Crisp! Fresco! Fabrizio Dionisio Rosa del Castagno Syrah Rose

This past month I started featuring Italian wine words for those of you to start learning some of the Italian language in the wine industry. I started doing Italian Wine Word Wednesday that I'll feature on my social media and occasionally a blog post if it falls on a Wednesday. Since it's summer time and it's the perfect time of year to drink rose' (but not the only time of year don't forget) I figured this week we'll feature the word crisp as you'll find rose' to be potentially be crisp, clean and refreshing. It's perfect as well for all your Italian white grapes and wines too!

Crisp = fresco

View from Cortona, Tuscany ~ By MojoBaron

This week I attended a wine tasting and rose' seemed to be the hit of the night for all the vendors. The rose' I'm sharing I thought was unique in the fact that you don't often see syrah from Italy nevermind a syrah rose'. I've featured this producer before, Fabrizio Dionisio, but I sampled the 2013 Fabrizio Dionisio Rosa del Castago syrah I.G.T. from Cortona, Tuscany. This wine is 100% syrah that is gently crushed and the free run juice ferments in stainless steel for about 15 days at low temps. Light salmon in color and dry, it has a good medium body with notes of strawberry and citrus that has a refreshing mouthwatering acidity that finished clean and fresco!

I find rose to be such a versatile wine and can pair especially with many of your summer dishes, but maybe not as much your hearty winter fare. It still holds a place on the table year round to serve as an accompaniment to many appetizers as well as dishes to include pasta, pizza, chicken and pork dishes.

I'll end in a perfect quote from Fabrizio Dionisio's site quoted by Fabrizio Dionisio himself:

“I like to create, every year, real bottles of terroir which can accurately and sincerely express that particular vintage. I like to create a wine that can tell the autumn rain, the winter frost, the summer hot days and cool nights, the colours, the sounds and the smells of that very vintage with its unique and unrepeatable characteristics. That’s the way in which our Syrah of Cortona is created in our vineyards, following the rhythms of nature.”

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Producers in Italy using cement in winemaking

I wanted to include some examples of wineries in my post last week on the use of cement in winemaking in Italy, but Italians are very hard at work harvesting this time of year or getting ready for the harvest and were delaying in providing some information.  Today, I have two examples of producers that are using cement in their winemaking, Poliziano and Fabrizio Dionisio.

Poliziano

Earlier this summer I wrote my top 5 winery recommendations in Tuscany for Robert Dwyer of the Wellesley Wine Press with Poliziano being one of the features of the article.  David, the export manager of Poliziano, provided me with information as to why there is the use of cement at Poliziano.  Cement is an Italian technique used in different years.  The best quality and fundamentals of this technique include:

• constant temperature control
• good percentage of gas exchange
• permeability
• neutral organoleptics

Cement tanks of Poliziano

Thermal inertia or constant thermal control facilitate the post-processing of alcoholic fermentation.  The must isn't subject to thermal stress in cement, therefore, it can mature and deposit in natural ways the dregs. 

In regards to the gas exchange and permeability, with the cement being porous it permeates a majority exchange of oxygen in respect to stainless steel, which is useful for the life of the yeast.

The neutral organoleptics is given to the fact that the cement is a lot more easier to clean in comparison to antique barrels.  This reduces a lot of the risk of unwelcome bacteria during fermentation. 

Fabrizio Dionisio

In a previous blog on the wines from Fabrizio Dionisio in Cortona, Tuscany I discussed that they use cement vats in producing their Syrah named “Il Castagnino”.  Their cement vats are glass lined.  Il Castagnino was produced to experiment with the Syrah grape and showcase Syrah in different styles in comparison to their flagship wine, Il Castagno, that has won a number of awards.  The Castagnino itself has also won awards receiving a 91/100 from James Suckling and 87/100 from Wine Enthusiast.  

Fabrizio Dionisio uses cement to produce a wine that is young and that exalts freshness and acidity where the smells and tastes aren’t masked by the aging in wood.  The Il Castagnino is always released the year following the vintage.  For example, the 2014 that they are harvesting now will be released in April 2015.  After the vinification in stainless steel, they leave it in cement for some months for the final assembly of the wine and to give it stability.  On a recent visit the partners of my company visited Fabrizio Dionisio and provided some great pictures of the cement vats to demonstrate what the wines are aged in. 

Cement vat at Fabrizio Dionisio

What wineries have you been to or tasted at that used cement?

Visit wineries throughout Italy with this detailed map.
 

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Award winning wines of Fabrizio Dionisio in Cortona

Cortona is located in the southeastern part of Tuscany. I was excited to taste the wines of Fabrizio Dionisio because Cortona is one of my top favorite towns in Tuscany. I also loved that he features wines made from Syrah since I wasn't aware of this grape being grown here, but after tasting these wines and learning about the success of this grape in this terroir I was very pleased!

Santa Maria del Calcinaio of  Cortona Tuscany

The two vineyard sites they own are Il Castagno and Poggio del Sole. The winery is now run by Fabrizio Dionisio, but his father Sergio Dionisio founded the estate in the early 1970's with originally about 17 acres (7 hectacres). Years later in 1992 he purchased another estate that now brings their total acreage to about 37 acres (15 hectacres) with about a 30,000 bottle production. The estate and vineyards are set in the hills of Cortona surrounded by the splendid sunflower fields and olive groves and perched up on the hill is the fabulous town of Cortona. The vineyards were completely replanted in the early 2000's with the syrah grape and small amounts of merlot and cabernet sauvignon after the trebbiano and sangiovese grapes that had been growing there were overgrown.

Barrels of Fabrizio Dionisio

The labels of the estate are fun as the daughter of Fabrizio drew them. I tasted the 2011 Castagnino and Il Castagno. The Castagnino is the little brother to their signature wine, Il Castagno. The difference between this wine and that one is that the Castagnino is not aged in oak and is instead aged in stainless steel and cement vats. The nose is very appealing on this wine because the aromas of the fruit are very rich. It's a very fruit driven wine dominated by plums and blackberries. It is full bodied with nice concentration and soft tannins. Probably a great match with a steak in a red wine glaze.

The signature wine, Il Castagno D.O.C., was first produced in 2003 and is made of 100% syrah. It is produced in low yields as the Castagnino also is. Fermentation and maceration both take place for 3 weeks a piece and the malolactic fermentation is off of the free-run juice as the winery never presses their grapes. Its on the lees for about 15 months and aged in french oak barrels. On the nose is enjoyable vanilla from the oak. This wine is very structured and well balanced with rich black berries aromas and spice, but also has a velvety and silkiness throughout.

Both of these wines have received multiple awards from Antonio Galloni, Wine Spectator, James Suckling and the Wine Enthusiast.

The goal of Fabrizio and his team is to create wine “with soul” using current technologies and practices, but manually taking part in every step of the process. I wanted to share a great quote that Fabrizio expresses to exemplify the purpose of the estate and their quality of production:

“It is our conviction that such a method of operation is the best way to respect, and to please, not only nature and its fruits, but those as well who will be enjoying our wines.
We believe that restricting ourselves to very small quantities and exercising painstaking care both in the vineyard and in the winemaking, and of course, using only our own estate grapes, constitute the only path to absolute quality. Our winery, then, is wholly artisanal, a kind of workshop, or even workbench, a boutique. Where we work in a simple, ethical way. And we firmly intend to remain just this way forever, since we do not live, nor would we ever want to live, for high numbers and quantity, but only for quality.” - Fabrizio Dionisio

Picking up my wedding sunflower bouquet from Cortona

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