So.....four chicks and a wine geek walk into a bar...errr..wine shop in Amagansett. And what does the wine geek find:
1. Venica Picolit di Dolegna del Collio VdT (13.5%) Az.Agr.Venica Adelchi/Dolegna/Collio NV ('76?): Med.gold/brown bit cloudy/murky color; fairly strong grapey/earthy some nutty/toasted hazelnuts slight oxidized/amatillado sherry rather interesting/complex nose; tart slightly bitter rather earthy/grapey somewhat nutty/toasted hazelnutty/old RhoneBlanc slightly sweet to off-dry slight oxidized/Amontillado sherry complex flavor; rather long nutty/toasted hazelnutty bit bitter/dried out some earthy/grapey/dusty/wet cement/minerally off-dry fairly complex/interesting finish; for a wine of unknown provenance in quite good condition. Didn't go with the cranberry/plum upside-down cake, but an interesting apertif wine in its own right. Originally priced at $30/btl.
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A wee BloodyPulpit:
1. Amagansett Wine&Spirits: I was spending the weekend out in the Hamptons w/ Susan & her family. There was wine involved & we went thru the stash I brought the first night, so I had to wing-it. The local wine shop (Zabie's) was rather underwhelming, so a friend suggested we head up Sunday afternoon to Amagansett W&S, which she thought was the best wine shop in the area. She was right-on...it was small but very interesting shop. The prices were reasonable...especially for that area. And when I walked in the front door...it smelled right...like a wine shop w/ a soul.
As I wandered about the shop, I came to the hlf btls and dessert wines over in the corner. Voila...I spy this lonely btl of Picolit. The price tag, obviously quite old, was unreadable...so I ask the manager the price. He just shook his head "no". It was an old wine and probably not any good and couldn't, in good conscience, sell it to me. But he'd give it to me....free. Whatta deal.
There was no vintage date on the btl, no indication of the importer, no nothing. And a producer I'd never heard of. So I knew the btl would be an adventure.
Though the btl had no vintage date (and no signs that a vintage date neck label had ever resided on it), the btl had a code "77.3" molded into the glass on the bottom. Convention would be that this implies the btl was manufactured the 3'rd month of 1977....which implies the wine was a vintage of a yr or two earlier...probably a '76. Certainly, the wine tasted very much like it could have very well been of that vintage. If so, the wine was in amazingly good shape for having knocked around a wine shop for all those yrs.
Most Picolits are made as a late hrvst wine; so I was expecting a fairly sweet wine. It was only off-dry...which may explain why it only had a Vino di Tavola designation.
The wine reminded me a bit of an old RhoneBlanc, some of an Amontillado sherry with a remaining grapiness to it. It was a quite interesting wine and nowhere over-the-hill....it just required a little "thinking outside the box" to appreciate it.
So...Amagansett Wine&Spirits...highly recommended.
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2. Picolit: A grape I'm still trying to figure out. Not sure I've had enough to figure out what their varietal character is. And most are made as a passito wine...which obliterates any varietal character.
Years ago, the old Italian tradition of interplanting a mixture of varieties and doing a field blend was the norm. The indigenous Picolit was interplanted w/ Verduzzo, TocaiFriulano, PinotGrigio..whatever. And things were fine.
When the more modern technique of planting varieties in large blocks became common, the yields for poor Picolit plunged to near-nothing. The vines would set their blossoms...but no grapes would be born. The local grape growers were certain that an unknown/mysterious malady had attacked Picolit and labeled the disease as "floral abortion". Picolit was nearly abandoned in Friuli.
When I was writing an article for WineSpectator (back when it was a tabloid newspaper out of SanDiego...rather than a life-style magazine); DarrellCorti sent me an obscure Italian viticulture article on Picolit which identified the problem.
Most all grapevines are hermaphroditic...they are self-polinating...helped along by the local bees. Turns out...Picolit is not...it is simply one of a few grape varieties that are sterile...can't have sex w/ themselves. The flowers will set..but w/ no nearby fertile variety or bees to pollinate them, the flowers simply fall off and never develop into grapes. There is no "floral abortion". Picolit is simply sterile. By interplanting w/ Verduzzo, the problem is quite simply solved.
For some reason, Picolit in Collio/Friuli is nearly always made as a passito wine. And frightfully expensive. Not quite sure why that is. I'd like to see a dry Picolit wine being made. I'd love to see ChristopherTracey plant Picolit at ChanningDaughters to see what he could do with it.
Tom