Saturday, August 2, 2014

Issue VIII: Terredora DiPaolo Aglianico Edition



Terredora DiPaolo Aglianico

In the last Edition (#7), when I waxed on about the wonders of the Colosi Sicilia, I mentioned a time when I would only drink French wine, which was mostly where I was at when I met my wife.  When I first started branching out, I started, hesitantly, into Argentinean wines, such the wonderful Navarro Correas and into the Chilean wines, which are mostly a miss with me, but the only Italian wine I really was familiar with was the Ecco Domani line, mostly because I could pronounce the Latin name of the wine (Ecco Domani makes a solid, if unspectacular wine, for the most part).

When I first came across this one, though and tasted that first glass, it was an experience right next door to mind-blowing. This had a stunning taste and the right balance of sweet, just a tinge of bite and an overall smoothness that I’d been wanting in a wine. It was also, for a while, a bottle unto itself, as it was very difficult for me to find this in stock anywhere, yet when people asked me for recommendations and I tried to give them this one, no one had ever heard it and fewer still could pronounce it. Even still, this grape lags behind the Nero d’Avola, the Moscato Bianco and the Barbera in terms of name recognition, which is a shame.

This is one that benefits greatly from either an aerator with a screen or decanter, both because it can be very astringent at first (what they call “grippy”) and because this one trends towards being fairly sediment heavy at the end. If not using one of those two things, you’re probably looking at a minimum of 30 air time with the sweet spot more between 45 and 60. Even though this sounds like a lot of wait time, compared to some of the other wines on this list, it’s well worth it.

Despite this wine being the one that really started off the wine list proper, at $14 regularly, this is more of a SPA-Only wine, given that there are so many others at a lower price range. This also is a good example of really assessing personal value to wines, as I liked this one considerably more when it was closer to $11/bottle.

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