Weekly Tasting Report (Aug 10-16, 2021): Italian Reds Erupt, a Rioja Stunner and a New York State of Mind

This report on the past week’s tastings and ratings at JamesSuckling.com highlights some extraordinary terroir-driven reds, including some fabulous wines from Telmo Rodriguez in Rioja, Spain, as well as great bottles from Italy’s volcanic region of Etna and the slopes of the Veneto in the north, in the appellation of Amarone della Valpolicella Classico.

I have been going to these three places for decades now and they are truly unique, even rustic and mysterious. They make awesome wines. This can be particularly so for Etna, which is, of course, named after the massive volcano in Southern Sicily. Just spending a night in the region and gazing at the powerful glow of the volcano as it contrasts the moon quickly gives you a sense of the unique character that the wines, both red and white, convey. The reds have an uncanny way of expressing the volcanic soils of the vineyards, which are locally described according to when lava flowed down from the crater.

I first encountered this in the early 2010s when I was walking vineyards on Etna on a hot summer’s morning with Marco de Grazia of Tenuta delle Terre Nere. He pointed at a group of head-pruned vines of nerello mascalese and called out the exact year of a lava flow. “That was planted in 2001 on the lava flow of 1963,” he said, for example. It’s a lasting memory in my journey on Planet Wine and forever endeared me to Etna wines.

TELMO RODRIQUEZ: The Spanish winemaker on the amazing 2018 Rioja vintage.

ON TOP OF MOUNT ETNA

Some of the top Etna reds we have tasted so far this year have come from the Benanti family. There has been a huge improvement in their wines over the years, especially since Salvino and Antonio Benanti took over direction of the estate from their father Giuseppe in 2012. Up until that time, I had found the wines rather hard and unforgiving. Yet what they are doing now is fantastic, and their single-parcel wines really shine through.

Senior Editor Stuart Pigott and Tasting Editor Jo Cooke tasted a few hundred Sicilian wines last week at my house in Tuscany and they were ecstatic about the Benanti Etna Rosso Serra Della Contessa Particella No. 587 Alberello Centenario Riserva 2015.

“Sicily has been on a roll for many years, but that didn’t prepare us for the dazzling perfume and breathtaking elegance of Benanti’s Etna Rosso Riserva,” Stuart said a few days after tasting and rating the wine.

The Particella No. 587 is the one-hectare parcel at the top of their Monte Serra vineyard, and it’s planted with 100-year-old head-pruned nerello mascalese and a smaller number of nerello cappuccio vines.

What’s great about Etna today is that it’s producing incredible old-vine, tiny-production reds and whites such as the Particella No. 587, but it also makes relatively good-value bottles that are full of the unique character and drinking experience I described above. And if you haven’t opened a bottle of Etna red, keep in mind that they are not the massive and jammy wines that Sicily can make when winemakers pick too late or don’t pay attention. Etna is all about freshness, finesse and character.

READ MORE: TOP 100 WINES OF ITALY 2020

RIOJA STUNNER

The same could be said about the parcel and single-vineyard wines of Spain’s Rioja, which is often wrongly described as a mass producer of inexpensive and thoroughly drinkable wines. Of course, the country’s most popular wine region does supply Europe’s supermarket shelves with a lot of decent-quality plonk, but the best wines of Rioja, such as the stunning Compañia de Vinos Telmo Rodriguez Rioja Las Beatas 2018, express world-class character. This is a magical wine that shows mind-blowing pedigree and length. In fact, the ultra-fine texture and persistent finish of the red goes on for minutes … even forever.

Las Beatas comes from a 1.9-hectare vineyard in the northwest part of Rioja Alavesa and is taken off of old head-pruned vines of local varietals, from tempranillo to maturana tinta. It’s a rugged place, with vines jetting out on outcrops of marl in sandstone, and it’s also breathtaking and challenging navigating the craggy terrain walking the small vineyard.

The wines are made in a gentle way, extracting character and finesse in the process and then aged in large 1,200-liter casks. Rodriguez is convinced his unique creations represent the true character of Rioja wines and are a throwback to the origins of the winemaking history and traditions of the region, and also offer a glimpse of the future.

“There is an amazing energy in Spain,” Rodriguez said. “I am giving the opportunity to the younger generation to work together… you are going to be able to follow this and you are going to be keen. You are going to be following this amazing movement."

Las Beatas is expensive – about $250 per bottle when released on the market, with the price increasing rapidly because of its limited quantities. Rodriguez makes many wines, however, and some cost as little as $20 a bottle, such as the Bodega Lanzaga Rioja LZ 2020. Rodriguez just announced to the press that he will be selling Spain’s first wine through the wine merchant system of Bordeaux, which already includes many non-French wines, from Opus One to Solaia. The Granja de Nuestra Señora de Remelluri Rioja Yjar 2017 is a crazy red from a 3.8-hectare vineyard and shows lots of plush and high-toned character.

We have just started rating Spanish wines and should review more than 1,500 wines this year.

There was lots of plushness and elevated aromas and character in another top wine of last week’s tastings – Bertani Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 2012. And it’s a relatively late release so it drinks wonderfully. I have drunk bottles of Bertani Amarone that are almost a century old, and what always strikes me is their balance and finesse, without a sense of heaviness or over-ripeness. Jo, our tasting editor, clearly saw this in the later release of Bertani’s classic Amarone.

Italy is the biggest part of this week’s tasting, so spend some time looking at what we rated. The 2019 vintage is turning out to be an excellent one and shows more fruit and intensity than the very good to outstanding 2018 vintage. I think that it took the vines a couple of years to rejuvenate from the crippling drought and heat of the 2017 vintage. Stay tuned for more. So far, we have rated almost 4,500 Italian wines this year – already about 1,000 more than what we rated in 2020.

We are always striving to taste and rate more wines at JamesSuckling.com with our team of tasters, editors and journalists. We even have a few dozen wines from New York state rated in this report, as well as some relatively unknown Burgundy producers such as Domaine Raymond Dupont-Fahn and Domaine Roland Lavantureux. That’s what we do each week, so be ready for more reporting and ratings.

– James Suckling, Editor/Chairman

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the previous week by James and other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports. 

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.