by Patrick Ogle

Someone recommended that I decant the San Salvatore Pian di Stio Fiano (2013) for a long time before drinking--something I
rarely do (nothing against it but I like to taste a wine as it changes) I had a sip right out of the bottle and it isn't something you will recoil from--but it is sharp and not terribly palatable. Follow the "decant" advice and let it sit for at least an hour and a half.

A better idea with this might be to NOT drink it for a little while; give it some time before opening the bottle at all.

After a few hours of air that sharp bite is gone from this fiano and you are left with a smoother wine with a sleek minerality and almost saline characteristic. There is a lemony flavor here mixed with some other light citrus tastes. But there is more than citrus here. I honestly have a hard time pinning it down; one minute I think pear or some sort of Gala type apple but there is something not quite right about that. It is as fun a wine to analyze as it is to drink, even if you don't come to all the firm conclusions you might like. There is certainly a tannic feel here but, of course, white wine tannins are much less apparent than in a red wine. There is also a hint of something like woodiness here--even though this wine is aged in stainless steel.

Earlier we wrote about the Jurancon wine, Cuvee Marie, and how it changed substantially after opening. This wine might change even more drastically. It moves from something you might not want to drink to something delicious in a couple of hours. This shares that characteristic.

The fiano grape is considered one of the most "noble" of the white Italian varietals. Its history possibly goes back to Roman times. One reason this grape is less grown than others is that it produces small grapes and therefore less juice.
Thank goodness there was a rennaissance for fiano. This bottle is 500 ml and it goes for over $20 so expect to pay for this wine! This particular bottle isn't even among  the more highly thought of versions of fiano.

by Patrick Ogle

Louis-Antoine Luyt makes unusual wines--this is another, a muscat from Chile reminisent of "orange wines." I bought this  wine in a mood for something simple, normal and that I didn't have to think about; It wasn't theright choice. This is a weird wine, even weirder than the pais grape I tried by Luyt earlier.

First of all, just out of the bottle this wine has a sharp grapefruit smell and the taste is also like a smack in the face--tart and with pronounced phenolics. It seems almost like a mead or even a cider. It is rough and weird and, at the same time, sort of charming. The wine mellows with air and should probably be decanted for an hour or more (if only to let the gunk settle).

The grape here is muscat and the style is of the "orange" wines you find in the Balkans (and even Italy). Those wines use different grapes but the common denominator is that these wines are given prolonged exposure to grape skin. This is common when making red wines; it is less common with white.

This wine is quite "farmhouse". It is pure, unfiltered. I was joking that each bottle came with one of Louis-Antoine Luyt's toenails--it sort of looks as if it has tonails floating in it. There is all sorts of gunk in the bottle.

Orange wines are usually expensive and hard to find. The cloudy nature of the wines give them a sort of orange hue. The other versions of these that I've had priced-in at over $70 a bottle. This Luyt version comes in at a hair above $20 a
bottle. It might be a little hard to find but it is worth searching for; keep in mind this is a truly odd wine. It might be one of the strangest I've tasted. What wine production NEEDS these days is more people willing to push the envelope;
discarding tradition OR looking back to old traditions. Always take a swing at wines from Luyt.

by Patrick Ogle

Kepos de Ampeleia 2011 is an interesting wine made by Ampeleia. It comes from Tuscany but isn't anything like what you generally expect from the region.  When I first sniffed this wine, before tasting it, the smell made me think "French" (and I would have thought that even if I hadn't known in advance about the varietals). 

It is relatively light in color. The grapes here are often associated with the Rhone Valley. The wine is 40% grenache, 40% mourvedre,10% carignan, 5% alicante bouschet and 5% marsellan. These last two grapes are odd-balls. Alicante bouschet is a cross between petit bouschet and grenache. Marsellan is a cross between cabernet sauvignon and grenache. Neither are grapes most folks know (I didn't).

At first taste this wine makes you think; "how unusual." It doesn't have big, in your face tannins. Tannins are the compounds that give you the "drying" sensation in your mouth. There are tannins here, however, but they are sneaky and soft. The wine has a soft feel to go with these tannins. My first fruit thought here was cherry but that is just a first taste. I try to avoid talking about more exotic fruits like pomegranate but that is part of this wine. It is also a bit spicy but don't think peppery but rather baking spices like nutmeg or cinnamon. It isn't a Rhone wine knock-off but something that is entirely its "own thing." Italian winemakers seem to do this with frequency.

Kepos de Ampeleia is a medium-light to medium wine that will please people who usually like bigger wines. It has a great deal going on but mostly it is just enjoyable to drink. You don't need food (although you could pair this with a wide variety of cuisine) and you do not need to think about it too much; you never really need to do that but if you like to think about wine there is plenty to examine. Think on what fruits you sense here.

If you can find a bottle buy it because it it isn't something you see all that often! The next two years of this wine, 2012 and 2013, may be available here and there. Keep an eye open.