Castel de Paolis Muffa Nobile 2005

Castel de Paolis Muffa Nobile 2005

Castel de Paolis Muffa Nobile is one of my personal favourite Italian wines as it typifies the changes in Italian wine (especially white) and perhaps best exemplifies the phenomenal increase in quality coming from areas of Italy that have long been thought of as areas of mass production and little else. Castel de Paolis is a Lazio producer coming straight out of Castelli Romani, the home of Frascati.

Frequent readers of this blog will know that I had a fantastic time living in Rome for two years in 2006 and 2007 where Frascati and Est! Est!! Est!!! enjoy a big following among the younger drinkers. Frascati is made in the wine producing area just outside Rome, "Castelli Romani" and is regarded, among both Romans and Ex-pats as something of a poor mans wine region with the focus being on quantity only. The Romans of 2000 years ago held exactly this view, that Frascati and all wines from this area were strictly for the proles.

It's amazing really, that a country so prolific in wine production can still be undergoing mass regeneration. The area of Castelli Romani has been in wine production for 2000 years and yet it is only lately that, as with many other parts of Italy, it is now being considered as a region that can grow premium wine. Only in the last 40 years was the potential of large parts of Tuscany realised with the planting of Bordeaux grapes (along with Sangiovese) to create the Super-Tuscan. It's remarkable to think that so much of Italy's vine growing potential is still yet untapped. These are exciting times indeed for Italian wine.

Castel de Paolis Muffa Nobile is nowhere close to the Frascati wines you know and love, made from 80% Semillion and 20% Sauvignon Blanc with grapes completely affected by Botrytis, here, in the back yard of the great emperors, you have a sweet wine that can compete with many from Barsac or Sauternes and of course, half the price.

Castel de Paolis themselves are considered the leading light in top end Frascati and have led the charge in bringing the wines of Lazio to the international arena. All the wines here are also organically cultivated.

Is that not exciting? Are you not entertained?

Castel de Paolis Muffa Nobile 2005 - BUY - €19

Pale amber in the glass the nose is exquisite with pronounced notes of both honey, apricot and pine nuts. Soft texture but mightily intense on the palate, the wine has a non-cloying sweetness that is difficult to achieve, great acidity and freshness. A total winner of a sweet Italian wine from a great vintage. Brava - 92 Points

Stilton and Sauternes move over for Maytag and Muffa.

Where can I buy this wine?

Very few outlets but you can get the wine sent over from Trimani for €19.

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I am ridiculed for drinking sweet wines all times of day, all times of year, what's your opinion? Dessert wines for puds only or work them into rotation like any other wine?

Vacqueyras 2006

Vacqueyras 2006

Vacqueyras, one of the Southern Rhone's baby Chateauneuf du Pape wines is starting to compete with Gigondas as the second wine of the area. Now starting to move away from it's rough and rustic image, Vacqueyras is taken more and more seriously by producer and critic alike. Not quite yet on par with Gigondas, the difference in price between the two is stark with top end Vacqueyras wines (like the two reviewed below) available for around £15, you can pay double this figure for a similar high quality Gigondas.

2006 is an interesting vintage for the Southern Rhone, and suffers (or benefits from, depending on whether you sell, grow or drink the wine) from being in between two top class vintages. If you're in the wine industry or a big wine geek you will know about the hype surrounding the Chateauneuf du Pape '07's. No bad thing for CnDP, Gigondas and Vacqueyras wines from 2006 as they now offer exceptional value (something like the '04 Bordeaux principle but really only among the wines from the best producers).

Vacqueyras is usually a wine fairly easy to distinguish with most producers in the area, even those that have moved into heavy bio-dynamie, eager to keep the wine true to its historical roots. Vacqueyras wines have always been dusty, tannic and rugged but as that style falls further out of fashion and with two very prestigious and fashionable neighbours in Cheateauneuf du Pape and Gigondas, Vacqueyras has had to pave a new road for itself and the two producers reviewed here today, Montirius and Perrin & Fils are both attempting to do just that but in rather different ways. Although both biodynamic producers, the two wines have been styled to appeal to two very different types of Vacqueyras drinker.

This isn't the first time I've tried the Montirius Vacqueyras 2006 Garrigues this year. The wine appeared in a Berry Bros and Rudd sponsored Twitter Taste Live event and went down a real storm, the wine was fruity, full of cherries and Walls vanilla but here I was three months later and this delightfully complex and expressive Vacqueyras had turned green in a matter of three months. Perhaps a case of bottle evolution, some kind of bottle fault or, if you believe in such things, perhaps it was a "veggie day"*

I gave the Montirius Vacqueyras Garrigues 2006, 91 Points on its last outing in August. Now in late November it appears to have completely changed and my score for it at this drinking window descends also. Remember as you read this review that this wine may just be entering a non drinking phase, the Montirius is a prestigious and fine Vacqueyras wine, in fact consistently one of the best of it's type produced annually.

Montirius Vacqueyras 2006 Garrigues - BUY (but don't drink today!) - £13.50
Deep ruby red in the glass. 70% Grenache and 30% Syrah the fruit today was hard to tease from the nose however the wine does stay true to the region with dusty earthy notes and a hint of blackberry and over-ripe raspberry. Mid bodied, the wine is green, tannic and austere on the palate with a mid length finish. A good structure but the under ripe taste is baffling. 84 Points

Perrin & Fils Vacqueyras Les Christins 2006 - BUY - £12.65
Ruby red in colour. The wine quickly offers a heady bouquet with knockout Blackberry jelly, vanilla and an interesting sweet note on the nose. On the palate the wine is smooth with fine ingrained tannins and is a very pleasant and well rounded Rhone wine though, if blind, would not have picked this wine as a Vacqueyras. 89 Points

There is a theory that slowly, year on year, wines are becoming more and more alike not simply because the technology of modern wine making is available to everyone and techniques/information is more easily shared but because wine producers are playing for points (critic's) and trying to appeal to an "international" palate (whatever that is). This presents a danger for an AOC like Vacqueyras if you are a purist and want your wines to reflect the nuances of the soil/climate and taste the way they have done for generations. However, if you are a producer in an area as prestigious as the Rhone but as unknown (to the general public) as Vacqueyras, you may be persuaded commercially to produce an every-Rhone wine and appeal to a mass market.

If you know you like Rhone wines and you're not fussy about every bottle being a clean and obvious example of its exact AOC then the Perrin & Fils will suit you better, easy to drink, obvious Rhone though not obvious Vacqueyras with a nice price tag too.
If you want an a true example of Vacqueyras or something to hold onto for a while and see the true potential of Vacqueyras then go for the Montirius.

Where can I buy these wines?
Both these wines are available at Berry Bros and Rudd.

Leave a Comment
Do you have any examples of bad bottles or dumb periods? I don't know, aside from cork taint, a more disappointing end for a bottle of wine. I was so excited about the Montirius too *sigh*

*There are those that believe the waxing and waining of the moon effects water in the bottle as it effects the tides of the sea and that wines go through periods of fruit/veggie etc depending on the day you open it in a lunar cycle. That's lunar cycle, not loony cycle.