Living in Italy, especially in Toscana, I was more or less awash with wine. All my friends there are in the wine business—my BFF Laura Gray is the Estate Manager of Il Palazzone; my friend Lauren, whose stone villa I stayed in, owns the wine tourism business Tuscan Auteur; and all my new friends are wine folk, vineyard owners or wine importers. Every dinner was studded with conversation about wine. I now know more about the difficulties of cork or the cost of wineglasses than I ever thought I might.

It was, then, only natural to choose wine as my souvenirs for my friends and family; however, it was more difficult than I’d expected to choose gifts. So much wine, so little luggage space, and so many miles to go before I could hand off the bottles to the intended recipients. I had to make my picks carefully.

My parents have an unabashed passion for Italy, but they don’t have sophisticated wine palates. Beyond picking a wine that my parents would think tasted good, I wanted a wine that held weighty sentimental value. Picking my dad’s wine was actually really easy—I got him Il Palazzone’s Lorenzo & Isabelle 2005, a Super-Tuscan blend named after estate owner Dick Parsons’ parents. I knew it’d go really nicely with the salami I smuggled in my luggage, and I knew that the wine’s dominant Cabernet Franc would mean my dad would find it yummy.

My mom really likes dessert wine, specifically ice wines. I knew I wanted to get her a sweet wine from Toscana, and while I’m really fond of Vin Santo, I couldn’t find one from a producer I had any attachment to. Instead, I found her a bottle of Castello dei Rampolla’s Vendemmia Tardiva 2005, the last year the estate made the wine. Last spring, I spent a magical, idyllic day at Castello dei Rampolla, and while I’ve never had this wine, everything I’ve tasted from them has been spectacular. Maybe it’s the biodynamic pixie dust, but I suspect it’s the people and the place, both of which glow with a rich aureole of wonderful.

My friend Victoria designs every space she inhabits within an inch of its life. She has a major taste for finer things, and so while I was in Rome, I did a quick search, discovered that Trimani was the place to go for wine, and bought her a bottle of Quintarelli Valpolicello 2002. My friend Beatrice, on the other hand, embraces simple, meaty pleasures, and she got a bottle of Talenti Rosso di Montalcino 2009 because, in addition to my dad’s salami, I also smuggled her some lardo. It’s a fantastic, umami, earthy combo. That was the end of my smuggling.

And finally, I brought a bottle of Poli Grappa for my friend Hooper because he’d never had the good stuff. He’d only ever drunk the kind of Grappa better intended for cleaning engine parts, but that’s what happens when you’ve spent a goodly portion of your life as a sailor.

All in all, between my wine gifts and my own bottles, I carried eleven bottles home with me. It was a lot to carry. But more than the sheer physical exertion, I learned an important lesson about how to pick wine gifts. It’s not just about what’s in the bottle. It’s also what’s in the experience. That glass bottle holds so much more than a bunch of well turned-out grape juice; it holds memories, it holds metaphor, and it holds magic. When you think of it that way, there is no better gift than a well-considered bottle of wine.

The cellar at Tua Rita

Wine writers, due to the nature of the business and the desire to elevate not only the wine they are describing but themselves as well,  often use high impact words as descriptors to entice the  public into believing that a particular vintage or offering is  absolutely essential for their cellar or palate.  You hear words like “epic,” “mythical,” and “prodigious.” More often than not, I get annoyed with these efforts to canonize or deify a particular effort and only very rarely does a wine live up to this kind of effusive praise.

But sometimes it does happen.

Tua Rita's vineyards in spring

Call it luck, call it intuition, call it epic and mythical and prodigious all at once, but in 1984, the Virgilio family purchased a small vineyard in Suvereto as a place to spend their retirement and follow their passion, cultivating the land. The wines they made for their own family were so well loved that they decided to start marketing them, and Tua Rita was born. The estate’s medium textured, predominately clay soil that is especially rich in iron and zinc so well suits the international varietals of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon that Tua Rita almost instantly created some of Tuscany’s most revered cult wines. The specific minerality of the terrior at Tua Rita combined with the care and craft of this family-run estate helped it to produce truly top-notch wines almost from the estate’s inception. Giusto di Notri, Perlato del Bosco, and the  small production Redigaffi receive effusive praise from every corner of the wine world, and even I must agree with these beatific descriptors.

