vinosseur

Prince Makashvili Cellar - Soliko Tsaishvili, Irakli Pruidze & David Kapanadze

Date tasted:  July 11th, 2010 13:45

This grapes for this wine come from the Grand Cru vineyards of Akhoebi, in the village of Kardanakhi in the low hills of the Kakheti region.    The vineyard covers 1.9 HA and are farmed biodynamically and harvested by hand.  The soil is  black  and carbonate-rich.  The vines are widely spaced at approximately 2500 plants/HA, trained in a double Guyot pattern.  The vineyard is planted with approximately 90% Rkatsiteli, 4% Mtsvane, 4%Khikhvi and a red varietal called Saperavi, all on original (non-American) root stock. Harvest is done by hand, the grapes pressed softly.  The wine is spontaneously fermented and macerated for 6 months with skins in Qvevri.  After skin and stalk separation, the resulting wine is stored in smaller Qvevri for a further 12 months.   Bottled without filtration.  In 2007 approximately 20hl/ha was produced, or 1200 bottles.

Appearance: Apricot-orange hued with golden edges.

Nose: Herbs and spices (lavender & rosemary)  layered on top of  yellow fruit.  Sweet arctic cloud berries with strawberry (yes, strawberry) notes.

Palate: Great focused fruit. Apricots mostly. Medium tannins with medium level acidity.  30+ second finish. Bone dry.

The Grand Cru Akhoebi was my favorite of the three I wines tasted.

Date tasted:  July 11th, 2010 13:45

This grapes for this wine come from the Grand Cru vineyards of Tsarapi, in the village of Kardanakhi.  The vineyards cover 1.25 HA and are farmed biodynamically and harvested by hand.  The wine is spontaneously fermented and macerated for 6 months in Qvevri, then stored in the Qvevri for a further 12 months.   Bottled without filtration, and on this particular bottle, this was quite obvious.  Approximately 20hl/ha is produced, or about  1200 bottles.

Appearance: Darker and more copper-hued with loads of visible sediment

Nose: Sponty aromas with apricots, with less herbs and spices than the Akhoebi Grand Cru.  My favorite on the nose of the three wines because it had that perfect balance between fruit and wild aromas with just enough minerals to give the wine a serious edge.

Palate: More vinous than the Akhoebi – thick, structured and concentrated.  Quite a serious wine and very mineral.  Medium + tannins and acidity with a long finish.  Bone dry, elegant fruit.

This wine wanted desperately to be my favorite, but it came in second behind the Akhoebi. However, with a few years more of cellaring, this may show even better than the Akhoebi.

My overall impressions were that these three Georgian wines I tasted were of top quality and quite serious food wines.  I would have no problem drinking them alongside my Friulian & Slovenian favorites.

Now, back to the future (today) and the wines of Georgia, all hailing from the Kakheti region located in Eastern Georgia, the driest of the 3 regions.  It is the largest wine region in Georgia spanning over  11,000 square kilometers.

All three wines were (mostly) of the same grape variety, Rkatsiteli (or Rkatziteli – pronounced rkah-tsee-tely, and directly translated means “red vine”).  The only Georgian wine experience I have had before today, was  tasting some half-sweet (non-representative) red wine that was poured from a decorated clay bottle, and let’s just say it wasn’t a wine to remember. In fact, I only remember the bottle to this day.   These three wines were not at all what I had anticipated. They were aromatic, complex, fresh and tannic wines that would do well with food.

This project started about 4 years ago when a group of Italian wine and spirit merchants (Luca & Paolo Gargano) from Genova purchased a 1.8ha vineyard in the village of Mararo.  With the help of Jean Jacques, a friend of Nicolas Joly, and a local farmer named Nodar Shinjiashvili who was  cultivating old varieties of cereals biodynamically, Clos des Amandiers was born.  In 2007 they released their first vintage, the first wine in my tasting.

The vines for this wine share the space with almond trees and are cultivated biodynamically.  Harvest occurred in October, the grapes subsequently softly pressed.  Fermentation occurred spontaneously with indigenous yeasts  in old Qvevri without temperature control.  Maceration lasted for six months in these Qvevri then transferred to smaller, non-buried Qvevri for 12 months maturation.  The wine was then bottled without filtration and left to age in the bottle.

Date tasted:  July 11th, 2010 13:45

Appearance: Quite a dark orange hued wine with copper and amber tones (think Cat’s Eye gemstones)

Nose: Wow, intense. Quite a sponty and wild nose of dried peaches, raw almonds, marmalade and yellow plums. Hints of jasmine and lavender emerge after about an hour.

Palate: A delicate and elegant entry. Red apples (yes, red) and yellow apples. Medium ++ tannins, medium + acidity (tangy). I found more fruit on the nose then I did on the palate.  The wine had a 30 second+ finish with dominating tannins and toast.

