Il Poggione Vin Santo (500ML) 2005
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Traditional accompaniment to cantucci (dry Tuscan biscuits made with almonds and honey). It pairs well with dry cakes and biscuits. Not too sweet, it is also a good match for blue cheeses.
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2006-
Spectator
Wine
One of the most highly regarded wineries in all of Tuscany, Tenuta Il Poggione makes incredibly powerful wines for collectors and everyday drinkers alike. Located in Sant' Angelo in Colle in the commune of Montalcino, Tenuta Il Poggione was established at the end of the 19th century by Lavinio Franceschi and is still owned today by the 5th generation of its founder, siblings Leopoldo and Livia Franceschi.
One of the original three producers of Brunello di Montalcino, Il Poggione and has helped to establish the standards of excellence for Montalcino. The estate covers a surface area of 1,500 acres, of which 350 acres are planted to vine, 175 acres with olive groves and the rest are sowable land and woodland used for grazing and raising cattle and pigs to promote biodiversity and a natural approach to farming. Many of the vines are grown at more than 1,315 feet above sea level and Il Poggione owns one of the oldest vineyards in Montalcino, Vigna Paganelli, planted in 1964. The estate is also blessed by its proximity to the Tyrrhenian Sea (about 30 minutes distance by car) to the west and the Orcia River Valley and Mt. Amiata in the south.
Led by father-son winemaking team, Fabrizio and Alessandro Bindocci, Il Poggione's guiding principle is to pay great care to the vines, because the secret to producing great red wines lies in the high-quality vineyard work. Harvest is conducted entirely by hand and the wine is made in the traditional method, though modern, state-of-the-art equipment is used. Total control of the vinification process is guaranteed, thanks to the new cellar built in 2004 and the introduction of extremely advanced technology, but as tradition is important, the company keeps the large Allier French oak barrels used for aging its wines five meters below ground. The winery is also committed to sustainable viticulture and 100% estate-grown, hand-selected fruit.
Apart from the classics, we find many regional gems of different styles.
Late harvest wines are probably the easiest to understand. Grapes are picked so late that the sugars build up and residual sugar remains after the fermentation process. Ice wine, a style founded in Germany and there referred to as eiswein, is an extreme late harvest wine, produced from grapes frozen on the vine, and pressed while still frozen, resulting in a higher concentration of sugar. It is becoming a specialty of Canada as well, where it takes on the English name of ice wine.
Vin Santo, literally “holy wine,” is a Tuscan sweet wine made from drying the local white grapes Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia in the winery and not pressing until somewhere between November and March.
Rutherglen is an historic wine region in northeast Victoria, Australia, famous for its fortified Topaque and Muscat with complex tawny characteristics.
One of the most iconic Italian regions for wine, scenery and history, Tuscany is the world’s most important outpost for the Sangiovese grape. Tuscan wine ranges in style from fruity and simple to complex and age-worthy, Sangiovese makes up a significant percentage of plantings here, with the white Trebbiano Toscano coming in second.
Within Tuscany, many esteemed wines have their own respective sub-zones, including Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. The climate is Mediterranean and the topography consists mostly of picturesque rolling hills, scattered with vineyards.
Sangiovese at its simplest produces straightforward pizza-friendly Tuscan wines with bright and juicy red fruit, but at its best it shows remarkable complexity and ageability. Top-quality Sangiovese-based wines can be expressive of a range of characteristics such as sour cherry, balsamic, dried herbs, leather, fresh earth, dried flowers, anise and tobacco. Brunello, an exceptionally bold Tuscan wine, expresses well the particularities of vintage variations and is thus popular among collectors. Chianti is associated with tangy and food-friendly dry wines at various price points. A more recent phenomenon as of the 1970s is the “Super Tuscan”—a red wine made from international grape varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Syrah, with or without Sangiovese. These are common in Tuscany’s coastal regions like Bolgheri, Val di Cornia, Carmignano and the island of Elba.