Some misc Italians

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Buttafuoco and Sagrantino are quite different wines.

One (buttafuoco) is made in Oltre Po Pavese (Lombardia, north od Italy).

Sagrantino is produced in Umbria, near Assisi (Umbria, in the centre of Italy).

Montefalco "Colpetrone" maybe was "Sagrantino di Montefalco" by Colpetrone?

If it is so, you missed a great red wine, richly colored, fully structured and ageworthy wine.

taken from:

[Scacciadiavoli is another Sagrantino producer, but the matter does not change]

" What makes Sagrantino such a unique and highly promising wine grape are its extraordinary and practically unrivalled content of total polyphenols (anthocyanins and tannins), which make Sagrantino-based wines some of the fullest-bodied, deepest-flavored and longest-lived red wines of all.

The variety tends to easily accumulate sugar grapes. Measurements of 22 to 23 Babo (close to 14,5/15 degrees of potential alcohol by volume) are not uncommon. Skins are so high in polyphenols that 4.000 to 5.000 mg./lt. are normal for grape. To give but a proof of Sagrantino's awesome raw power as wine grape, it's worth reminding that the minimum dry extract required by law for Sagrantino di Montefalco Secco Doc is as high 26 gr./lt., and that oftentimes Sagrantino di Montefalco wines attain a level of dry extract as high 40-45 gr./lt. ! (it suffices to note that as an acclaimed and full-bodied wine as Chateau Margaux

1986 carried a "mere" 32 gr./lt. of dry extract). Given such tremendous level of concentration, makes sense that in the old times Sagrantino was vinified off-dry, to let a slight residual sugar balance the powerful grip of tannins on the back palate. "

Also, in Italy when you speak about "Sagrantino", the first brand name is "Arnaldo Caprai".

my 2 cents

Giorgio68 wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net:

Well the note did say Umbria. So why didn't I take you along to help me choose? ;-)

Thank you for the reply.

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Next time, go to the internet point and ask ;) (here or in the italian wine newsgroup, named it.hobby.vino)

You are welcome

Ciao!

Hi, Giorgio -

I'm a little confused by these numbers. 4 to 5 mg./liter polyphenols sounds reasonable, but 40-45 gr./liter of "dry extract"? What's that? Please define "dry extract".

If it's dissolved solids, I would assume that number includes tartaric acid, but that rarely exceeds 10 gr./liter (except, perhaps, in a German white wine). Even 26 gr./liter sounds like a lot of dissolved solids for a wine to contain - especially a dry wine. So what's all the rest of the dissolved solids?

Tom S