Gary Vaynerchuk : Hello everybody welcome to Wine Library TV. I'm your host Gary Vaynerchuk and today, we’re going to expand your palate. Did you see what I did there Mott? I'm really into the expand your palate thing. I know it just freak you out because I changed the way I intro the show, but I want people to understand that when they come into the Thunderdome that we’re looking to create a situation where two things happen and that’s really all I give a crap about. Two things, one you trust your own palate. You don’t apologize for liking chicken or Oreos or Dr. Pepper, so you should definitely not apologize if you like White Zinfandel Riesling or Pinot Meunier. And two, you try different things because just as you found something you like whether it’s the first time you ever had it like Grenache or de Bordeaux or Brunello like we’re going to do today, it doesn’t mean that you should be drinking that style all the time and wait to many people do that.
On the flip side, if you’ve had your first Dolcetto ever and you didn’t like it, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try it again, but trying new things and trusting yourself is the cornerstone of Wine Library TV. And today we have a very exciting show. We’ve got two wines from the 2004 Vintage Brunello di Montalcino and 2004 Brunellos are ripping hot. Wine spectator rated the Brunello Vintage as a whole not the individual wines 92 to 97 points. Wine advocate Robert Parker, Antonio Galloni who does the Italian wines has rated Toscani now, so it’s a little bit more broad. They don’t do Brunello as a whole 96 points. Galloni didn’t go to the wine advocate’s forum and say, “Hold your pennies.” Because a lot of people are offering presales on the ’04 Brunellos and a lot of buyers are snapping them up because they got pretty good scores and there’s lot of hype.
But we, here on Wine Library, the other part of what I do, the retail side, we did not do that because we don’t think the price is going to go up, no reason to offer a presale when that’s not the case. And number two, there’s not the overwhelming unbelievable efforts that so many people think or at least that’s what we think. So it’s going to be very interesting and try these two for the first time, ’04 very hot vintage for a wine region Brunello that is extremely hot. If you’re not familiar with a Brunello, it’s widely considered one of the best areas for Italian wine in the world, Sangiovese Grape, Sangiovese Grosso, which is the grape that they kind of call it in the Brunello.
It’s about 70 miles Southwest of Florence to give you a little reference point. The word Brunello translates to nice dark one. Pretty cool, right? So I think that’s kind of funny, nice dark one, so you’ve got a nice dark ones like poop or something. It’s a nice dark one, and it received that DOCG status in 1980, Reagan came in, Brunello came in. And has really become over the last 15 years really one of the signature places for serious Italian red wine drinking and we’ll get into those in a little bit.
The first comments, we last left off on Wednesday, two-day lapse. I mean Mott, third time in history, I mean, for three years, it’s pretty amazing, couple circumstances. Let’s get right into it. Mr. Cook says, “Gary V. has said in the past that the opening rounds of the NCW tourney are the only days he takes off for personal use. I suspect that is why we had no new shows since Wednesday.” Mr. Cook that is correct, but normally I’ll come in the morning to tape them out, Panthers just fell. I'm tipsy. Tape them and then go back and watch the games, but what happen was I had South by Southwest then Thursday, I was in Cincinnati and Chicago on business. I was planning to not having a show that Thursday and I was supposed to be back on Friday to bang another show for you guys. But unfortunately, I’ve got pretty sick. I didn’t sleep much for about a week and I’ve got fairly sick and so that’s why I wasn’t here in Friday that obviously led to two-day lapse.
Daisy Rob said, “Good show, but what gives with the 18th was like Wednesday.” Another person angry about the fact that we’ve missed two shows. I guess I appreciated that. I'm glad we have passion for what I do. The two days with a bothersome and I appreciate it, thank you Daisy Rob and Mr. Cook.
Dawn says, “Fantastic episode. Good combo with Kevin on there. Seems like a cool guy he is.” Question of the day, like most people, I love coffee, but one or more interesting note, I’ve been drinking caffer quite a bit recently. The flavored kinds are really good, peach, strawberry, blueberry, pomegranate.” Dawn, my dad used to always bring me caffer in the 80s. That was a real special treat so I have a soft spot for that stuff, good call.
