2004 Rosso di Montalcino

[deangold]

I think the best abrgain in red wine from Tuscany is Rosso di Montalcino. Made fromt he same grapes grown in the same vineyards as Brunello, for about half price you can ahve a wine that drinks well young and also can age. You should be able to dfind mosr Rosso for $20 to $30 a bottle.

The 2004 vintage is just now ariving and it is superb. WHile there are many forgettable 2004 Rossi (just as there is a lot of forgettable wine in general), those that are good are amazingly good. My favorites include:

Pertimali di Sasetti Livio

Le Macioche

Costanti

Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona

Argiano

Collosorbo

I am looking forward to tasting the 2004 Agostina Pieri when it arrives sometimes in August.

[dinwiddie]

If the Argiano we had on Thursday is any indication, you are not kidding. It was killer.

[zoramargolis]

If the Argiano we had on Thursday is any indication, you are not kidding. It was killer.

Goody! I bought one the other day. Sounds like it is already drinkable. Did you decant?

[alan7147]

Goody! I bought one the other day. Sounds like it is already drinkable. Did you decant?

Could you please tell where you got it? Thanks

[dinwiddie]

Goody! I bought one the other day. Sounds like it is already drinkable. Did you decant?

No we didn't, however, we did open it and did not drink it until we finished the champagne and the Venito that we drank before we got to it.

[zoramargolis]

Could you please tell where you got it? Thanks

2004 Argiano Rosso di Montalcino-- got it at Rodman's in Friendship Heights. $26.99. For me, that's a special meal wine. I don't often pay that much for a bottle of wine, but Dean's ringing endorsement piqued my curiosity...

[RaisaB]

You have to love this community.....

I just got back from Italy last night where I purchased quite a few wines. I always google them afterwards to make sure I wasn't a stupid American. I just typed in Brunello di Montalcino Pieri Agostina and DinoDC pop up was the only thing that came up!

So what do you think of this Dino?

[deangold]

Brunello di Montalcino Pieri Agostina and DinoDC pop up was the only thing that came up!

So what do you think of this Dino?

I htink Agostina Pieri is one of the unsung heros of Brunello. They are a small family owned estate that started making wine in 1993 or 4. I fell in love with the wine drinking their 1995 riserva which was the only riserva they ever made. The decided against making riserva as it left their Brunello "normale" of lower quality. They are widely considered to make one of the best Rosso.

They are a middle of the road winery in terms of modern vs traditional. They use low yield production and longer natural temperature fermentations. They put all their wine in barrel but it is not new oak. They are on a 6 year or so replacement plan for their barrels so their average age is approximately 3 years. Another way to look at it, they are only have 1/6th of their wine in new oak in any given year. They hold the wine in small oak for a year. Then it goes into large botte for the remaining 2-3 years of aging.

As of 1997 they are one of my favorite wineries and I am looking forward to tasting their 2001 Brunello and 2004 Rosso. We will be pouring their 2004 rosso as soon as I am finished pouring the 2004 Ciacci Piccolomini. In any case, it is a wine well worth cellaring as it provided icredible QPR (quality price ratio).

My faorite thing about visinting Agostina Pieri was seeing Agostina herself. She is in her 70's and she ownes about 8 million worth of Brunello vineyards and we say her in a straw hat with a corn cob pipe driving the tractor thru her vineyard shaking her head at her lazy good for nothing son who was taking time out from washing out barrels and moving wine bottles around preparatory to crush to entertain these Americani. Now we are probably their number 1 restaurant account in the states!

[jblum]

I just got back from Italy last night where I purchased quite a few wines.

This is probably off-topic, but how do you bring 'quite a few wines' from Italy back into the States??? I went this past winter and didn't try to bring in more than 2 bottles, which was not nearly enough (and it was ridiculously hard to choose which wines to bring back - we went with Sagrantino).

Just getting some tips for our next trip, although God only knows when that will be.

[brr]

This is probably off-topic, but how do you bring 'quite a few wines' from Italy back into the States??? I went this past winter and didn't try to bring in more than 2 bottles, which was not nearly enough (and it was ridiculously hard to choose which wines to bring back - we went with Sagrantino).

Just getting some tips for our next trip, although God only knows when that will be.

I've managed to take back about 8-10 bottles in a backpack from Spain and Italy. Just wrap em in bubble wrap and pack em in and put up with the weight

[deangold]

We get 12 bottle wine shippers and check the luggage. It sometimes causes a hassle at the gate ut stay calm and call a gate manager adn there will be no problem.Customs will charge you some small amount of duty or excise ont he alcohol and somethies they wave it, sometimes not. Technically they do not need to let you bring it in but its never been a problem once I convinced them it was for personal consumption.

[RaisaB]

We usually bring in 2 cases per trip. Have you noticed there is no place on the Customs form that asks you to declare alcohol? Dino is right, they care whether it is for personal consumption or resale. If they charge you the customs tax, it is more of a hassle than it is worth to them. We have cases which we check in also, but this last trip we just placed it in our rollerboards. Much easier, plus we are light packers so we raise no suspicion. (A family of 5 with 5 Rollerboards and 1 large suitcase, which we take empty and stick all our clothes in at the end of the trip.)