Staining impenetrable ruby with a gorgeous orange edge. Really closed-in at first. No nose whatsoever. Let it sit for a bit while I prepped dinner and things quickly changed. Meaty acidic nose blossoms, sharp, eye-burningly mint and pond-water, wet paper and the leanest, meanest fruit on record. A warm plum and dried floral pops up late-breathe–fleeting, but visible and comforting. Otherwise shrill and mineralific, match-book and decomposed granite making up a wall difficult to see fruit behind.
In the mouth, fruit is as vapid as suggested. Lean and thin on the tongue, it brings icy waterfall to a party you were hoping might have cake, washing everything in a crisp clean glacier of grapefruit overflowing in acid and tannin. Considerably warmer on the palate than nose but that’s not saying much. Do not go into this expecting a jam-bomb. The split-second you resolve yourself that you’ve discovered every last morsel of fruit available, tannin just blows the top of your head off.
This is a brilliant wine. Crammed full of so many trinkets of wonderfulness and fairly brimming with an anti-obsequiousness people will love or hate. Probably hate. This would be an extremely unpopular wine with the vast majority of California wine drinkers. I fuckin love it, but I’m just a jerk with a keyboard. And it’s not exactly a baby. Going into a half-decade, it’s just all piss and vinegar. I would buy a case of this, but I’m a little concerned about the fruit, so I am only buying a 6-pack. Half of me tells me it is in there and just Euro-mean, and the other half says it is just a little too lean. You decide.
2013 FEUDI DI SAN GREGORIO Aglianico ‘Rubrato’ Irpinia Italy 13.5
Stephen McConnell 