On my recent trip to Rome, I was fortunate to be able to attend a wine tasting celebrating the release of the llth Edition of The Essential Guide to Italian Wine 2025 by Daniele Cernilli, aka Doctor Wine. Daniele is Italy’s foremost wine critic and both he and his wife, Marina Thompson, are old friends.
The Essential Guide to Italian Wine 2025
The book is my go-to reference book for Italian wines since, as Daniele said, “All the wines worth drinking are in the pages of this guide.” Both Italian and English versions of the book are available. https://www.doctorwine.wine/prodotto/the-essential-guide-to-italian-wine-2025/?lang=en
There were three tasting events to celebrate the 2025 Guide, two in Milan and one in Rome
At the Rome event, there were wines from every region of Italy and I enjoyed seeing some of the winemakers I knew as well as meeting others for the first time. I was able to taste a number wines.
A few days later Daniel and Marina invited us to their apartment for dinner.
We started with the Giulio Ferrari Riserva Del Fondatore 1995 “blanc de blancs” This is a single vineyard reserve aged wine. The grapes are picked at the end of September in the Maso Pianizza a vineyard owned by the Lunelli Family. The vineyard is in the commune of Trento and is between 500 and 600 meters above sea level with a southwesterly exposure. The wine spends at least 10 years on the lees. They do not make this wine in every vintage.
The 1995 vintage produced perhaps the finest and most elegant wines of Ferrari’s history. It was the scarcest vintage in the past 30 years but it produced wines of exceptional quality. A cold and rainy spring disrupted the vines’ blooming and fruit set, causing a natural thinning. Bunches were smaller and loosely-packed, which combined with the moderate summer, allowed the berries to reach perfect ripeness. The harvest started on September 28th and the grapes showed higher acid levels. This is a great sparkling wine and one of my favorites.
With it we enjoyed bufala mozzarella with sweet, end-of-summer tomatoes.
Luna Mater 2008 Made from 50% Malvasia di Candia, 30% Malvasia del Lazio, 10% Greco and 10% Bombino. The grapes are grown in selected hillside vineyards ranging between 650 and 1,300 feet in the communes of Frascati and Monteporzio Catone. The volcanic soil is loose, porous and dry but not arid. Spalliera, Guyot and Cordone Speronato training systems are used. First, selected bunches of mature grapes are picked by hand. Then the best grapes from each bunch are chosen. The grapes are transported in small baskets directly to the cellar so that they will be in perfect condition when they arrive. The grapes are vinified in a process that they invented which takes place in three different stages. In the cellar the grapes are separated into two batches. This is called the “modern” stage. The first batch is cooled immediately prior to a gentle pressing to ensure maximum aromatic qualities. The second batch is destemmed, cooled and fermented in contact with the skins to produce a marked varietal character. This is done without oxygen to keep the grapes fresh. For the third stage, the skins were removed after 6 or 7 days. Any longer and there would be too much extract.
We enjoyed the Luna Mater with Daniele’s special sea food pasta made with tiny clams and shrimps.
On the plate. I ate two portions, it was so good.
Duca Enrico IGT 2012 Duca di Salaparuta (Corvo) made from 100% Nero d’Avola grapes grown in South Central Sicily. Soil is a mixture of calcareous-siliceous composition. The vineyard is at 200/300 meters and the vines are bush trained. There are at least 5,000 plants per hectare. Grapes are hand picked at full ripening and then destemmed. Maceration at 28/30 degrees for 8/10 hours followed by malolactic fermentation. The wine is aged in oak casks for 18 months and then 18 months in bottle before release. First vintage was 1984 and it was the first 100% Nero d’Avola to be bottled in Sicily. The wine has hints of ripe dark-skinned fruit, blackberry jam, ripe black cherry, a hint of leather and a note of licorice.
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2013 DOCG made from 100% Sangiovese. The soil is sub-alkaline to alkaline, with layers of clay, sand and silt. The vineyards are at 279 to 330 meters. The vines are bush and cordon-spur trained and are between 10 and 35 years old. In the older vineyards there are 3,300 vines per hectare and in the younger ones 7,158. Harvesting took place between September 10 and 20. The grapes were selected berry by berry by use of the optical technology of Vistalys (sorting the grapes by machine). The grapes were lightly crushed and transferred to temperature controlled stainless steel tanks for a 3-day-prefermentation maceration. The alcoholic fermentation proceeds naturally with indigenous yeast. A combination of delestage (two step rack and return process) and remontage (pumping over) is used to manage extraction from the cap. Malolactic fermentation takes place in oak. The wine spends 18 months in oak, 70% in barriques (30% new) and the rest in large oak casks 150hl. It is aged in bottle for a minimum of 7 months before release. Up to 30% of other grape varieties can be used in Vino Nobile but this producers chooses not to do so. This is a wine with hints of wild cherries red currants, rosemary and a touch of spice.
Polpettone (meat loaf) with roasted marinated bell peppers.
Daniele with his The Essential Guide to Italian Wine 2025 and On the Trail of the Black Rooster: Chianti Classico One Hundred Years of History
Dessert was a perfect tiramisu topped with a candied chestnut, the first of the season.
It is always a pleasure to speak to Daniele about food, wine, the wine industry and friends we have in common, but what made this evening even better was the delicious wine, food and hospitality supplied by Marina and Daniele.
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