80% Cornas 20% Bordeaux with DRC Elegance Made in Italy by a Millionaire Genius

 This Is How Wine Will Be Made

 - If he succeeds in adequately explaining the quality of his wines, his price competition will be the best of Burgundy

 - No Expense Spared

 - His Own Micro Ecology

 - Vast Efforts to Create Living Soil

 - Almost 100% Gravity to Avoid Pumps

 - Machine Learning to Perfect Grape Selection

 - Manual (by Foot) Pressing to Limit Seed Tannins 

 - 2 Full Time Biologists Who Measure Everything

 - The Scientific Approach that Made Him a Centi Millionaire Supplier to Ferrari

 - Applied to Wine

2013 Podere Forte Guardavigna

 - 95 Points Vinous, Galloni

 - Nose: Intoxicating Elegant Meatiness

 - Graphite

 - Sottobosco

 - Intoxicating in An Almost Sensual Way

 - Palate - A Masterpiece

 - Perfect Cherry and Raspberry

 - Elegant Game

 - Squab Jus, Woodcock, Sweet Rabbit Liver

 - Top Level Burgundian Levels of Elegance

 - Every Element Is Right There in Harmony

 - Some Opulence - But Restrained, Integrated and Elegant

 - In a Sense, This Tastes Like the Most Elegant Cornas Ever Made

 - This Price for a Wine with This Level of Winemaking Effort Is an Incredible Value

 - Buy As Much as You Can Afford and Store 

If You Have Always Been Curious About the $200 Melo and Anfiteatro, This Wine Is Very, Very, Very Close in Quality at Less Than Half the Price

A Singular Work of Genius

There are some wines that you sell that just exist completely outside of the box. And you sell
them because they are singular works of genius. Impossible to categorize. You struggle to piece together whispers of metaphors to grasp at doing justice to genius. 

This is one of those wines. 

This Is How Wine Will Be Made

Pascuale Forte is literally soaring no expense form his multi million dollar fortune to make the greatest wines in the world. If he succeeds in adequately explaining the quality of his wines, his price competition will be the best of Burgundy.  

"No expense spared" is a clever turn of phrase but it doesn't do justice to what Forte has done here. If you want an insight into the future of winemaking, please read on.

1) He has created his own little Garden of Eden with bees, his own cows and pigs and vegetation all designed to increase the life in the soil.

2) He spends more time studying and perfecting the ageing of the manure he gets from his Chianina cows than most winemakers spend on their wine.

3) The winery is set up as multi level on the side of a hill. As the wine progresses through the various stages of winemaking, it flows downhill using only gravity. In this manner, the use of pumps (which impact the wine) is minimized.

4) He has 2 full time biologists who study ever step of the winemaking process and scientifically measure the results.

5) He just purchased a machine that uses machine learning to remove all substandard grapes. They are fed to the pigs. Every grape in every wine is perfect. Only two other wineries in Tuscany use this machine.

6) The wines are not pressed but partially stomped by foot. This limits the amount of pressure on the seeds which have bitter tannins.

How much each of these steps contributes to the quality of the wines, I can't honestly say. What I can say is that these are some of the most perfect wines I've ever tasted. The level of elegance is on a par with any of the top wines in the world no matter the cost. When you drink these wines, you almost feel like you are out of time. The level of perfection just halts the normal functioning of your brain. It seeks the flaw, cannot find it and almost gyrates on itself.

I am psyched beyond belief that I have special pricing that will bring today's offer into the budget of many more people today.

The Wine

There a few hundred bottles left of the 2013 Podere Forte Guardavigna. It normally costs over $100 but we received a special discount to get this under $95 (it's $92.99 each on a 3 pack) so that more people can try the high end bottlings (the other 2 are over $200).

I need to sell them now. This wine is a work of genius. 

The nose is intoxicating elegant meatiness. Some

graphite. Sottobosco. Cherry flower. Raspberry flower. A hint of cherry flower liquor. Simply intoxicating in an almost sensual way. Utterly fascinating. You can literally sit with this wine for hours. It has that much going on. After air it gets better. Brilliant nose: deep cassis and cherry fruit. Superb minerals and earth. It is so, so refined and precise. Very nuanced aromas of berries, anise and minerals with wet earth are also mixed in.

The palate is elegant game. Picture squab jus, woodcock, rabbit liver (which is quite mild and sweet). So precise. The precision here is really elite Burgundy - think Brisset. Wow is that palate just an elegant masterpiece of balance and drop dead purity. This is so close to Brisset it’s not funny. Wow is this a divine bottle of Tuscan wine.The fruit is cherry and raspberry that frame the elegant game. Simply perfect fruit. Laser-like precision. Yet in a soft and elegant way with no hard edges. Elegantly delicious. So precise. Every element is right there to pluck off of the shelf and examine.  You get some of the opulence you would expect but it's SO well integrated and not at all pushy or vulgar. Just enough to increase the level of bliss over it's already high level.

Stunning persistent finish. The fruit and aromatics cling to the palate for a minute or longer. The wine just coats the palate with flavor and clings there for a minute or two after each sip. I know I said it twice but you won't believe this finish. It's so complex, each sip almost leaves you spent.

Below is the 95 Points Antonio Galloni Review from Vinous,

"The 2013 Guardiavigna, the estate's Cabernet Franc/Merlot/Petit Verdot bend, is superb. Amarena cherry, licorice, mocha, torrefaction and dark spice notes give the 2013 its distinctive personality. A wine of gravitas and power, the 2013 gradually reveals itself in the glass, but it is going to need at least a few years to shed some of its tannin and incorporate the oak." - 95 Points, Antonio Galloni, Vinous

In a sense this is the most elegant Cornas ever. It makes the best Cornas I’ve had seem rustic by comparison. I’m taking Brisset, Roumier levels of elegance.  

For the record, this is 44% Cabernet Franc, 44% Merlot, 12% Petit Verdot. Although I'd be hard pressed to tell that blind - it tastes like what it tastes.

Buy as much as you can store this is a wine for the ages and incomparable.  At this price, it is an absolute steal.

2013 Podere Forte "Guardiavigna" - $94.99 ($278.97 3-Pack)