Valentines Day Wines!
02/09/2025
Valentines Day Wines!
Barolo Rosato, Champagne, Cute Labels...
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Valentines Day Wines
It’s definitely still winter (thanks for the reminder snow) but the days are longer and the sun feels a bit stronger! Valentines day is always a little marker that reminds me that time is moving along and that spring is coming, so I thought through the wines I have on hand and made a short list of particularly exciting wines for Valentines. Of course, I always tell people that the best wine to drink for a holiday or celebration is something you really enjoy. Maybe some of these will fall into your wheel house though, and I think it’s always great to be drinking a wine that’s interesting and that has a good back story. You want to seem thoughtful and well informed when you’re on a date, right?
Anyway, here’s the list and where you can find them
Giacomo Fenocchio Langhe Rosato DOC 2023
Approximately $29.99/btl
Available at Browne Trading, Folk, and Bow St Beverage, Harbor Table, and Solo Italiano
Is anyone beating down the door for fine rose right now? I haven’t heard any requests, but I opened a bottle of this the other day and I was blown away. This is gorgeous, expressive, beautiful, complex, and utterly delicious. It’s the best Italian rose I’ve ever had! It has beautiful aromatics of strawberry and peach and roses. The fruit is gorgeous and fresh, but then it has a delicious savory salty dimension as well. It’s shockingly good!
Giacomo Fenocchio is a rising cult producer of Barolo. The family has been making Barolo for 5 generations and current wine maker Claudio took over in 1989 when Giacomo passed away. Their cru Barolos are quite sought after but it turns out they make a brilliant rose as well.
Aroma: bright vibrant and exciting white rose, candied lemon, ripe yellow peach and citrus blossoms. It's a gorgeous and vibrant aroma that's beautiful but also has power to it
Taste: this is so tasty! It opens with this beautiful subtle peach and gentle dry orange but then it broadens and expands with a touch of watermelon on the mid palate and then a deliciously deep and savory salty peach! The minerality gives the wine a deliciously satisfying and savory taste as well as focus and structure. The balance between the crisp thirst quenching fruit up front and the savory mid palate is spectacular. This is beautiful and thirst quenching but also complex and deep. It's truly a rose that will work on its own or with a very diverse range of foods
Signoraginni 'Gea' Rosso 2022
Approximately $29.99/btl
available at Harbor Table and Solo Italiano, or by special order at your favorite shop
Gea is made by Giorgia Salierno, a young woman wine maker who quite the fashion industry just before the start of the pandemic to follow her new love of wine. She worked closely with Danilo Marcucci for a couple years and then went on to do it all on her own. She’s working some very rural and beautiful vineyards in the hills outside Cortona. This wine comes from 15 year old vines and spends a month on the skins before aging in fiberglass tanks. It’s vivid and compelling with a mix of fresh and candied cherry and some fun coriander and cinnamon hints. The acidity is bright and there’s a subtle savory salt that rounds it out deliciously. The real shock is that it is …. Merlot! It tastes like no Merlot I’ve ever had, but it is fruit driven and supple so it’s not a totally off base wine for the varietal. Bottom line is it’s delicious, it’s rare (3500 btls made) and it comes from a very hard working and passionate young woman.
Aroma: deep red cherry, candied cherry, a hint of wood smoke, a touch of fresh raspberry, a little bit beeswax. It's got lovely juicy vivid fruit along with subtle smoky and spicy smelling aromas. It's definitely inviting, intriguing, and seductive
Taste: juicy, bright, developed fruit. It's a mix of ripe fresh cherry, cherry jam, and a touch of raspberry. The fruit is mouth filling and has a lushness but there's also great acidity that keeps it fresh, fun, and thirst quenching. The mid palate gets deeper and adds subtle black pepper, coriander, and a little cinnamon. The finish has finely grained tannin as well as a little bit of integrated salt that gives the wine a satisfyingly tasty savory finish
Conestabile della Staffa 'Gimo' 2022
Approximately $23
Available at Folk and the Belfast Co-op
A fun new wine from Danilo Marcucci that I tasted back in the spring of last year. This is Merlot and Aleatico with a short 2 day maceration and then aged in tank. I’ve tasted this repeatedly and watched it come together as it’s had more bottle time. The wine has certainly relaxed and become more integrated now but still has that tension and freshness that are Danilo’s calling cards.
Aroma: warm and juicy smelling raspberry candy. There’s red roses, raspberry jam, fresh out of the oven cherry pie... definitely a juicy concentrated and fruit driven aroma!
Taste: juicy, ripe, supple, and medium bodied. Raspberry and raspberry candy fruit lead off followed by some baked cherry and a touch of a woodsy cocoa powdery flavor. The finish picks up a bit of a spicy brambling peppery quality along with some more concentrated cherry cordial kind of fruit. There's lots of fruit but the wine definitely has a light touch and doesn't weigh your palate down at all.
Camillo Donati IGT Emilia Lambrusco
Approximately $23
Available at The Alna Store, Maine and Loire, Bissell Brothers, Quanto Basta, Night Moves, Vinolio, Harbor Table, Portland Cheese Shop (now Sissle and Daughters), Friends and Family, and the Norumbega
There will always be a Lambrusco on my short list for…. almost any holiday. Camillo Donati is a great wine maker from the Dressner portfolio and this is an absolutely delicious dry but playful red Lambrusco.
