Hello, The dynamic duo yesterday visited the exhibition/tasting/meet your importer "viniditalia" at the Odd Fellow Palaet venue in Copenhagen. With hindsight, this may have been a mistake. Previous postings to this NG from the same reporters [1] have pointed out the Danish position on spitting during wine tastings - it is considered a mark of personal ineptitude and generally, being for chickens. Such spittoons as are provided are generally placed on the floor, indicating that spitting is something you do when you are vertically incapacitated. Anyway.
17 importers and one NPO had installed booths, catalogues and a Spiegelau glass were handed out on presenting a ticket, and more or less Italian music was perpetrated by an itinerant accordionist - gruesome. Since he lurked in the audience, using a very small, stealth accordion, you'd never know when the next Brunello would be blasted by an inexpertly performed rendition of "Bella notte". Fortunately, bread was provided generously, and with a little practice this could be moulded into ear plugs. This precluded hearing what the importers were saying, but simply holding out your glass while tapping the appropriate bottle provided all the response you needed. Besides, Danish heard through bread ear plugs is well-nigh incomprehensible (some Swedes would claim that Danish is incomprehensible even without ear plugs, but I find that position demeaning).
The tactic in this tasting hall was: you make your way to one of the booths, preferably the one with most bottles stashed, and, as soon as you have gained the eye of one of the keepers, YOU NEVER LET GO. If you are a party of 3 or more, this is very valuable in that it allows you to completely block said booth while tapping through all the presented bottles (not forgetting to do an encore to see if you found more qualities on a second tasting). This tactic, combined with not wanting to appear personally inept or a general chicken, proved, however self-defeating andf after the frist half hour room could be made in front almost any booth just by waving a catalogue, or, shouting loudly "the accordionist is coming!" which caused blind, staggering flight in most.
Seriously, folks: What was evident was the lack of imagination. With few exceptions, each booth contained e number of Brunellos, Rosso di Montalcino, and Chiantis. There were more Barberas than you could shake a stick at. Much fewer Barolos, surprisingly few Valpolicella/Amarone/recioto, two Taurasi (at HUGE prices but very good) and ONE Sagrantino di Montefalco. One booth had a small assortment of Alto Adige wines, and one had two museum varieties, Casa Vecchia and Pallagrello Nero (sp?), the former being delightfully spicy and genuinely interesting (will try to get a few bottles ASAP).
I must admit that a place like this would be an unlikely provider of originality. The guys were selling what the market was ready to absorb, and everybody who knows anything about italian wines knows that Brunello is posh and Chianti is good, so if yopu had the economy, you´d by them and then stage infanticide by drinking them immediately, they being mostly (respectively) the 2000 and 2003-4 vintages. If you don´t, you taste the Barbera which is an easy, early drinker (in most cases) with reasonable QPR.
Most of the wines were extremely young ( we found a Borgogno VdT Rusticale Senza COnfini 1993, 100% nebbiolo and quite good, though).
Left to my own devices and with back-up funds, I´d have walked away with Le Macioche Rosso di Montlacino 2002 (136 DKK, good QPR) Le Macioche Brunello dM 2000 (262 DKK, fair QPR) Azienda Le Miccine Chianti Classico 2002 (129 DKK, good QPR) Terre di Trinci Sagrantino di Montefalco 2001 (159 DKK, very good QPR considering the rising prices of sagrantino) Il Greppo Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2000 (139 DKK, good QPR) Tenuta Gaiano Gallianum 2000 /barbera/ (99 DKK, fair->good QPR) For future blind-tasting and to nark some of my friends (Magnus comes to mind, but he´ll get back to me seriously) a few bottles of the Vestini Campagnano Casa Vecchia 2002 (not cheap at 199 DKK, but as I said, genuinely interesting).
Disclaimer: Anything said in this post is the personal opinion of self and does not reflect theopinions of my employer [2]. If anything in it causes the ire, irritation, or outbreaks of public violence, I will not only retract it but claim never to have said it [3].
Cheers
Nils Gustaf
[1] reporter - as, someone who makes a report. In no way would we claim to belong to the noble profession of gutter journalissts or similar. [2] However, I am self-employed. [3] Approximate quote from Tom Lehrer