I feel that this wine would be very suitable to food.  Especially dishes with high contrasting flavors and moderately spicy food (because of the fruity aromas in the wine).  A dish specifically recommended to me would be yogurt-marinated baked mutton (meat of mature sheep).  My experience with orange wines is that they merry quite well with food in general, from your sweeter, more aromatic dishes, to meat dishes and finally with cheese.

Date tasted:  June 9th, 2009

I have written before about Frank Cornelissen.  To refresh your memory, click here for one of my previous tasting notes and more about Frank.

I may not have mentioned this before, but I feel very fortunate to live in Norway when it comes to wine.  We do get our hands on some pretty obscure and rare wines that very few other places in the world get.  This wine is no exception.  The 2002 was his second vintage in which he produced about 2000 bottles total between the 3 Magma’s and one Rosso del Contadino.  In this vintage, Frank Cornelissen produced 3 different single-vineyard bottling’s of the Magma 2.  The Calderara, Trefiletti and the Marchesa vineyards.  Approximately 1300 bottles of the Magma’s were produced.  That’s it.

The Marchesa vineyard is an ungrafted vineyard which is normally very sun exposed and has a good balance between tannins and density.  According to Frank, this was a “backward” vintage, and therefore the alcohol was rather low, even harvesting as late as November 2nd.  Harvest of the Nerello Mascalese grapes are done by hand and the grapes are foot trodden.  The wine was fermented in Amphorae buried in the ground up to the neck (to keep the Amphorae from exploding during fermentation).  Only indigenous yeasts are used of course, and the wine is left to macerate with the skins for between 5 and 6 months.  The wine is bottled directly from the Amphorae without fining nor filtration.  Nothing is added nor taken.  No added SO2.

504 bottles of the Magma 2 Marchesa were produced, approximately 150 came to Norway.  Like I said, I feel fortunate to live in Norway.  Price at time of release, 1000 Norwegian Kroner ($155).

Bottle opened at 22:45:

Appearance: Very light red but within 15 minutes darkening to a darkish purple, black then going back to red again within a few minutes.  This is certainly a “living wine”.

Nose: Crushed rose pedals, dark plums, rose hips. Very farmyard, especially dead sheep (the specific dead sheep comparison came from my two Norwegian friends who were tasting with me). Wild, sour, small cherries.  Hints of dark cocoa.  Hints of Macadamia nuts, eucalyptus.  Much more tight and precise than it was the first time I tasted this wine back in 2006. If you breath in deeply, hints of prune juice without the dried fruit aspect.

Palate: Extremely concentrated but very light and fresh with red fruit dominating.  Within a few seconds, the tannins arrived and held firmly.  None of us could sense the 13.7% alcohol, it was extremely well integrated.  The acidity was medium plus and very ripe and “sweet”, but the wine is bone dry.  Hints of plums that have been picked a week before being over ripe,  the fruit is very ripe.  No dried fruit evident.  Sour fruits.  Every sip seems different and has you going back for another.  The wine will most likely run out before we finish analyzing this bottle.  There is a slight nuttiness on the finish with super-ripe fruit that  lingers and these two aromas add incredible complexity to the wine.  One of the most fantastic and interesting wines I have ever tasted, again.

23:15:

Tannins really stepping up, but not dominating.  More nutty macadamia’s starting to show.

23:30:

This is the hard part of this entry, having to write and report the following:

The wine seems to be “dying”.  The finish seems to fade quickly now. The 3 tasters all agreed that the wine was now dead. Perhaps if we had waited, and if we had any wine left, the wine would have come back alive. I am not sure.  I should also mention that this wine was not stored perfectly.

To conclude, I feel that this wine will throw many old school wine people off.  I believe they will most likely say that the nutty aspects of the wine are signs of oxidation and therefore this wine is not a good wine, and therefore not well-made. This being said, you have to remember that when judging  a wine, you must do so as objectively as possible.  You cannot let your personal opinion of weather or not you like the wine enter into the equation.  There are many well-made wines that I just don’t like, that doesn’t change the fact that the wines are well made.

The facts about the Magma 2 Marchesa are that this wine is well made, has tremendous concentration, complex aromas both on the nose and palate, is extremely well-balanced and the finish seems to never end.  These are
facts that are undeniable and in my opinion reflect an excellent, well-made wine.  Don’t get distracted by the nutty aromas and forget the aforementioned quality attributes.

Translation of back label:

Ingredients:  Only Nerello Mascalese Grapes from the 2002 harvest without the addition of any other ingredient.

Attention:  This wine has not been modified.  It doesn’t contain stabilizers nor preservatives.  There will be a natural deposit because the wine has been bottled without filtration.  It’s important to store the bottle at temperature of less than 16°C  (60.8° F).  It’s recommended to not decant.