"I Don't Care How Much It Costs" Wine Of The Year - The Reason You Pay This Much for a Wine - the Certainty of Perfection

 The Certainty of Perfection
 - The Ultimate Wine for a Birthday, An Anniversary
 - Bring It To a Tasting and Always Get WOTN
 - You Will Remember Drinking It 20 Years Later
 - The Best Wine I Had All Year

Podere Forte
 - The Combination of the Best of the Best
 - Vineyard Consultants from DRC
 - The Most Exclusive Barrels in Europe
 - Almost Sold Out in Italy, No Need to Sell to the US Market
 - I Begged for a Teeny Allocation

2016 Podere Forte Petrucci "Anfiteatro" Toscana IGT
 - If the Melo we Offered Previously Is Romanee-Conti 
 - The Anfiteatro Is the La Tache of the Pair  
 - Average 95 Score Over 5 Rated Vintages (Parent Wine)
 - I Gave This a 9.9 After 4 Hours
 - Nose: the Most Perfectly Distilled Elegant Sangiovese Perfume
 - A Top 1% Nose
 - Raspberries, Black Cherries and Red Cherries
 - Dark Flowers, Sweet Spices
 - Stunningly Detailed and Vivid
 - Palate: Perfect Fruit 
 - Awesome Spice, Silky Minerals
 - Everyone from Novices to Experts Will be Blown Away 
 - Unreal Inner Mouth Aromas
 - Texture: Like Silk Made from Sangiovese

 - Only High End Burgundy Has this Kind of Texture

The Certainty of Perfection

The biggest disappointment for me when drinking a very expensive wine is that it is not worth its price tag. It happens a lot. Certain wines are great in some years but disappoint in others and rarely reach that level of perfection. But the feeling when you are drinking an expensive wine and it delivers more than you can imagine is one of the great wine experiences one can have.

You pay this much because you know that you are going to get a perfect experience.  

 - You are celebrating a birthday or anniversary

 - You just closed a big deal

 - You are entertaining a dear friend.

 - You are attending an important tasting and want to bring something stunning.

This is the kind of wine that 20 years after drinking it, you will remember and will say, "remember when we had the 16 Anfiteatro on my birthday?" It will be the best most memorable thing about that evening no matter what else you did. 

My Birthday Wines

My birthday was November 27th and as my choices were limited on what to do and how to celebrate I decided to open 6 very expensive wines for my birthday with my friends and neighbors who are also clients and on the list. It was a murderer's row of wines but one wine not only stood out above the rest but pulverized the rest. And it was totally unexpected and gave me and the friends I was drinking it such pure joy that it was the highlight of my year. In a year that has been downright awful this wine transported me to another place of vinous joy. I couldn't stop smiling because the wine was perfect and every smell and every sip was joy. Pure, unadulterated joy. We all couldn't stop talking about the wine because it overdelivered on its high price tag and that is why I am proud to offer the "I Don't Care How Much It Costs" Wine Of The Year. 

It's the 2016 Podere Forte "Anfiteatro" for $212.99 each on a 2-pack. This was the greatest wine I've had this year. I originally tasted it a Gambero Rosso "Tre Bicchieri" tasting in NYC in February. I had maybe 2 minutes with it. 2 minutes doesn't tell one much about a wine. Basically whether it is a good wine or a bad wine. But the exploration and evolution of the wine are left to projections. Well sitting with the 16 Anfiteatro was brilliant. At four hours it was perfect. I gave it a 9.9 on Delectable after giving it a 9.5 on my first taste in February. Below is my tasting note from November 27th that is more visceral and below that a more extensive one.

What a wine. Just sick. 100% Sangiovese from Orcia DOC. 

Insane nose. Cuban cigar tobacco. Fresh. Like on an elite cigar. Old library book. Raspberry coulis.

Intense berry and cherry fruit. Nose is incredible. Like a fruit paste but an elite fruit paste. Raspberry like nothing else. Cherry flower just beyond. All on a superbly mineral background. Awesome but young palate. Tasting later more high end wines and opened this before as it needs air but man. What structure, what clarity, what finesse. Seamless. Incredible cherry flower and elite cherry consommé like fruit. Such fine tannins. So complex. Amazing length and purity. So so so great genius. Amazing palate saturation. Sick sick sick. After 4 hours this is a 9.9. Elite balance, elite elegance and fruit like no other.

The Palate. The palate is utter perfection. Of course, the fruit is incredible. The most perfect sweet cherries. The wine is obviously completely dry (no residual sugar) but the fruit is so perfect that the brain almost perceives the fruit as sweet - this only happens with wines that are made by an absolute master. The fruit is very dense but in an elegant kind of way. An awesome spice and some silky minerals round out the palate. The spice overlay and minerals are bonded with the cherries almost at the molecular level. Thebalance is simply incredible. Flawless. There's a hint of cherry liquor that adds vibrancy. It's almost Brisset-like in that you swish and swish and swish and there are no flaws (although this is a totally different style than Brisset). 

As noted, this wine has elite levels of deliciousness. Anyone from an absolute novice taster to an expert will be blown away by this. Spectacular. So complete with almost painfully intense fruit.  So, so, so juicy and what I like to call slippery. Incredible acidity. There's a hint of blackberry with a kiss of such elegant spice you can't believe.  It has a seamlessness that is like nothing I've ever tasted. It's like a hang glider on your palate. There are no hard edges. 

