Thursday, May 22, 2014

Starting another trip: Montalcino

On Tuesday this week, I arrived in Rome to meet Tony Lemmo: Ristoratore, music-lover, and amateur philosopher. Tony owns Cafe di Scala in Des Moines, Iowa...a marvelous Italian restaurant with food inspired by his Calabrian family, and an all-Italian wine list. This was the start of a nine day tour, to include stops in Tuscany, Le Marche, Abruzzo, and Campania. Our very first stop, after dropping our stuff off at La Palazzetta, was the Enoteca at the Castello di Montalcino, in Montalcino proper. Along with a plate of salumi, we tasted a lineup of Brunello that included 2009 Mastrojanni, 2007 Poggio di Sotto, 2005 Biondi Santi, plus a 2008 Riserva from a producer I'd never heard of, Franci, who turns out to be one of the owners of the Enoteca. Only 1000 bottles of Franci 2008 Riserva was produced. The wine was pretty alluring - depth, complexity, length, delicious.