Vinitaly, Part 1

Part of my inspiration to start this blog came from my trip to Italy a few weeks ago, where I attended Vinitaly with my Dad. For those who don't know, Vinitaly is a big (if not the biggest) event for the Italian wine industry. Over 2,000 producers come together in Verona each year to show off their latest wines and hopefully secure deals with distributors, importers, and the like. It's not really publicized much to the public, but is in fact an open event. For 5 days, we were able to taste some of the world's great wines, and also visit with many winemakers and vineyard owners. It was an amazing experience for a wine lover, and also quite educational. I feel that doing that much tasting really improved my tasting skills, and I also learned a lot more about many of the wines and how they are made.

Over the coming days and weeks, I'll be posting recaps of the tastings and visits. I will preface by saying I did not take detailed notes, so don't expect too much detail. I did my best just to make sure I wrote down all the wines we were tasting, so that data is pretty accurate (only a couple of holes). Basically, I'll try to present the wines of a particular region/vintage and give my overall thoughts on the group, with possibly some highlighted recommendations.

Since this is the intro piece, I won't overwhelm and will start with a short one. Even though there are a lot of producers starting to make quality wines in Southern Italy, we simply did not have the time to focus much on tasting from that area. The one winery I made sure to hit was one of the big names from Campania, Feudi di San Gregorio. I really got on board with their wines last summer in Italy, drinking their Rubrato Aglianico while in Amalfi. We did not try the latest vintage of Rubrato at Vinitaly, but instead stepped up a level to start with the 2005 Taurasi. The Taurasi is an Aglianico as well, and seemed solid, but unfortunately I was not in prime tasting mode at the time as I had just finished tasting through some Amarone and Recioto (more on thosein a later post).

Following the Taurasi, we got to taste the 2004 Serpico, which is a DOC Irpinia Aglianico. From what I've read the Serpico is regarded as one of the top wines from Campania in most vintages, and it was a pleasure to get to taste it (never had before). Again, no detailed note, but it's a wine definitely worth seeking out if you ever want to go for a top-notch Southern Italian. It isn't cheap though, retailing for probably $70+ in most places in the US.