Carpineto 2012 “Valcolomba” Merlot, Tuscany
This wine starts with dark berries and toasted almonds, with a whiff of diacetyl (that butterscotch smell so popular in chardonnay and so reviled in Heineken). There is a hint of …
tuscany
Lanciola 2009 Le Masse di Greve Chianti Classico
Chianti Wine Review A hedgehog playing in a pile of autumn leaves. This bottle starts off with a very specific wet fur-and-oak-leaf aroma that was both surprising and delightful. There is …
Poggio Scalette 2012 Chianti Classico
The Greve Valley is lined with terraced vineyards. Looking across the valley from this winery, those stone walls can look like a giant scallete (ladder, in Italian).  At least it did for the …
Piccini 2008 Sasso Al Poggio, Tuscany
This style of  Tuscan wine is turning into the most popular with American wine drinkers looking for good value in Italian wines.  This is something of an irony: It wasn’t too …
Tenuta Belguardo 2007 Belguardo
This property is located in the ancient lands of the Etruscans, today known as Maremma. Over the past twenty years, this coastal region of Tuscany has emerged from history to become …
Barone Ricasoli 2010 “Brolio” Chianti Classico
The Castello di Brolio (the castle of Brolio) has been in the Ricasoli family since the 12th Century. Two of the family’s top wines (they produce 11) are labeled as Brolio. The top …
Michele Satta 2005 Cavaliere (Super Tuscan)
A voluptuous Sangiovese with a slight salinity that veers to black olive but pulls back into a beautiful layered expression of chocolate. A glass-staining beauty with plump blackberry and kirsch notes …
Belguardo 2009 Serrata, Tuscany
Up until twenty years ago, the Tuscan coast was more well know for Etruscan ghosts than wine. What’re a few decades compared to a few millennia? In what is known as …
Tenuta di Castiglioni 2008 Cabernet, Tuscany
A bordeaux blend that leads with classic Cabernet notes of cigar box and mint. Gritty tannins and fleshy fruit round out this fine bottling. An excellent price for this wine.
The Top Ten Truths of Tuscan Tourism
The Wine School of Philadelphia took our show on the road the first week of June, converting the Villa Giusterna in Chianti into our Tuscan campus. Instead of boring everyone with …
Cantine Cardeto 2002 “Rupestro” IGT, Umbria
Even though Sangiovese is Italy’s most prolific and widely planted grape, it is popularly associated with Tuscany- Chianti, to be specific. In the hills near Orvieto, blended with Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo, and …
Sette Ponti 2005 Toscana “Crognolo,” Tuscany
The miraculously priced Luce 375s that the state has been selling may have gotten all the attention (and justifiably so–the 2001s are drinking beautifully right now), but that famous Mondavi – …