A Meditation on Perfection - One of Very Few Wine I've Ever Given 100 Points

 Taking These Bottles Out of Italy Is Removing Their National Heritage... Let's Grab As Much As We Can

 - Only 1,623 Bottles Made

2017 Podere Forte Petrucci "Melo"

 - I Gave This a Hands Down 100

 - Nose: All About the Seamlessness of Its Parts

 - You Smell Pure Beauty

 - Perfect Cherry

 - Fresh Lilacs

 - Vibrant Violets

 - Palate: Elegant in a Way that Defies Logic

 - The Most Perfect Crystalline Fruit

 - Elegantly Juicy 

 - Violets and Lilacs

 - Stunningly Delicious in Its Perfection

 - Leaves the Drinker in an Almost Blissed Out State

 - Tannins Here are So Silky, Almost Sweet (There's a Reason)

 - This Shows that Sangiovese at Its Highest Level Can Compete and Place in a Lineup of the Finest Nebbiolo, Pinot Noir or Syrah

Prices Are a Bit Lower This Year Because We Buy a Good Amount of Wine - Please Take Advantage

A Meditation on Perfection

per·fec·tion

/pərˈfekSH(ə)n/

noun

the condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects.- Oxford Languages Dictionary

What is perfection? The Oxford definition is a good start. We've all glimpsed at it, at least once
or twice in our lives.

The perfect view. The ocean at sunset. Perhaps a wave crashing on the shore. Maybe the look of sorrow on Mary's face in the Pieta.

The perfect bite of food. Lobster with butter. Foie gras with blackberries. Oysters & Pearls.

The perfect moment. The first smile of the love of your life. Your child laughing or maybe the moment you hold your newborn for the first time.

Most of life peaks out at just very good. And that's fine. But perfection? Aye - that's a rare bird indeed.

Today, we have a wine that is simply perfect. It makes even very good wines seem vulgar by comparison. It is the product of emotion, genius, sacrifice and science. It should be our high end wine of the year, but it won't likely last until November.

The Wine

Today, we are offering the 2017 Podere Forte Melo for $154.99 a bottle on a 3 pack.This is 100% Sangiovese from the hills of Orcia which is an area known for Brunello. This is the finest Sangiovese I have ever had. This wine shows that Sangiovese at its highest level can compete and place in a lineup of the finest Nebbiolo, Pinot Noir or Syrah. This wine optimally needs 3 years or so as it will unfurl more and become more complex, but you can certainly drink it now with a 2 hour decant.

The nose will cause the religious among us to praise the almighty. The more colorful among us to release a string of expletives. It is... perfect. The sum of the parts, I can describe. But it is infinitely more than those. It's about the seamlessness of its parts. When you first smell the wine, you smell pure beauty. That's all. After you recover, you step back and analyze. Because that's what we do. You smell the perfect cherry. The fresh lilacs. The vibrant violets. The merest hint of pencil shavings and smoke. But this wine is no more about these parts than the Mona Lisa is about the nose, 2 eyes and 2 ears. It's about that seamless integration to create something new and unique and beautiful.

It's even harder to have a perfect palate on a wine. That where the rubber meets the road. Any flaw, no matter how tiny, will show up. A bit too much acid. Slightly overripe fruit. Others have made a career of discovering and gleefully categorizing them. Not here. This is the most perfect crystalline fruit. Elegant in a way that defies logic. So incredibly juicy but not a in bite into a peach kind of way. No - this is elegantly juicy in a way that just frames the fruit and keeps it fresh on the palate. There are no edges on this wine. It's a perfect sphere of crystal that if you analyze with an electron microscope, you won't find an edge. As it opens, you get those violets and lilacs from the nose. And the great thing about this wine that really takes this to 100 for me is that it's not just perfect in some idealized, scientifically precise kind of way. It's just stunningly delicious in its perfection. The fruit simply sings on the palate. It soaks every corner. Please read the end of the E-Mail to get a sense of why the tannins here are so silky, almost sweet - with not a trace of bitterness.

It leaves the drinker in an almost blissed out state with only the tinge of sadness that there are only 1,623 bottles of this ever made and only 750 ml in each of those and then it will be gone forever. Fewer bottles were made in 2017 - but they were works of genius.

The Future of Winemaking

This wine did not happen by accident. The terroir is very good but the winemaker did not simply "do nothing." In fact he spent millions of dollars to get as close to doing nothing as is humanly possible. By "doing nothing" I mean having as little impact upon the grapes as is possible given the modern state of human scientific development. I mean translating the true life of the soil into the wines and grapes as much as possible.

To be clear. What Pasquale Forte is doing is not capitalism. It is akin to the Medicis patronage of the arts. It is creating a legacy.  A legacy of the perfect way to make wine.

Every aspect of everything that they are doing is optimized with the best consultants on earth. It is then executed with meticulous dedication and measured to see if it is working. 

Vineyard Work

The estate is biodynamic. But this is not hippie biodynamic winemaking. Everything is measured for effectiveness. A key component of biodynamic philosophy is to create living soil. Living soil is how vines evolved over centuries. It’s how vines are meant to grow. And how they make the best wines. Podere Forte monitors enzyme levels in the soils to see the effectiveness of their various approaches. 

As an example they have a highly specific approach to producing manure. They use Chianina cattle to make tons of manure every year that they age for 15 months before using it to enrich the soil. This estate spends more effort perfecting their manure than most do on their wine.  

The Winery 

The entire winery has been set up to combine modern technology and traditional methods to select the best grapes that will minimize the impact on the grapes. 

The winery was built on multiple levels so that the juice can flow from one stage to the next with the minimal use of pumps.

They stomp the grapes by foot to minimize the release of bitter tannins from the seeds.  

They use a Raytec Bluelight Machine which tests every single grape for deviation from perfection. This device costs in the six figures and it selects only the absolutely perfect fruit. 

All of this is working - the 2017 is the culmination of years of work and millions of dollars of work and research.

This is the future of winemaking.

2017 Podere Forte Petrucci "Melo" - $156.99 ($464.97 3-Pack)