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Sangiovese 1997 vs 1999

Much has been written about the 1997 vintage in Tuscany, and it was hailed by many as the second coming of Tuscan wines. The hyperbole flew fast and furious, as it had last done in 1985, arguably a far better vintage.


1997 was great because of the incredible fruit that so many of the wines possessed, the pundits told us. Yes, the warmth and drought of the vintage helped winemakers craft these opulent wines, but could the opulence really be all there is to a wine being great? Could a wine need something else to be “the best”?


If you ask me, and happen to catch me in a one of my usual moods, I’d be tempted to tell you quite the opposite. Vintages like 1997 in Tuscany are best at the bottom of the price scale. People are easily fooled by the charms of voluptuousness, but what happens when time takes its toll on these wines?


Among the traits I appreciate most in wine, those characteristics that really separate the best from the rest, are complexity and balance. 1997 had tons of fruit without a doubt, but there was little in the way of complexity in many of the wines. All the nuance and detail was essentially cooked out of the fruit, and thus out of the wine.


By that same token, the balance of many of these wines is fundamentally off. The acidity in the fruit is low and soft, resulting in wines that initially impressed with their volume and sweetness, but now that those fruits have faded, these offer just a meager frame from which to drape the dust folds of the fruit that does remain.


That was a bit florid, but you get the picture. The wines are soft. They may have been delicious once, but are a far cry from the best the region is capable of.


Just to show you how daft the world is, 1999 is another story entirely. It’s a vintage of precision, depth, balance, longevity and fruit. That is what the wines in the bottle always told me at least. But I missed something, I missed the weather reports. You see, 1997 was a glorious year with perfect fruit at harvest. 1999 on the other hand was problematic, rains at harvest caused concern, so the wines must have been dilute, solid but uninspiring. That is how early reports made the vintage sound, and to this day some writers have stuck to that story.


It’s time to come unglued from that story. 1999 is a fabulous vintage. It is ripe yet elegant, rich yet not overly weighty, and the wines will provide all the evidence we need. Recently, I compared four wines from these two vintages. While some of the results were surprising, yes - even I was surprised, the general conclusions just restated the obvious. 1999 is a great vintage.


Slideshow


It was a showdown, 1997 versus 1999. We tasted four producers all from my cellar to test the vintages, see if each deserved its reputation, and if one or both vintages have been misrepresented.


These are a small sampling of Super Tuscan wines, though today these could all be bottled as Chianti. The reason for the development of these so-called “Super Tuscan” wines was that quality-conscious producers in the 1960s and on felt constrained by laws that dictated what grapes could be used for the production of Chianti. In particular, the rules that required the inclusion of the white Trebbiano grape, as well as other sometimes marginal blending grapes, gave a small group of brave producers all the motivation they needed to create a new category of wine, outside the laws. These are those wines.


Slide 1


Viticcio Prunaio


Our first wine up was Viticcio’s 100% Sangiovese Grosso Prunaio. Of all the wines tasted today, this is the most obvious and perhaps closest to a typical modern Tuscan Sangiovese flavor profile. This wine sees its fair share of time in new barriques, and the flavors show that with their spice and vanilla accents. While the 1997 was a little corked, you could tell that it was round,  soft and showing the austere tannins that fruit once hid.


The 1999 was a different beast entirely. It was a more modern wine than the 1997 had been, with blackberry fruit, a sleek mouth feel, and rather low acid for the vintage. It’s still a nice wine but seems to have sacrificed some typicity for volume. Nonetheless, the 1999 was the better wine here.


Link to the reviews


1997 Prunaio 13%


A touch musty,  seared iron, dried berry fruit. Sweet fruit, round, friendly entry then bitter, drying tannins on the finish. Austere tannins, nice mouth grab, a bit of cola, and muscular. Still has some fruit but not much. Nice structure, little bit of heat, little corked, flavors still very evolved. 87


1999 Prunaio 13.5%


Medicinal and still showing some oak. Dark, black currant fruit, a bit of vanilla and oak sweetness. Sweet on entry, round, ripe fruit is layered, firm and blocky. Nice weight on the back end, firm compressed fruit on the finish, really nice cut and freshness to the fruit. Nice, lightly haunting fruit finish, apparently lower acid feeling, intense palate-staining blackberry fruit.  89


Slide 2


Fontalloro, another 100% Sangiovese Super Tuscan, is one of the best known from this style of wines. The Felsina cellars produce great wines, from simple Chianti to Fontalloro, and they all share a profile. These tend to be dark, earthy wines that are very true to the soil.