The beatified wines of Tua Rita

This week I was thrilled to see the 2008 vintages from Tua Rita arrive in our showroom cellar, and yesterday a most remarkable event occurred.  One of our senior Portfolio Managers had a client lunch scheduled in our Vintage Room.  Excited to share these tastes with his client, he opened both the Perlato del Bosco and Giusto di Notri about ninety minutes before the lunch. He discovered that the Perlato was spectacular, tight right out of the bottle but opening beautifully within the hour.  The Giusto remained completely shut down on the nose, taut and complex in the mouth, a contemplative experience that was not yet presenting its essence and potential. Not wanting his clients first taste of this beauty to mislead them, he made the executive decision not to serve it.

Two hours later, he walked into our newly renovated second floor sales office, decanter  in hand, and said, “Grab a glass.”  Needless to say we needed no second invitation.  It had softened into lush fruit, currant and dark berry, an aromatic beauty of mythic proportions.  Epic, my mind said to itself, and while I winced at the descriptor, I couldn’t disagree.

Italian Wine Merchant clients (and employees as well) are often challenged with trying to understand and articulate a clear definition of a wine that falls under the Super Tuscan comprehension. Maybe the first thing to accept though is that a straight-forward definition for Super Tuscan just doesn’t exist.

However, I wouldn’t leave you off there because even without a clear definition, there are commonly agreed upon guidelines. Generally speaking, Super Tuscans are the most prestigious wines that an estate makes outside of Tuscany’s strict DOC/DOCG standards. They can be made from 100% Sangiovese, but often they either include international varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Syrah and even Pinot Noir.  These wines also stray from rigid aging requirements and techniques that often plague other esteemed wines grown in Italy (think of the stringent standards for Brunello or Barolo etc).

To get an insider’s handle on the terminology and technicality, I turned to Cinzia Merli from the acclaimed Le Macchiole estate (home of some of the most superior of Super Tuscans—Messorio, Scrio and Paleo) explains her take on Super Tuscans. To Cinzia, the name “Super Tuscan” originally categorized all those wines in the ‘70s and ‘80s without a DOC appellation. Noting that until the ‘80s in Bolgheri only whites and rosé were considered under the “disciplinare,” Cinzia suggests that all the other wines falling outside of these designations got the name Super Tuscans. Cinzia adds her personal insight, “Nowadays Super Tuscans are probably all those high-end, high-quality wines with few quantities.”

Because of the wealth of indigenous grape varieties that call Italy home (all 2,000 plus of them), it seems perhaps a bit indulgent to grow the International varieties that make up Super Tuscans. However, thirty to forty years after the birth of this nickname, we the consumers adore the wines of these popular varieties growing in Tuscany. Still, we might be prompted to ask why producers decided to stray from the ordinary and begin planting these varieties. Cinzia explains:

“We decided to grow international varieties because this area is for sure one of the most suited for grapes such as Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, with expression deeply linked to the territory. The microclimate and the composition of the soil have been more than once considered the second ‘motherland’ for those traditionally considered Bordeaux grapes. For Le Macchiole the decision of producing monovarietal wines is based on the conviction that these could be almost considered ‘native’ varieties and that in this way we have the opportunity to express the terroir at its best.”

And there’s no disputing that these varietals have expressed the terroir of the region best. Super Tuscans, most particularly those hailing from Le Macchiole, have rapidly risen in esteem. No longer do they fight to just challenge Bordeaux’s wines; instead they meet them on a level playing field. Perhaps now it’s time to stir things up a little more; when describing her wines, Cinzia generally considers the estates, Paleo, Scrio and Messorio to be Super Tuscans, “just because they do not ‘follow the rules’ of the DOC law.”

“But,” she adds, “I would better call them ‘terroir wines,” deeply linked to the Bolgheri territory.” Cinzia could be onto something; making terroir, no longer strictly a noun, but an adjective to describe the next big thing in Italian wine.

I experienced what many of us wine enthusiasts look for –that moment when a little patience is rewarded, and that time when the primary and secondary flavors of a wine have evolved and meshed to create a spectrum of tastes.  The wine in question was a 1996 Sociando-Mallet, and thanks to Bar Henry’s new “Marketplace” approach, you don’t have to pay the full bottle price to have a glass of vintage wine.  Typically, it’s prohibitive to enjoy a respectable thirteen-year-old Bordeaux by the glass at a restaurant. However, when you order half of a bottle of the Sociando-Mallet, Bar Henry opens a fresh bottle, pours half to satisfy your order and then places the remaining half on their “Marketplace” board for others to enjoy. In essence, you are sharing the cost of buying a full bottle of wine. It’s not a bad idea, especially if you are coming in to retrieve the second half after it has had a little time to breathe and open up.

