Tonight, to accompany a dinner of ravioli with a homemade tomato sauce,
I opened a bottle of the 1997 Tenuta Marchese Antinori Chianti Classico
Riserva. This decision was motivated in part by seeing the eponymous
Antinori in Mondovino this week, and in part to see how the ballyhooed
'97 vintage in Tuscany would hold up in the glass. My experience with
Chianti over the years has largely been a sad one, having learned the
hard way of the highly variable quality of the region; hope springs
eternal, though, so on to the wine:

color: dark garnet with no sign of browning
nose: pencil shavings, dusty cherries, later developing into more funky,
tobacco-like notes
palate: crisp entry, rich cherry fruit in the midpalate with good
acidity, some tannins left and a rich finish; later on, the flavors
became less primary, with some barnyard and tobacco competing with the fruit

Overall, this is easily one of the best CCRs I've had. It had enough
fruit for even a CalCab lover to enjoy, and the acids -- while copious
-- were kept in balance. It paired well with the tomato sauce and,
surprisingly, also with the smoked andouille with onions and red peppers
that accompanied the pasta. The wine clearly has another 5-10 years
ahead of it and one should be in no hurry to drink it. To my taste, it
was better an hour after decanting than it was to begin the evening. On
the basis of this bottle, I can hardly wait to try some of my other '97s.

Mark Lipton

The Marchese bottling is Antonori's best Chianti, Roserva other than
Monsanto"s Il Poggio, after those two come the Fontodi, Il Pallazino, San
Guisto, Isola e Elena IMVHO. I've had the 1958 and it was one hell of a
wine.

The firm that partners with what ever is left of Mondavi, Frescobaldi makes
chianti Riserva the the Rufina DOC under the name Montesodi, its more cmplex
than the Nippozano Riserva made by Frescobaldi. I saw Mondovino and emjoyed
the byplay on the courting of Mondavi.

I thought Nossiter was particularly assinine when he asked wine making
families if they backed Il Duce. Either you backed or at least tolerated
the Fascisti, or you had no business. Of the dozen or so Germans I did
business with, most were children during WWII, but said their family was not
involved. Almost all said they no little about the Holocaust until TV and
then the movies brought it to their attention.

A number of Italian winemakers, mostly in Piemonte were anti-fascist and
closed off their cellars, the late Renato Ratti was in the resistance as was
Gaja's family and Alfredo Currado of Vietti. Elvio Cogno was a POW in
England and helped MI-5. The more relevant question is if they hid Jews and
Gypsies after the German's took over the war in Italy, A good number of
wineries I visited didn't have a cross in their home or biblical depictions
of Jesus, Joseph and Mary. Most of these saw the Star of David I wore and
asked if I was "Ivri" (Jewish) and had I been to Israel, 40 years after
WWII they played down the fact that they were Jewish.
"Mark Lipton" > wrote in message
news:PpOWe.334309$x96.8300@attbi_s72...
> Tonight, to accompany a dinner of ravioli with a homemade tomato sauce,
> I opened a bottle of the 1997 Tenuta Marchese Antinori Chianti Classico
> Riserva. This decision was motivated in part by seeing the eponymous
> Antinori in Mondovino this week, and in part to see how the ballyhooed
> '97 vintage in Tuscany would hold up in the glass. My experience with
> Chianti over the years has largely been a sad one, having learned the
> hard way of the highly variable quality of the region; hope springs
> eternal, though, so on to the wine:
>
> color: dark garnet with no sign of browning
> nose: pencil shavings, dusty cherries, later developing into more funky,
> tobacco-like notes
> palate: crisp entry, rich cherry fruit in the midpalate with good
> acidity, some tannins left and a rich finish; later on, the flavors
> became less primary, with some barnyard and tobacco competing with the
fruit
>
> Overall, this is easily one of the best CCRs I've had. It had enough
> fruit for even a CalCab lover to enjoy, and the acids -- while copious
> -- were kept in balance. It paired well with the tomato sauce and,
> surprisingly, also with the smoked andouille with onions and red peppers
> that accompanied the pasta. The wine clearly has another 5-10 years
> ahead of it and one should be in no hurry to drink it. To my taste, it
> was better an hour after decanting than it was to begin the evening. On
> the basis of this bottle, I can hardly wait to try some of my other '97s.
>
> Mark Lipton