Unreal inner mouth aromas. Such velvety tannins and sweet fruit with that energy is just beyond anything. It's truly magical. The best tannins. You can swirl as fast as a Vitamix blender and there will be no hard edges. It's the most balanced wine I've had in years and it's remarkable that a beverage can be this balanced, flavorful and distinctive. It just clings to the mouth with the most amazing tannins ever. The Rolls Royce of tannins. The fruit is so expressive and so focused. The harmony is unreal and that floral and fruit sizzle on the inner mouth aroma front. There is so much flavor, even in my last microdrop of my glass, that getting as many of those microdrops together for a sip is a transcendent experience. It's fresh and energetic with amazing silky and suave texture. 

The texture is stunning (yes this gets its own paragraph).  It's hard to describe texture - it's sort of like you know it when you feel it.  But some wines have no texture; they have been robbed of their soul.  Some are rustic and more clunky.  Which can be fun.  What you really want is something that you can feel on the palate but that caresses you in a sensual, almost sexual way.  This wine does that as well as any wine I've ever had.  

It has that silkiness about it but also has terrific cling that you marvel at it.  Only crazy high end Burgundy has this kind of texture.  The wine really adheres to the palate. This wine has the texture of the Gods.  It's like silk made from Sangiovese.   You drink it and you almost don't want to swallow it.  It's such a pleasurable experience letting it just have its way with your palate.  It caresses and clings in such a way I can't really describe but it's hypnotic and almost addictive.

There is perfect sweet fruit on the attack and then the rock dust kicks it into high gear as we approach the extraordinary finish. The finish just builds. And builds. And keeps building. And then it crescendos with its remarkable structure and depth. Man is the structure of this wine just awesome. It's so deep. And so mineral. But most importantly it is so fine, so refined and so elegant. I mean this wine is fine. So so fine. I've been tasting wines for 20 years and this is as fine an Italian wine as I can remember. This has the structure  to last 20 years. Genius wine of the highest degree. 

Why On Earth Have I Never Heard of These Wines Despite the Scores?

For whatever strategic marketing reason, they have focused on selling them mostly in Tuscany (where they are selling out) and have decided to largely ignore the US market. Through 3 tier, these would be among the most expensive wines in the US.

And they are worth every penny. I thought I tasted everything but apparently not. Not even close. If I had to say what today's wine is like I'd say It's like the Musigny of Tuscany made from Sangiovese. Like a cross between Roumier and de Vogue's styles. Has the terroir footprint of Roumier but also the luxurious fruit of de Vogue. But a quick little history. 

How on Earth Did I Find These?

I tasted these wines at the Tre Bicchieri tasting put on by the Gambero Rosso and I hadn't been in almost 7-10 years. I ran into an old client who I've known for a very long time and his whole thing was buying and cellaring all the Tre Bicchieri wines which are basically 95+ point wines roughly. Usually if a wine is Tre Bicchieri it's a pretty good indicator we are talking top of class here. They are almost can't miss wines. It's also a unique and cool way to build a super versatile Italian cellar. He told me I've got to taste Podere Forte and he will buy them from me. I said that's quite an endorsement. He also said they don't have an importer and he thought I'd be a good fit. 

I saunter over to the table and taste with the export manager and it was almost pointless to taste any other wines at the tasting as this vaporized every wine in the room. I was slack jawed. I tasted 2015 Poggio di Soto Brunello di Montalcino before I tasted the Forte wines thinking I would not taste a better Sangiovese that day. But then came along Podere Forte. Vaporized. Them all. It was not close. I made the deal and then my partner tasted them a few days later in LA at the tasting and went out to dinner with the Export Manager. The wines are miraculous. They are art. They are incomparable to anything in Italy. You have to go to Burgundy. 

Wine History

Melo and  Anfiteatro used to be one wine until 2016. That one wine was called Petrucci and is no longer as of the 2016 vintage and we have the two wines, Petrucci Melo and Petrucci Anfiteatro. They believe the components of the wine stand better on their own now as the vines have gotten older and boy are they correct. 

Vinous Petrucci Scores By Antonio Galloni

• 2015 - 93
• 2013 - 96+
• 2011 - 96
• 2010 - 97
• 2009 - 95

As compared to the Melo, which we already offered, the Anfiteatro is the more sensual wine that is just a notch above the Melo on the deliciousness scale. It's like going from a 9.9 to a 9.95. It is one of the most spectacularly delicious and perfect wines we have ever sold. There are very few wines on planet earth that approach perfection. And this is one of them. It's pretty much perfect on both the obvious level and the level that only complete wine geeks will appreciate.  But this is a wine that is an absolute reference point for Sangiovese.

This wine is obviously more expensive than our average wine. But it's one of the most spectacularly delicious wines in Italy. If you drink wines at this price point, it's actually a good value for what it is. Through 3 tier, this would cost $350 or so, in line with the other top tier wines in Italy that have similar scores. You will absolutely love every bottle that you drink.

The Location

The estate is located due east of Montalcino.  Maybe 5 miles from the town.  It's maybe a mile outside of the zone where you can grow Brunello (if you pay for one of the fixed number of licenses to get your land approved).

2016 Poderi Forte "Anfiteatro" Toscana IGT- $214.99 ($425.98 2-pack)