Their Chianti and Ours

To the best of my recollection, my wine and food passion goes back to my youthful experiences in the North End of Boston. You may know it as the home of Old North Church, from which Paul Revere received his famous signal. I grew up knowing the North End as the home to many small family-run Italian restaurants, where one could find a good plate of pasta for a reasonable price.

As teenagers, a group of us used to go into the North End on Sunday nights after our afternoon youth group social hour for an inexpensive but, to us, always wonderful meal at Joe Tecce’s restaurant. If I remember correctly, spaghetti was $1.50 and manicotti and cannelloni were not much more.

Soon enough we reached college age and, worldly gents that we were, we began ordering Chianti in those pear-shaped, straw-covered bottles to go with our meals. It couldn’t have been very expensive. If anything, we had even less money in college than we’d had in high school.

Not long after that, I came west to San Francisco and discovered that North Beach was the local answer to Boston’s North End. The local restaurants there also proudly served the much-admired Chianti in its fiasco, as the straw-covered bottle is called.

Here in California, we also had very popular locally made wines called Chianti. Of course, those so-called Chiantis were not made from Sangiovese grapes predominant in the Chianti region, and tasted nothing like the real thing.

Real Sangiovese is a relative newcomer to California. It was not until the early ‘90s that the first varietally labeled Sangiovese wines even appeared here, and the acreage at the beginning of that decade was so small that it did not appear in the official planting reports of the times. Happily, we now have a growing number of California Sangioveses and an increasing stream of better quality Sangiovese/Chianti coming from Italy.

If you are unfamiliar with Chianti, it is predominantly made from Sangiovese but can also contain other grapes. It’s made in a 60-mile-wide area of Tuscany south of Florence. Chianti Classico, the Chianti we are most likely to see in this country, comes from a carefully and jealously limited bit of turf running due south from Florence toward Siena and east of that line by no more than 10 miles or so at its widest. Wines of the Classico region are identifiable by the black rooster (the Gallo Nero) marking on the neck label.

Some of the most expensive wines of the region may not be called Chianti at all because they contain a lower proportion of Sangiovese and more of nontraditional grapes such as Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. These so-called Super Tuscans are given proprietary names by their producers.

ITALY

* 1998 Fattori Felsina “Berardenga,” Chianti Classico, $20. Felsina is one of the top makers of Chianti, and it offers several levels of wine. This one comes from vineyards near the lovely village of Castelnuovo Berardenga, which lies in the most southeast corner of the Classico region and tends to produce somewhat riper, richer wines than its compatriots to the north. This wine is delightfully fruity with smells of cherries and hints of sandalwood, and its bright, slightly tart flavors are exactly what good Chianti is about.

$ * 1997 Badia a Coltibuono, Chianti Classico, $16. If you can describe Chianti as being in the hills of Tuscany, then Badia a Coltibuono is in the hills of the hills. This wine, coming from one of the better Chianti vintages of late, is a tasty, bright, lively and entirely dependable bottling that would be a perfect partner to herb-seasoned roast lamb or even chicken dishes.

* 1996 Castello D’Albola “Acciaolo,” $30. Castello D’Albola is an old property on a lovely south-facing hillside in the heart of the Chianti Classico region. Acciaolo is the winery’s proprietary blend of 60% Sangiovese and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon. It earned the highest award--three glasses--in Gambero Rosso, Italy’s leading wine guide, and it scores well with me. It needs a few years of age because the high percentage of Cabernet makes the wine a little gruff right now, in spite of its compact ripe cherry fruit and rich oak underpinnings. Bet on this one for the future.

* * 1996 Castello di Volpaia “Balifico,” $30. When we were visiting at Castello D’Albola, our host said, “Do you see the village on that hill over there? It is Volpaia, and its my favorite place in all of Chianti.” We added it to our itinerary and tasted our way through its wines, ultimately selecting this wonderfully fruity, supple blend of Sangiovese and Merlot as our favorite.

CALIFORNIA

$ * 1997 Chateau Julien, California, $16. Admittedly a little riper than most of what comes out of Chianti, this bright, juicy wine is reminiscent in flavor and direction of the best Chianti Classicos we tasted in Italy. Its cherry flavors and firm, yet never hard, texture make it one to remember.

$ * 1998 Flora Springs, Napa Valley, $15. Another wine more or less in the Chianti Classico mold. This one is a bit tougher in texture than most of its type, but it has plenty of the cherry and tart orange fruit so reminiscent of Chianti.

$ 1996 Forest Glen “Barrel Select,” California, $8. I grew up on cheap Chianti, and this one resembles nothing so much as those--small, piquant, dry and good with a bowl of spaghetti with meat sauce. At $8 it delivers plenty to enjoy.

* * * 1998 Gianni Paoletti “La Forza,” Napa Valley, $36. Paoletti, owner of the estimable Peppone Restaurant in Brentwood, is also now a winery owner, and his success rate is phenomenal. His latest offering is this rich, red Sangiovese-based wine absolutely reminiscent of the best Super Tuscans. The wine is ripe and deep with an expressive mix of boysenberry and cherry notes seasoned with caramelized vanilla tones and hints of sweet smoke. If you cannot find the wine at your local wine merchants, perhaps a dinner at Peppone will lead you in the right direction.

$ 1998 Michael Pozzan “Dante Special Select,” Sonoma, $8. An even better value than the Forest Glen, this surprisingly ripe and price worthy effort is a bit tough in the latter palate for its own good, but it has the stuffing and muscle of many wines twice its price.

Definition of Symbols

* * * A world-class wine, superb by any measure, the top 1% to 2% of all wines tasted.

* * An exceptional wine, well worth the effort to find, 10% to 12% of wines tasted.

* An admirable wine, tasty, focused, attractive, about 25% of wines tasted.

No Rating: The best are quite pleasant and can be good buys when moderately priced.

$ Good value for the money.

x Below average quality, to be avoided.