Friday, November 30, 2012

Liveblog! - Bertani Villa Novare Ripasso & Boots


It's been literally yonks since I live-blogged a wine and Herself is out with her girly chums so I'm all set do some blogging and babysitting. The wine in question is from O'Briens, and it's a Bertani Villa Novare Ripasso 2009 - €12-99 reduced from €17-99.

19:00 - The wine has been open and in a decanter for about 30 mins as I take my first sip. Lots of structure, some bitter cherries and a decent slug of acidity. Overall its OK so far. I am hoping some fruit develops over the next couple of hours.

So having finished my "interval" drink - a bottle of Young's Special London Ale, a bottle conditioned treat weighing in at a not inconsiderable 6.4% abv. I'm also half way through the blu-ray of Chronicle, and its pretty frickin' good so far.

So it's 21:00, and we get back to the vino. It has definitely evolved; it's a bit more harmonious. There's now a little bit of fruit peeping out from under the edge of the duvet, and the wine is working together nicely as a whole

So its coming up on 23:00, time for a last (official) taste, I'm going to save some for Herself for when she gets home. And what do we find...Well, it seems we have hit the apotheosis of this particular expression. We now have some nice tannins, a little bitter cherry, some other brighter fruit and a long finish. I'm not sure I'd pay 18 notes for it but as priced its very tasty, provided you have the time to wait for it to evolve or you could hyperdecant it, I suppose.

4 comments:

  1. I bought 6 bottles of this recently from O'Briens. Very disappointed. Found it very raw. I'm almost sure I had some a few years ago and it was much nicer. Maybe 2009 was a crap year.

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  2. It did take a long time in the decanter for the flavours harmonise, IMHO, It didn't taste fabulous when opened. Did you give it some time?

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  3. I didn't decant it. Opened bottle and left for a few hours before drinking.
    Still tasted awful. I wonder did I get a bad case.

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  4. If you haven't returned it yet try a proper decant for a couple of hours). I use Ikea vases/jugs at a fiver a pop but any wide bottomed vessel should suffice...

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