Triples

Tried three wines the other night and they were all fabulous and different.

The Muga Rioja 2005 Especial was awesome. A red wine that was slow to open up, but after and hour or two of air time, it was elegant and smooth and rich and fruity and smokey, but not as smokey as the last wine. As nice as it was, it needs more years in the bottle to develop more complexity of flavors. It was the best with the smoked pork ribs. Retail is about 50.

The Selvanova Aglianico from southern Italy was the steal of the night at $19.99 a bottle. This wine has a little cult following at the store, but I admit, I hadn't tasted it in a long time. Don't worry, I bought everything the wholesaler had left in Massachusetts. Worry, he only had 3 cases left and one of the gentlemen who tasted the wine with me the other night, took one of them. Aglianico is the best red grape in southern Italy. It yields a wine that has southern Italian fruit to compliment a red sauce dish, yet enough spice and structure to stand up to northern Italian cuisine. It was delicious with no breathing time at all, and held its flavors thru the night.
I repeat, a steal, but not much left.

Finally, Vacqueras is a town in the Rhone Valley of France the until a change in the wine laws could only be labeled as Cotes du Rhone Villages. This 2007 vintage Vacqueras at $29.99 is expensive for any red wine from this town, but this one is more than worth it. Unfortunately, this was a cradle robbing event. Although the wine was delicious, you know it is only gonna get better the longer you can wait and leave it alone in the cellar. How long? It was so good, I will re-evaluate it this holiday season, but I have lots. A couple of years should metamorphasize this wine from wonderful to SPECTACULAR! Wafts of dried red fruit without sweetness in combination with so much basalm notes I thought I was lumberjacking in Maine. This is the wine that answers the oft asked queston "Bob, I wanna buy a wine that is gonna taste like a hundred bucks in a few years but I dont want to spend that much, what do you have?" This is it! I just loved sipping this the entire evening, food was secondary. Wine is tooooo good.

Garagista Extrordinaire

Four to six times a year I am lucky to have the best and most knowledgeable Italian wine palette visit me at the store and we taste wines together. Jeannie Rogers is the former co-owner of Il Capriccio in Waltham, Ma. and now co-owner of the tiny but spectacular wine import firm Adonna Imports. She represents her friends in Italy that just happen to make some of the most amazing wines in the world. The smallest of these great producers is Rovi. He is so tiny, he doesn't have a garage so he uses his neighbors garage to make his hand-picked wines. I am very lucky to get at least one 6 pack of his wines. Sometimes I get more, but not always. His wines are not cheap, $45-60 a bottle. His wines need to age a year or two minimum to show off their greatness. Right now I have two wines from him. The local red grape Marzemino, sort of a cross between a Rhone and a Burgundy, but no description can do it justice I would serve with a ham dinner. The other is a Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. This wine needs to cellar two more years, but already you can taste amazing complexities of flavors that scream to be served with lamb or game meat. You can taste the wildness of the forest in the wine.

If you cannot leave these wines in your cellar for at least a year, don't buy them. If you have the patience, you will be rewarded.

May 3

I have been saving this one for month.

What better wine to serve on Mother's Day than MOMA. No not the Museum of Modern Art but a tasty red wine, easy to drink and yummy with food from Italy.

We have carried this wine for numerous vintages, dating back to 2001. The 2007 arrived about a month ago and it could be the best ever. I tasted it at one of the Cape Cod shows I went to back in March and went cuckoo over it. It was smooth with nice flavors. I think it will handle a red sauce ok, but it will be great if you are honoring Mom with a barbque at your house because she needs a break. The wine's price is $15.99 and don't forget to do the dishes! Don't forget the card, get her a mushy one this year instead of the silly one you always get her. On second thought, buy the silly one too, just in case. Moms love surprises, even when they say they don't. And get a haircut, and take a shower, and put on a clean shirt, and shine your shoes, and pour the wine in a clean glass.

You get the picture.