NavBlank
             
   
     
 

September 28, 2008
Sangiovese Purity: Le Pergole Torte

Montevertine Le Pergole Torte

In This Issue

A Note from Sergio
Of all the producers making wine in Toscana, only a handful master Sangiovese, the region's most emblematic grape. And of that handful, only a couple make a Sangiovese based wine that truly tastes only of Toscana. Montevertine is one of those producers; their Sangiovese wines simply sing with the taste of Toscana.

That singing, however beautiful, hasn't always been appreciated, or even understood. Toscana's best-known region is Chianti, and throughout its history, Chianti has often been a wine of somewhat diffuse character.  Historically, Chianti was as much a regional style as a specific kind of wine, and though in the past three centuries various people and organizations have tried to codify the wine and make it clearly recognizable, most of the time that attempt at codification has failed. Either it has failed by forcing producers to make a wine that was just plain bad—as happened in the early-to-mid twentieth century—or it failed because Tuscan winemakers went their own way, flouted the rules, and made wine the way they wanted to.

It's lucky for us that they did. It's doubly lucky that one of those winemakers was Montevertine's Sergio Manetti who, in 1967, began making wine as a lark. By the late 1970's, Manetti had grown weary of his neighboring winemakers' adding international grapes like Merlot and Syrah to their Sangiovese based wines. He decided to make a wine that was 100% Sangiovese—something that no one else in the region was doing at the time. This wine, Montevertine's Le Pergole Torte, was very much a precursor of the Super-Tuscan movement wherein producers were defying DOC rules not by looking to France, Germany and California for their grapes and vinification processes, but by looking to home, to Italy, for their rule-breaking. Manetti was one such producer.

See, the thing is that a wine of Toscana should be evocative of Toscana, and not of California or France. When Sangiovese— the region's most widely cultivated and most evocative grape—gets blended, it often becomes overshadowed. Sangiovese is a finicky grape. It grows in small, tight bunches that ripen unevenly. It has an acidic zing and lovely earthy palate full of "frutti de bosco," or fruits of the woods like wild berries and plums. It does not, however, have a massive body, dark color and thick, unguent jamminess that characterizes many international wines. It does not, then, easily please the palate of people who like those wines.

All of which is to say that when Montevertine introduced their 100% Sangiovese wines, a lot of people including wine critics, wine writers and wine distributors didn't understand it. It was a wine, like the legendary ’01 Mascarello Barolo that famously received an 84 point rating, that has often been given ridiculously (and to me sublimely) low scores. I love it when a wine I know in my gut is a great gets one of those low scores. It means more for me and people like me who know that a great wine can be a wild, complex, and unusual thing of great beauty.

Montevertine's 2004 Le Pergole Torte recently received a rating of 85. It's not a wine for people whose tastes are led by conventional wisdom. It's a wine that defies conformist thinking—and it's a wine that was created in an act of iconoclastic defiance. It's a wine that tastes deeply and profoundly of Toscana. It's one of my favorites, and I am pleased to offer it to my clients—because I know you, unlike some others, will appreciate its singing.

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.


Sangiovese Master

Montevertine 2004 Le Pergole Torte & Montevertine 2003 Rosso

Montevertine Le Pergole Torte


Le Pergole Torte made its mark as the first single-vineyard Super-Tuscan to be produced exclusively from Sangiovese in 1981, but it accomplishes another achievement today. The 85 point, 2004 Le Pergole Torte joins our elite list of misunderstood wines that includes the likes of Bartolo Mascarello 2001 Barolo (84), Quintarelli 1999 Valpolicella Superiore (85), Soldera di Case Basse Brunello di Montalcino Riserva (78), and Biondi Santi 2001 Brunello di Montalcino (83). (Read "When 84 Points Is Better Than 100" )

Moreover, like the Brunellos of Biondi-Santi and Soldera, Le Pergole Torte represents one of the most important expressions of pure Sangiovese that Toscana has to offer. The 2004 vintage is a wine of longevity that will unquestionably exceed many of the sophisticated wines of Montalcino. This wine is all about finesse, elegance, complexity and, most importantly, patience. The flavor profile in its youth is subtle, as it is intended to be. Therefore some critics often miss the hidden beauty in this wine— it is not in your face, internationally styled, or about instant gratification. The high altitude of the vines, which range between 400 and 500 meters, lends to the structure and aromatics of this classically styled wine. Crafted exclusively in vintages commensurate with its breeding (its limited case production average 1,500 bottles), Le Pergole Torte undergoes an extensive maceration period ranging from 25 to 30 days and is aged in both barrique and Slavonian oak for a period of 18 to 24 months. Though this wine requires another ten years of cellaring, it will undoubtedly be one of the greats of the vintage.

Also Available:
Montevertine 2004 Le Pergole Torte (1.5L)…$231.00
Montevertine 2003 Le Pergole Torte (1.5L)…$222.75
Montevertine 2003 Le Pergole Torte (3.0L)…$470.25
Montevertine 1985 Le Pergole Torte…$276.59*
*Indicates Limited Availability


back to Recent Offers
 
 
Copyright © 1999- Italian Wine Merchants. All rights reserved.
Italianwinemerchant.com and Italianwinemerchantstore.com are trademarks of IWM.