Wine and burgers at Bar Henry

To accompany this unclassified and often unsung wine of Bordeaux’s Left bank, we ordered the La Frieda Burger (named after Patrick La Frieda, the meat master behind some of Manhattan’s landmark burgers at joints such as Shake Shack, Minetta Tavern, among others).  Bar Henry provided a tasty and sizeable burger:  fresh, juicy, perfect for some vino, and a welcomed change from the 2:00AM Corner Bistro-Bud combo. From the Sociando-Mallet, we moved on to the 2006 Tempier Bandol, which could use a decade of aging, some German beers and more. However, this night belonged to Sociando-Mallet; it’s a wine that’s currently peaking and joins my list of value performers or “WOTN” for the month.

The WOTN List:  Value Wines of the Night (December)

1. The 1999 Fontodi Flaccianello: While everyone is focused on buying the 2006s from this Tuscan estate—and with good reason—I have been pouring the 1999. With ten years of age, the wine can be better described as a masculine Brunello. I poured this wine in the company of aged Barolos and single vineyard Pinots for a group of eight enthusiasts two weeks ago.  On tasting the Flaccianello, three of the eight stopped what they were saying, stared backed down in their glass for a second take, and then returned their attention to me to say, “I will take a case of that.” This wine is simply on.

2. The 2001 Castello di Cacchiano Chianti Classico Riserva: It’s the little wine that’s capable of changing the perception of Chianti. While most of us consume the Tuscan red within five years of the vintage date, this is a great example of a Chianti Classico showing maturity and providing tertiary notes of mushroom, underbrush, and cherry.  We poured this wine at a tasting event for 100 guests outside of Philly, with emphatic responses like “what is that?” and “that’s Chianti?” I completely recommend this wine.

3. The 1996 Chateau Sociando-Mallet: Thanks to Bar Henry, I was able to share a half bottle of this with a friend without a premium, and I am now in the process of asking our Wine Acquisitions Director Christy for some bottles to enjoy at home.  This is a classic Bordeaux blend and one of the great values in the overpriced region. I also think this 1996 is great example of how the rating and point system can dissuade enthusiasts from experiencing a great bottle.  This wine over-delivers in price and reviews.  Visit Bar Henry and try this wine while it’s in its moment, and be sure to ask Patric the bartender-sommelier for his well-prepared and seasonally appropriate Tom and Jerry cocktail. It’s the perfect ending for an evening of wine and burgers.

However, it wasn’t the idea of 2006 Sassicaia showing signs of ‘85 glory that has left a lasting impression on me; in fact, it is quite the opposite. Earlier in the week Piero Incisa della Rocchetta and Monica Soldera joined Sergio Esposito along with twenty guests for a special evening of wines featuring Bodega Chacra, Sassicaia and Soldera Brunello di Montalcino Riserva.  For me, this line-up is as thrilling as a concert of Dylan and The Dead.  With 1982 (Sassicaia) and 1990 (Soldera Riserva) joining this unprecedented offering of Italian winemaking royalty, it would be difficult for any bottle to outshine these monuments to Italian wine.  And to no surprise the vintage bottle of Sassicaia drew raving comparisons to Mouton-Rothschild from some guests, while others were left speechless by Soldera’s wines of meditation.

But as the week came to a close, it wasn’t the 2006 Sassicaia auction lot or the historic 1982 that stuck with me; it was the Sassicaia and Soldera media sleepers of 2002 that were placed on the table beside the 1982 and 1990 vintage gems a few nights back.  Piero claims that the wines of this vintage were “a victim of the bastardization by the media,” and to miss these wines because the critics dismissed the 2002 vintage as a whole would be a serious injustice.  In fact, the 2002 Sassicaia in many ways is more representative of the house style that defines Tenuta San Guido, as opposed to the rich and concentrated version Mother Nature provided the media obsessed in 1985.  Sassicaia 2002 provides finesse and accessibility. I have to ask, why crack into the age-ability of 1999, 2001, 2004, or 2005, when 2002 is this good now?

No reason, really. It’s a Sassicaia celebration.