RADIO-COTEAU PINOT NOIR
Over the past several years, we've uncovered one outstanding Italian wine after another with unbelievable quality/price value - e.g., the Vietti Perbacco, the Small Vineyards wines, the Pardi Montefalco Rosso, all of which still have legs (literally and figuratively) and are still selling like hotcakes, and our latest find might be the best of all. But first, a little history and geography to arm you with semi-useless trivia to captivate friends with whom you'll be eager to share this wine or to use in trendy wine bars.
The wine hails from Sicily, just around the tip of the island from Siracusa, in the province of Ragusa. As you drive south on the A18, you'll pass through the town of Avola, from which Sicily's signature red grape Nero d'Avola takes its name. Just as you begin heading up the coast in a northwesterly direction from the southeastern tip you'll enter the commune of Vittoria, the home of our signature wine and beautiful neo-classical architecture. This wine was so good and distinctive that it earned DOC status in 1973, and in 2005, it became the first and only wine in Sicily to earn DOCG status. Quality is amazing, and our current offering is the highest rated Cerasuolo spanning the past decade of Wine Advocate reviews.
2008 Valle dell'Acate Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico (Sicily, $23.99 / $21.59 case). From The Wine Advocate (92 points): "The 2008 Cerasuolo di Vittoria is 70% Nero d'Avola (aged in oak) and 30% Frappato (aged in steel), a marriage that works beautifully. The Frappato adds freshness and verve to the dark fruit of the Nero d'Avola. Menthol, licorice and spices develop on the mid-palate and finish, adding further complexity. This is another marvelous wine from Valle dell'Acate. Anticipated maturity: 2011-2014.
"This is a superb set of wines from Valle dell'Acate. Not only are the wines delicious, the best bottles deliver incredible value as well. The estate uses only their best hillside plots for the Valle dell'Acate label."
We have a limited amount of this wine coming in by February 17, so if you would like to order some of this marvelous elixir, please reply to this email, call us at 828.898.9424 or put in your order next time you're in the shop.
RADIO-COTEAU PINOT NOIR NOW AVAILABLE
Proprietor Eric Sussman seems to go from strength to strength at this small boutique winery. One of the buzz words in the wine world is "natural" winemaking, which has no real definition and is often shamelessly used to promote a certain style of wine. Yet Radio-Coteau is a great example of "natural" winemaking: native indigenous fermentations, incredibly low usage of SO-2 and biodynamically farmed vineyards. Then add the fact that the wines are bottled without fining or filtration. Of course, human beings/civilization have to intervene in the winemaking process, so until grapes are produced that can detach themselves from the vine and hop, skip and jump to a fermenter and make wine themselves, we will never have 100% 'natural' wines.
We are bringing in the 2008 Radio-Coteau "La Neblina" (Sonoma Coast, $52.99 / $47.69 case), which earned 90 points from Robert Parker in The Wine Advocate and 91 from Allen Meadows in Burghound: "Here the nose is really admirably pure and ripe with spice and a perfumed character to the mostly red and blue fruit aromas. The rich, intense, balanced and detailed middle weight flavors possess good dry extract that buffers the underlying structure and confers a sappy mouth feel to the ever-so-mildly austere finish. I quite like this as there is both elegance and sophistication"
