The UnCorker

Weird Wine of the Week-2002 Triacca San Domenico Sforzato di Valtellina

March 31, 2009 | In WINE REVIEWS | No Comments

We at The UnCorker were having a hard time getting our heads around what is and what isn’t weird- after all, Mongols consider fermented mare’s milk an everyday tipple. The Merriam-Webster dictionary only gets us half way there- its definition includes “Magical” ok-good so far, “Unearthly, mysterious” well we’ll go with the latter, but wine is of the earth, literally and figurativly- finally, “Odd, Unusual”- we guess that’s the whole point of the Weird Wine of the Week feature, yet there has to be something else that leads us to include a wine in the ‘Weird’ category. Difficulty in obtaining is part, maybe only being able to understand it in its own proper context is another- perhaps there’s something simply indefinable about a wine that just tells us it belongs; after all,  antonyms include both “usual” and “normal” the opposite of the wines we include. That’s how we feel about the 2002 Triacca San Domenica Sforzato di Valtellina. Magical, hmmm, maybe not, though it does have charm- mysterious, possibly, though it won’t be when we finish discussing it. Odd and unusual certainly seem to work; though like that Mongol and his every day fermented mares milk- depends where you stand.

In the Valtellina, nebbiolo is called chiavennasca, and is part of an ancient wine culture that traditionally looks north to Switzerland as a market for its wines. Steeply terraced vineyards make mechanization impossible- viticulture is only possible in heat capturing valleys, and ripening grapes fully isn’t always possible. That is where the apassimento traditionally comes in. Better known in the Veneto as the method which produces Amarone, here nebbiolo is harvested in the fall, and dried on racks through December- these half dried grapes are then pressed to produce Sforzato(Sfursat to the many German speaking inhabitants).

Only a handful of producers make this wine, and their production is tiny; a few hundred cases a vintage. The 2002 is still a young wine, tannic and a bit drying, though towards the end of a slow evening, more supple and giving. That apassimento sure does intensify that nebbiolo goodness- this wine has tar aplenty, dried strawberries and roses, raisin and loads of savory baking spice. But the most prominent feature was the dried tea leaves on the nose, and those biting tannic tea leaves on the palate- this is a wine that was made for strong Alpine cheese. By its very nature, this is the antithesis of modern wine production(though Triacca is a thoroughly modern producer, even having property in Tuscany) hand harvested grapes are dried, concentrating their sugars, and by the time you vinify them, its icy cold, bringing about the very real hazard of a stuck fermentation. There is some velvet to the mouth feel, glycerin aplenty- but the power of this wine is not derived from rich body or lucious fruit; compared to most apassimento wines, this is quite lean- here, it is the nuances of nebbiolo through a fun house mirror, a bit disorienting, but totally worth the price of admission.