The Inside Story from Italian Wine Merchants

The First Taste

A Look into Surface Area

Last year when I lived in Florence, I had the opportunity to taste wine grapes that had just been picked off the vines. This had been a craving of mine for a very long time; I had tasted hundreds of wines but never an actual wine grape. It was one of those few experiences that lives up to its much-hyped hopes.

I was taking a wine class from Diletta Frescobaldi, one of the current owners of the Frescobaldi wine enterprise, who had open access to grapes from the estate’s vineyards.  She presented us all with two grape bunches fresh from the Frescobaldi Estate—one of them was Cabernet Sauvignon and the other Petit Verdot. Without knowing which was which, I found that it was pretty easy to determine their identities just from sight.

Cabernet Sauvignon grapes usually produce a dense, dark and tannic wine, attributes that mainly come from the skins. The berries of this cluster were very small, thick skinned, and tightly packed, and they tasted sweet but with medium acidity.  One flavor stood out in the Cabernet grapes, and that was a strong green pepper taste.  Italian Cabernets tend to develop these green pepper nuances, especially wines from the north. In contrast to the Cabernet, the Petit Verdot berries were much larger, thinner skinned and not densely packed. On the palate they were much more acidic and less flavorful.  Both were downright delicious, and I wish I could find these grapes regularly in the store.