Dave A. says, “I like tech geeks and wine geeks, mix them more often, more wines not available locally.” Wow, Dave referencing to Kevin being a tech geek, maybe a wine geek. I don’t know about that that Dave. A lot of old school Vayniacs don’t like the Web 2.0 guests.
And Kitty Safe said, “Did he say Prager opened a $2000.00 bottle of Openswan 1994? I wonder how it was.” Kitty Safe—wasn’t $2000.00 because there is no $2000.00 Openswan ’94. Even a six neither I think to push at that—I’ll just close and I'm sure it was probably okay. One of the better Openswans, ’91, ’94 if you’re and Openswan fan. All right, let’s get into it.
I’m very excited about Brunello 2004. Argiano, one of the real famous producers of Brunello. This wine rolls in $43.00 US, 94 points, wine spectator Mott. This wine just go extremely well with classic Parmigiano cheese. These are very sought after wines right now in the market. A lot of collectors jumping on board, you probably wonder why I did that, just to set the tone. I got to set the tone baby.
Let’s give it a sniffy sniff because that’s what we do on The Thunder Show. Very pretty nose right off the bat. Really, it sets the tone again. I set the tone for show. Argiano set the tone for me and my palate saying, “You know what buster,” that’s what Argiano calls me, “buster,” because looking up because from—, “buster, we’re bringing heat tonight.” And this wine is loaded with strawberry jam flavors on the nose and a little bit of a lilacy kind of play. Big ups to flowers! I’ve been sniffing quite a bit of them last two weeks, going to a couple of flower shops keeping my nose on point. If you want to learn about wine, flowers need to be a rotation, smell them as often as you can. Really pretty strawberry on the nose. I most like to get little bit of like a chalky dust component and a shredded dark chocolate, but almost mocha like more so than the dark chocolate with the high cacao count.
Let’s give it a whirl. Good firm tannins on the backend. This wine is very young. My cheeks look like Yoda right now. Really scrunching up, you know wrinkling, very dry wine at the backend. I'm picking up some of the heat on the backend, which is okay, not too bad, 14%, great rustic almost like sun-dried tomato kind of flavor on the backend, very classic tannins, good richness, a little more body than I would have expected. And really kind of exciting me to the possibilities of this vintage given that this is juicier, yet not over the top fake. I like that. I like that a lot actually and give it one more shot.
This wine is legit. Really flavorful packs of big punch, but extremely smooth considering the backend tannins. They’re bitter but on the second glass, after a shock value of the tannin structure, this wine comes across even smooth like. I will probably say this wine needs to last for about 12 to 15 years, and right now, if you want to eat this, you want to have it with a big dish. Big meat dish, meatballs. I can see like real series meatballs. We started the other day, I'm getting into meatballs Mott, if I only had them, you know just like a dish, three meatballs like who knows.
I think this would go extremely well with a lot meat type dishes. It might be a little too big for pastas or fish classic style. I like this wine, the strawberry is undeniable. I get a little to buckle on the backend. It seems like a cigar almost like the Conan episode. I like this wine. I'm not sure if I’ll give it 94 points because that gets really boozy up in here, but I'm telling right now, this Argiano brings some serious heat. I'm not talking a backend alcohol. I'm going to go 92 plus on this wine. It’s a very good effort and I've not tasted a lot for Brunellos yet and this is a very good start for me. I like this wine. I’ll give it a thumbs up, not bad Mott. Not bad at all.
Camigliano 2004 Brunello, 92 points wine spectator $40.00 US. Let’s see what’s going on here, a little rinse. Taste a lot of wines over the weekend, try a grape petite Syrah for Peach Canyon ’05, you definitely want to seek that out if you can. It’s like $16.00 to $20.00 out there. It was really taking it back. Really get into Petite Syrah, just a little fun fact. If you are like—a little bit more about my wine world outside the show Mott, you know always try to push the boundaries of The Thunder Show. What do you think about that, a little small talking between wines or was that getting off topic too much in your opinion? You know what, semi-question of the day, you want a little small talk about wines all over the place or do you want to keep me on the topic? You want to keep it firm or be a little flabby but fun?
