Perhaps the Best and Certainly the Most Interesting "Young Outlier" White We've Offered

Many of you have received your Fass Selections wines from Tenuta Grillo of Piedmont and are
starting to enjoy the latest Fass Selections discovery.  Guido Zampaglione is making fantastic wine about an hour northeast of Barolo.  He sells off most of his grapes and keeps the best ones for the wines he sells.  This allows him to release wines when they are ready to drink. He is 100% natural and organic.  

The first wine was on my "Top 10 Unknown Wines Coming from Regions that Are Not Known for that Grape According To Me" list - so it has serious geek credentials.

Without further ado, we're offering the Tenuta Grillo 2013 Solleone (Sauvignon Blanc) for $23.99 on a 4-pack.  The aromatics on the nose are simply beautiful. Nuts with notes of tea and spice.  The palate is simply delicious.  There is some tea, and the wine is rich, almost nutty with terrific minerality and acidity.  There are exotic fruit notes with a bit of passion fruit.  But these are not dominant and it does not taste tropical.  The wine is stunningly well integrated, clean and balanced. Terrific, terrific structure with perfect balance. There is a sense of harmony on the palate - everything is there and not there at the same time and flavors pop in out of your consciousness as the balance shifts on the palate.   The finish is super long and there are apple skin notes.  There is so much going on with this wine, it's very hard to describe but everything is supremely knit together.  Try to imagine the nuttiness of Meursault, the minerality and acidity of Chablis, a hint of Nahe tropical fruit and a hint of Mosel green apple all seamlessly integrated in one bottle.  It's one of those wines that as a wine lover, you sort of have to try.

The second wine is a Barbera aged in wood for 12-18 months, but it's also very, very different. Delicious, but different.  Everyone will love the 2006 Tenuta Grillo Igiea (100% Barbera) for $27.99 for a 4 pack.  First, how awesome is it that we get to drink 10 year old Barbera for under $30?  The wine tastes of cherry fruit, but old, mature, rich, wonderful cherry fruit.  It's very, very different.  The crazy thing is that the wine still has great freshness.  There is definitely some cherry spice on the palate, which makes no sense because cherries are not spicy but trust me, that's what it tastes like. The tannins are sort of there but not there, floating in and out of the picture - so well integrated.  The finish is really, really long with deep cherry fruit echoing for about a minute.  Two bottles were tasted - one four days old and it was still fresh.  This wine still has another 10 plus years in it.  On one level this wine is so inexpensive you can just drink it whenever you want - it's really incredibly delicious. On another level, this is a really special bottle of wine and it almost seems wrong to just drink it with pizza.  I should probably charge $50 for it because it's that good and that interesting and I want people to appreciate it for what it is but my model creates low prices and it is what it is.  By the way, the wine is so good that the winemaker named it after his wife.

Guido Zampaglione lives with his wife and children about an hour Northeast of Barolo in a little town called Gamalero.  He has an absolutely beautiful farm with lots of gorgeous furniture from his family in Calabria.  His grandmother made wine and he bought the farm about a decade ago and works it with one assistant.  He has 17 hectares but sells most of the fruit so he can focus on the 5-6 hectares that produce really special fruit.  I assume that the cash from selling the grapes allows him to hold back his wines until they are ready to drink, often a decade after they are bottled.  He's a quality and approach zealot but in an understated almost professorial way.  He and his wife are really incredibly, incredibly nice people.  Oh, his wines are also served at Turin's coolest natural wine bar, Banco, as well as its sister restaurant.  The winery is located in Piedmont about an hour northeast of Barolo.

Tenuta Grillo 2013 Solleone (Sauvignon Blanc) - $25.99 

($95.96 -pack) 

Tenuta Grillo 2006 Barbera "Igiea"- $29.99 ($111.96 4 pack)