Beautiful medium golden ruby. And that’s where it stops. Everything else about this wine is basically undrinkable. Putrid vegetal miserably oxidized nose. Soggy lettuce in the crisper drawer for too long. Smashed sugar ants. Round, cinn-caramel note mingles with the expletive-filled bouquet, attempting to convince you there might be some merit in actually lifting it to your lips. Burnt sugar.
This is an IGT project between Seghesio and Antonini with all kinds of scribbling on the side and back label telling of the amazing lengths gone to in producing this wine representing generations of Italian heritage and how it reflects the pinnacle of everything that is good in the world and how YOU–a moron who actually reads back labels–should buy it. Typical bullshit winemaker-story crap which–along with the fascinating cellar-tour–propels cases of undrinkable dretch out the front door on Passport Weekend and off to their respective homes in Sherman Oaks and Livermore where the owners will handle them carefully at dinner parties and hold court about bud-break and the wine-maker’s dog and how long they have been club members. I actually had a winemaker want me to try something last week under the proviso I “read the accompanying literature first, so you get an idea of what I am going for.” FUCK YOU. That will NEVER happen. Fuck your story. Fuck your terrior and your pigeage and your resume and your objectives. Open the goddamn bottle. Let me smell it and THEN I will decide if I want to read your back label. Winemakers and their stories. You can’t sell wine without a story. Cracks me up. And every blogger on #twitter said, “Oooooh what a pretty story. I love this wine.”
But back to this little beauty borne on Firenze-ish wings. In the mouth that afore-mentioned burnt sugar translates into ABSOLUTELY ZERO fruit. Completely oxidized and out of EVERYTHING, instantly turning chalkily tannic. Dry is an understatement here. Like drinking battery acid made from rhubarb Koolaid with just a dollop of arm-pit.
2009 SEGHESIO Toscana IGT “Quindici” Sang/ME/AB 80/10/10 13.5
Stephen McConnell 