Tuscany: Chianti and Brunello di Montalcino

This blog is a series of thoughts on wine.  It is not a rating page or a page dedicated to tasting notes.  Its about wine and food and how the two fit together.  Its not about "the intense cherry and tobacco notes", its either good or not, simple. What kind of food does it go with?  Would I buy it again? So.....

When ever I'm lucky enough to be in London I have the opportunity to taste so many different wines that are difficult to obtain or expensive back at home in Sydney.  We have some great Australian and New Zealand wines but I love the European wines not only for their ability to match food but also their history and attachment to place.  Nowhere is this more self evident than in Tuscany.

Villa Cetinale, Tuscany Italy

Almost a year ago I walked off a British Airlines flight from Heathrow to Pisa, the gate way to Tuscany.  I was met in the chaos of the arrivals hall by the most attractive mini car driver I have ever seen.  A man that towered above me looking like a cross between George Clooney and a young Marco Pierre White, who was dressed so casually yet elegantly that I did indeed feel like a poorly dressed half cousin from some overseas backwater.   His unparalled confidence seemed to enable hime to drive at incredible speeds down the highway whilst facing and talking to me in the back seat. He summed up Tuscany in a car trip.  Whizzing along the Motorway up into the Tuscan hills, all he talked of was food, wine and coffee. This was important, food was important. The wine was important and of course the coffee was important.  

As we speed along food was everywhere in the vegetable gardens, in the fields, in the trees and in every shop we seemed to pass. Driving though tiny villages and along empty roads, little shops specialising in cheese or pork or the famed Bistecca al Fiorentina seamed to appear in the most unlikely of places. He spoke of his vegetable garden, the Ribollita and of the wild boar.  He wanted me to understand what food in Tuscany meant.  It wasn't just of these dishes it was life, not a lifestyle, and a connection to the land that couldn't be understood unless lived.  Just remember, he said, you can't eat with out bread, food and wine on the table.

The point that I took from this experience is that food and wine in Italy are like conjoined twins that can't be separated. The food is the earth and the wine the water, the bread...well? i'm not sure? After much kitchen toil each evening I would sit down in the kitchen with my fellow chef, the fantastic Helder from the Basque country in northern Spain.  He would talk food and drink a glass of the most magnificent Brunello di Montalcino the 2006 Sesti ($50 AUD) made from Sangiovese not far from Siena in Tuscany. It is hard not to understand Tuscany when your sitting in a 17th century Italian Villa, surrounded by the best produce and sipping a wine this great, a wine of place and time. A moment in time that I will savour.

 This wine, a Brunello or "little dark one" was intense and perfumed with good balance yet the characteristic acid and tannin you would expect from this grape.   All the romanticism of Tuscany was in this glass; the wine, the place, the food and the people I was sharing it with.  This is what food and wine is about. 

Sesti Brunello di Montalcino.

Back in London I have spent the last few weeks hanging around the many wine shops.  Having become a bit of a wine shop groupie I find myself enjoying Jeroboams in Hampstead, maybe a little too much.  Having said that they do have fantastic Italian selection.  Below are some of the Tuscan wines that I have really enjoyed over the past couple of trips.  I might get a little verbose, but ill try and keep the "wine wanker" in check.

The  2011 Fontodi Chianti Classico is a the most elegant and subtle of all the wines.  A wine with great depth of flavour, smooth and with quite gentle tannins if that is possible for a Chianti, $40 AUD it ant cheap but perfect with a slow roasted lamb shoulder and potatoes. 100% organic Sangiovese. 

The 2010 Casaloste Chianti Classico ($40AUD)has great crimson colour and a great balance of fruit and acidity this would be a great wine to drink with a Homemade Tuscan Pork Sausage or some Grilled duck breast and sautéed wild mushrooms. 100% organic  85% Sangiovese & 15% Merlot

Great balance is evident in the Avignon's 2012 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano ($35AUD). This was a brother wine of the Brunello but still delicious.  Wild berries, good palatte and open red fruit.  Fantastic with any of the above dishes. 100% Sangiovese

Lastly The Castello 2012, great value, particularly for a DOCG,  at around the $30 AUD mark.  If I was allowed to buy this i'd buy it all the time.  Great silky tannins and balance, wild berry fruit, more-ish  acidity and goes best with some pan fried aged rump from the Hampstead butcher with some tasty chanterelles tossed in garlic and parsley. Unspecified amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and (but mostly) Sangiovese.