Let’s give it a sniffy sniff. Little darker. Let’s make that point right off the busy, busy meaning right off the bat. Let’s give it a sniffy sniff. Here, I get much more of a plum play, almost like plums, cut of plums in heavy cream because I'm getting a little bit of that oak. So you get a part of heavy cream, cut up some plums that thrown in there. That’s what the smell is like. It’s a little too much oak on the nose for me, but the plums are coming across very nicely.
Let’s give it a whirl. Do I get double spit Mott? A little more rustic on this one, almost get—like a rusty car play. If you ever have like a matchbox car back in the day when they made it on other real components like metal, and it could get a little rusty, you might have leaked it a little bit. No, and so, this gets a little bit kind of like rusty metallic play going on which I kind of like. Sometimes referred to us a penny, but it’s not copper like, it’s more rust like. I definitely get really interesting cassis flavors here. This is loaded with true essence of cassis and was able to bacon play in here. Bacon is just down right delicious.
I'm going to do an episode this week I’ve been trying to pull it off of bacon wine pairings, that’s what I'm going to do. As a matter of fact, I'm going to do it tomorrow.
Give me one more shot, tomorrow when I do like Sauvignon Blanc from Pinot New Zealand—Noir. This almost has like an escargot meets like raspberry cassis sauce. It’s almost like either something snaily fungusy about this. Almost like snails and mushrooms with like jam going on here, which is kind of neat. I kind of like that about this wine. I feel like it’s a little flabby on the mid-palate. It losses me for a second. It’s kind of like a great movie that’s like 15 minutes of boredom in it, have you ever seen one of those? As I’m like, “Can anybody give me a good example of that, so I can start using on the show.” Is there a movie you’ve seen that is legit awesome, but there was like 15 minutes of boredom like you almost seem to fell asleep but then you’re like, “Oh my God, I love that movie.” Like remember when I fell asleep, that kind of movie.
Please leave down the comments as well, I’ll do a lot of work in the comments today Mott reading them. They expected one of a little high on this as well, but I think this is a very good wine as well. That little flabbiness for a second could come back later as it ages to see young wine, so wanted to feel more like a five, seven-year window. This feels more like one hour decanting play whereas the Argiano probably more of a two, three. This probably does play a little bit better with pork, game, hen, pigeon, like chicken type dishes where this needs to be a little bit bigger, but it’s still a nice wine. I'm giving 90 points on this wine.
And to set the tone, and we’re going to revisit ’04 Brunellos. We start getting them in because it’s a category a lot of people have questions about because a lot of collectors are getting into them. This is a very good start, two wines, both over 90, you know how tough I try to be on The Thunder Show, but I like these wines. I'm a traditional Brunello liker, I wouldn’t say I'm a lover, a little bit more of a liker. But these are solid wines and if you want a little bit more history about the aging, we’ll have you Brunello. We’ve covered that on past episodes, so Mott, it’s a little Brunello search and link a Brunello episodes for people to have a reference. That’s it. Feel cozy, felt like that was a tight show Mott. I feel good about that. Let’s be honest, that was a good show.
Question of the day, I’ve already given you two, so please leave that. Question of the day, what do you think of when you hear the word I'm in love with right now, legit. You, with a little bit of me, we are changing the wine world, and please leave a comment. I'm really enjoying this influx reading the comments on the show, love, love the interaction. Please get a part of our Facebook fan page. Let’s talk left—you want me to link it up?
Chris Mott: I’ll link it up for you.
Gary Vaynerchuk: Mott you are the best. You missed me. That’s the first time Mott actively—this is what he did, he ask for link it up. Link that up. You, with a little bit of me, we are changing the wine world.
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