bottles)
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2005 Richebourg (2 bottles)
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2005 Romanée-St- Vivant (2 bottles)
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2005 Echézeaux (2 bottles)
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2005 Grands- Echézeaux (2 bottles)