“Enogea” #23

Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva 2003 (90D): Enzo Pasquale’s cellar is well hidden, but at the end it is not so difficult to be found. Once you take the road to Prezza you just have to follow the rise of the winding road that leads to the village center until the clutch or the power steering (or both) set on fire. At this point turn the car off because you arrived. A small house, a small cellar, and only one wine that is hard to describe in a few lines. If sometimes it is selective and humoral (such as the 2001), in others – such as the 1997 – it is able to smoothen its excessive rusticity. Then there is the 2003, the youngest in commerce and tamed by the barrique as much as it is enough to give it appeal, without losing its originality in smell that varies from leather to meat, from baked onions, to tar and so on till you feel the desire of a renaissance meal. The tannin is excellent and pleases and lingers without excesses and without interruptions.
Ratafià (92D): As much intriguing as the Riserva wine, but on a completely different register (so different to let you think to something like doctor Jekyll and mister Hyde in an enoic version) is the Ratafià, a cherry liqueur with a purity and fragrance that are at least inebriant. Don’t miss the opportunity to taste it!

From “Enogea” #23, February/March 2009