20+ year old Lambrusco Maestri vines planted on east facing clay hillsides. The juice has a bit of time on the skins and ferments with native yeast in stainless steel. It is bottled during fermentation and finishes fermenting naturally in bottle.
Aroma: juicy blackberry, grapy, grape candy, fresh sage and thyme, some lilac. It's a nice balance between floral and vivid fruit aromas. I really like that the fruit aromas are vivid but not too heavy or aromatic. That leaves more room for the floral and herbal aromas to come through
Taste: Super fine but persistent bubbles. Deep red cherry fruit, but it's restrained- not too in your face. It's thirst quenching and easy to drink but not too intense or too electric. It has just a hint of that Lambrusco dried fruit and jam character. I think the bubbles are more persistent because this finished fermentation in the bottle. The finish is just so gorgeous: slightly slightly brambley, gently dry, and supported by those fine frothy bubbles
Billecart Salmon Brut Rose NV
Approximately $130
Available at Bow St Market, Browne Trading Market, RSVP, Damon’s Beverage in Bangor, Lily Lupin and Fern, Monte’s Fine Foods, Bow St Beverage, The Vault, Oak Hill Beverage, Rayr, Maine and Vine,and Table Bar
Billecart Salmon: the oldest family owned Champagne House there is. This is Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier that are all fermented as white wine. Then a very small amount of red Pinot Noir wine is added to exactly control the amount of color the wine has. Billecart is a unique producer in most everything they do, from their use of all estate grown fruit to their extremely long very cold fermentations. This is a very beautiful and very special wine that is very clear and direct in the message it sends. Sometimes you don’t want to be understated.
Georges Descombes Morgon Red Label 2023
Approximately $31
Available at Maine and Vine, Maine & Loire, Bow St Market, Orchard Ridge Farm, Folk, and Portland Cheese Shop (now Sissle and Daughters)
I love this 2023 vintage and raved about it for Thanksgiving! I’m still raving about it now! This is drinking great and seems a touch riper than the 2022, but also maybe a bit fruitier, a shade less dark. This wine comes from a mix of vines that are 5-40 years old on southeast facing granite rich slopes. The grapes are chilled and then whole cluster fermented, semi carbonically in a mix of concrete, fiberglass, and stainless tanks. Then it ages in large old wood vats. Georges Descombes is a legend who lives up to the hype and this wine is exhibit A of that.
Aroma: It’s a juicy and developed fruit driven aroma with ripe red cherry, but there's also a high toned pretty strawberry aroma. There's also a little hint of aromatic herbs, particularly tarragon. Overall it's got lots of ripe and developed delicious smelling fruit like you'd expect from a Morgon
Taste: as you would expect from George Descombes this is absolutely delicious! There is a delicious cooked strawberry, a touch of blood orange, candied cherry on the mid palate, and good supporting acidity up front. On the mid palate, behind the fruit, a slightly edgy rocky minerality gives the wine focus and some drive. The finish has a very subtle hint of mocha and some gentle background tannins that give the wine a little pop on the finish and balances the fruit up front.
Oyster River Morphos Rose 2023
Approximately $25
Available at Bleecker and Greer, Island Wine and Spirits, RSVP, Rosemont Market, Bath Natural, Bootleggers in Topsham, Folk, Belfast Co-op, New Morning Natural Foods, Calafia, Good Tern Co-op, Hilltop Superette, Bow St Market, and Bow St Beverage.
Fun frothy vibrant petnat rose fermented with native yeast at a saltwater farm up in Warren ME! I don’t have good current tasting notes on this but it’s a popular known quantity: a vivid frothy fun and wild wine with a delicious “drink me right now’ energy to it.
Poggio La Noce 'Gigino' Sangiovese 2020
Approximately $40
Available at Solo Italiano, Oak Hill Beverage, Vessel and Vine, and Vinolio
I would just like to pint out, right off, that the label has a boar with a rose in it’s mouth on the label. Come on! That’s a great Valentines Day label! More importantly this is gorgeous mature and integrated Sangiovese from a beautiful little tiny biodynamic farm at the foot of Fiesole in Tuscany. This is a beautiful wine that just happens to have a perfect label on it.
The estate was founded by the husband-and-wife team, Enzo Schiano and Claire Beliard, who assist in almost all the daily work. They grow grapes and olives, have some animals, and cultivate a garden for seasonal food. Everything is natural. They adopted organic practices immediately and were officially certified in 2006. With a fierce nod towards biodynamics, their farming practices are straightforward. This means no pesticides or herbicides are ever used. Instead, they follow many organic practices, such as using green manure and planting leguminous plants in the Fall, which, by Springtime, are cut back and mulched into the ground, thus bringing nitrogen back.
Aroma: ripe round brambly red cherry fruit. A little hint of dark chocolate. There's a sleek aromatic component like red rose and then an integrated spicy woodsy aroma that makes me think of a cedar cigar box. Classic lovely developed Sangiovese
Taste: lovable round supple fruit at first and then the mid palate surprises with this peppery spicy jammy profile. There's raspberry and strawberry jam but it's supported by some peppery brambley tannin along with tasty savory salt. It's ripe deep developed Sangiovese. Then the finish has a touch of baking chocolate, a touch of eucalyptus, and then some mature well balanced tannins.
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