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Contrada

Italian for single vineyard. Each Contrada will have its own name.

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Italian for single vineyard. Each Contrada will have its own name. Plural = Contrade. Etna’s Contrade have certainly raised knowledge of the term. Each year a tasting, the Contrade dell’Etna, is held to taste the current releases from Etna. The term is used throughout Italy.

Contrade names you might have heard of from Etna: Rampante, Guardiola, Feudo di Mezzo, Acuria, Sciaronuova, Calderara, and Rivaggi. Moving north to Veneto, Gini’s top Soave is from the Contrada “Salverenza”.

 

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There's a lot to enjoy now and it'll be hard to keep your hands off it! Excellent, tension, playful, with personality. Plenty going on layered very complex. The quality of fruit is clear, wonderful depth and length.  A little edge of honey development. Baking spice crème pâtissière layer in. The balance of the 3 varieties makes for a very complete wine. All showing their form and making for a wine greater than the sum of its parts. My preference for fizz with a little development will be ric
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For all the many great things that can be told about Giacosa’s red wines, it is the Arneis that maybe typifies the great qualities of Bruno Giacosa the man. In the early 1970’s, this was an indigenous variety almost entirely lost to the region’s obsession with red wines (at the time mainly Dolcetto) that was ‘rediscovered’ by Alfredo Currado of Vietti and Giacosa very shortly after. The two are almost solely responsible for Arneis’ current importance in the region, especially in Roer
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Moderately generous wood frames the intensely floral and fresh aromas of dark berries, violet, plum and earth. The rich and strikingly vibrant middle weight flavors exhibit evident muscle and minerality along with very good power on the lingering and very firm finish that is shaped by grippy and somewhat coarse tannins. My sense is that this may become less overtly rustic as the tannins resolve though with that said this is unlikely to ever be particularly refined. Burghound
$414
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Viognier is such a unique variety! The perfume intoxicating, the texture caressing! 'Diaphanous yellow. Intense, mineral-accented scents of fresh pear, white peach and violet take on a citrus pith nuance with air. Silky and tightly focused on entry, then deeper on the mid-palate, offering sappy, mineral-driven orchard, pit fruit and Meyer lemon flavors that show noteworthy tension and floral lift. Closes with impressive, spicy persistence, repeating florality and vibrant mineral cut.' Josh Ra
$179
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