Trailer-park fire charges forthright out of the nose. Green weedy poop, dog-park in the rain, a soggy putrefaction of barnyard so benevolently acrid in its funk and back-water stagnation it is almost charming. Like, Oh look: someone made a perfectly good European shit-show and put 100,000 cases of it on the top shelf with a golden sticker and a name to accompany all the glowing articles and passed it off on drug-store american as WHAT OLD WORLD WINE TASTES LIKE.
What if I told you Sangiovese doesn’t need to smell like a couch left out in the rain? What if I told you it didn’t need to embarrass like your dog does on the living room rug when company comes over? What if I told you Chianti-nyet-Sangiovese-nyet-ALL EUROPEAN WINE could be fresh and clean and beautiful? I visit this producer every half-decade or so just to remind myself what *good* mainstream Italian wine marketed to the american 99% tastes like.
Lots and LOTS of air tones some of it down to dull briar and allows a pruney black cherry to emerge–something that doesn’t quite make you gag as you slip it past your lips. Still, it is so dead smelling. Boring, flat one-dimensional fruit on the tongue. No complexity, the only thing compelling is the way the saccharine dried fruit escalates up a shrill bitter ladder almost instantly. I guess that’s acid? The fruit goes watery-flat while still retaining the black pigment and it all goes away with a sharp green tint and a bit of heat.
Go to any local wine-shop and you can buy TWO Italians–drinkable ones–for the cost of this bottle. Maybe 3.
2012 ANTINORI ‘Villa Antinori’ Sangiovese Chianti Classico Riserva Tuscany Italy 13.5
Stephen McConnell 