The UnCorker

Weird Wine of the Week- 2004 Pugnitello San Felice

April 28, 2009 | In WINE REVIEWS | 1 Comment

When we think of the world of wine, we think of dinners, varietals, wine shops and producers. The business of wine is complex and competitive- sometimes headspinningly so. Grasping modern vinification and the seemingly endless variety of grapes being produced causes profound anxiety for many. Yet wine is, we believe, fun- lots and lots of fun. The choices we have as consumers is vast, yet the wine-world we inhabit is practically brand new. In the U.S. we have access to the produce of almost every wine region in the world- even the French are drinking wine from South America, the French! There was a time though, when there was even more diversity in the vineyards of the old world and more varietals than modern marketing and tastes could contend with.

The Etruscans were making wine in what is now Italy centuries before the foundation of Rome, and the Roman’s inherited a rich diversity of grapes from them. There were literally hundreds of varieties in Tuscany alone. With the fall of the Roman Empire, viticulture fell on hard times, to be sure, making the Dark Ages that much darker- vineyards were neglected and died out, and with them, grapes and diversity. The religious orders picked up some of the slack, keeping some of the diversity alive, and bringing  study and order to the practice of viticulture. After them it was the nobles and royalty that pursued winemaking on a large scale, but with each phase, certain grapes were selected for their traits, others neglected. In the modern era, phylloxera was the great destroyer of diversity; vineyards all over the world ripped up and then replanted. That replanting was done with an eye to rationality(at times) but mostly ease of use, productivity and identity.

For a wine region to succeed economically, it seems it must have a handful of grapes that are its “signature.”  Thus we know that New Zealand grows Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir.  Tuscany and Sangiovese are so tightly identified you would think it was the only grape grown there.  But here is where we get to the WWOW- see, in the backwaters of Tuscany, there are still scores of old, unidentified vines- hundreds.  Thankfully, in the 1980’s, the universities and wineries in Italy sought to identify and save this genetic treasure trove.

The 2004 Pugnitello from Agricole San Felice is a joint effort between the University of Florence and San Felice.  Since the Chianti 2000 project(more on that another time), there have been experimental vineyards throughout Tuscany, and for that matter, Italy in general. These vineyards experimented with different clones of Sangiovese, but also propagated and identified some of the hundreds of old, unidentified vines that were still to be found.

In 1981, the yet to be identified Pugnitello was found south of Siena, and the University at Florence asked San Felice, a very modern Chianti producer to place it in their “vitarium” where they had some 270 unknown or unidentified vines. Seeing promise in the Pugnitello, much experimentation followed, and after some micro-vinifications, several hectares were planted to it for more large scale experimentation- the result is this very weird, very delicious mixture of very old and very new.

We have a grape variety, Pugnitello, known to the Etruscans and perhaps favored by the Romans(it is a decidedly good grape) forgotten by most over the centuries; a grape that definitely would have been shunned in the 1950’s and until modern times, as it doesn’t produce much fruit- an unpopular trait in Italy until very recently. So we have this ancient grape, subjected to the most modern and sophisticated analysis, temperature controlled fermentation and 18 months in french oak barriques- yielding a powerful wine, yet one with less then13% abv.

The 2004 Pugnitello from San Felice, as of now the only commercial producer of this varietal, is a dark, robust wine. On the nose there is tar, leather, and a star anise quality that made us at The UnCorker think about really good bollito misto. On the palate, bright fruits, spice, something a little bit feral- a tannic, yet smooth structure with good acidity makes us think that this is a wine with the potential to age, though only time will tell. San Felice is hoping that in time, Pugnitello will be recognized as a partner for Sangiovese in the wines of Chianti, replacing the French grapes (such as Cabernet Sauvignon) that have begun to see wide acceptance, and making truly 100% Italian wines.  The 2004 vintage saw the production of 16,000 bottles of Pugnitello, 10,000 of which got shipped to the U.S.  Here’s your chance to drink  something so old, its new again.