Vino Nobile Di Montepulciano, Corte alla Flora 2004
25th January 2009
The critics are somewhat sniffy about Vino Nobile. “The poor relation of Brunello Di Montalcino,” is how the Oxford Companion to Wine describes it. This seems a dismissive way to talk about a wine which has been around since at least the eighth century, was praised in the sixteenth as “perfect in both Winter and Summer”, and in the seventeenth was exalted as “the king of all wines”.
The consensus seems to be that the Vino Nobile lacks the finesse and elegance of its Tuscan cousins, Brunello and Chianti. Various explanations are offered for this: Montepulciano has less limestone in its soil; its nights are warmer. In consequence, we are told, the wine is too full and too alcoholic. Drivel, say I.
The problem, if there is a problem, has more to do with contemporary taste. According to the regulations which govern the production of Italian wine, Vino Nobile must be made almost entirely from the Sangiovese grape (known in these parts as Prugnolo Gentile) and it must be aged in large barrels, ensuring a fruity rather than an oaky flavor.
However, drinkers nowadays are accustomed to a pronounced flavour of oak in their wine, usually achieved by aging the wine in small barrels known as barriques. People also have come to regard the flavours of the international grape varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot as “normal”, thanks to their ubiquity. Other varietals and other methods of production are greeted with suspicion, if not hostility.
In Montepulciano, one or two of the better local producers have got round this problem by blending Sangiovese with a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon, and marketing the resulting wine under a proprietary name. The firm of Poliziano, perhaps Montepulciano’s finest, produces some truly magnificent wines with labels such as Asinone and Le Stanze.
Another, very Italian, solution is to seek a way round the regulations. The firm of Corte alla Flora has been in business for only a decade. You will find them in few of the reference books, and they are ignored even by Italy’s foremost wine guide, the Gambero Rosso. They are nonetheless a member of the Montepulciano wine consortium, their wines are labelled DOC, and there is no questioning their legitimacy. Now, according to the own website, their Vino Nobile is aged for 18 months in Allier oak casks. The site does not claim that these casks are barriques, and perhaps they are not, although wine merchants up and down the Internet seem convinced that they are, and are marketing the wine accordingly. My guess is that the rules have somehow been finessed, and that the casks in question, while not strictly barriques, are nonetheless small enough to impart a little extra oak flavour and softness.
Whatever the truth of the matter, this is a very pleasant Vino Nobile, offering good value at only $22 in the US, £12 pounds in the UK. Its nose suggests earth and mushrooms. It tastes of cherry and summac, with a hint of aniseed. It is rather more austere than Chiantis in the same price range, and it is hard to know how to compare it to Brunello di Montalcino, as no Brunello costs so little. But really, I am not sure there is much to be gained from such comparisons. Vino Nobile is its own wine and should be judged in its own right. Certainly, it does not taste like anybody’s poor relation, and in these straitened times, as the need for good value becomes ever more pressing, Vino Nobile’s hour may finally have come.