The 1997 was in fact quite soil-driven and retained nice fruit, though around the edges there was a bit of pruney over-ripeness and at its core a touch of greenness to the tannins that detracted from the overall enjoyment of the wine. The 1999 was seemingly far younger than the ‘97 due to the fine acid spine here. Still youthful and bit wrapped up by oak still, this was a wine of balance and precision destined to become a classic.


2-0 1999


1997 Fontalloro 13.5%


Smoky, loamy, spice and leather. Open and broad, liquory/medicinal black cherry fruit. A bit raw, unripe tannins, good acid. Fine balance if a bit heavy on the edges, though clear with strawberry and a touch of prune. Nice snappy finish, candied dry fruit and mint on the finale. Clear.  89


1999 Fontalloro 13.5%


Tight, leather, earth, mint, a bit of smoky oak. Super focused with finesse. Elegant. Lovely savory edges. Licorice, huge finessed finish. This is very good. Layers of precise fruit, palate-staining flavor of black berry. Closes down on the finish, this needs some time to soften and open.  92


Slide 3


Gagliole has been a long time favorite of mine for more than simply its taste. I love to pull this wine out when the talk goes to blending Cabernet with Sangiovese. Now admittedly I think it’s a terrible pairing, with the Cabernet usually dominating the wine like Paula Deen at a fried butter stand, but there are of course exceptions to every generalization and Gagliole is that.


To be precise, we did not have the same wine in both vintages. In 1997 we enjoyed the classic Gagliole with its 15% Cabernet. It’s a real winner of a 1997: complex, delicate, fresh and sapid. The 1999 was Gagliole’s new at the time 100% Sangiovese bottling: Pecchia. This was nothing like the Gagliole of yore. It was overdone by 10, extracted and slathered in charred oak. Yes, it is massive and powerful, but it delivered no joy this night. Chalk a wine up for 1997.


1997 Gagliole 13%


Oak, tea leaf, kale, smoky, earthy, scotched earth. Little sweetness, little leather, little brett, very fine texture, bright and clear. Lovely cranberry-edged, red apple acids, raspberry, iron, spice, faint sage. A certain delicacy here, fairly tannic on the finish.  Raspberry, earthy, mineral-tinged finale. This has a nice roundness, a sweetness on the palate, lovely ripeness, balance and finesse. 91


1999 Gagliole Pecchia 14.5%


Tight, oaken water, some vanilla, leather. Very clay-rich nose. Metallic red clay,  powerful in the mouth, tight, charry wood in solution. Opaque, intense, tight acid. Extracted, dark and clumsy.  80


Slide 4


We wrapped up our all too brief look at these two Tuscan vintages with one of my favorite Super Tuscans, Castellare’s I Sodi di San Niccolo. This is Tuscan to the bone. An austere wine, difficult in its youth, produced with an unusual blend of 58% or so Sangiovese and 15% Malvasia Nera. The resulting wine tends to be very Sangiovese on the palate, lean, crisp and full of limestone and cherry, yet quite floral on the nose. This certainly held true with this paring.


Both of these wines were truly wonderful, with the 1997 being in a better place today, but the 1999 having the potential to equal it in due time, though it might never get there. As usual, I Sodi delivered tension and freshness, fine intensity of fruit without excessive weight, and a gorgeous array of aromatics and flavors. While the pairing was close, once again 1997 gets the nod.


1997 I Sodi di San Niccolo 13.5%


Iron, limestone, flower petals, spice. This is very fine, very perfumed, blood-penetrating nose. Fresh and rich, powerful wine. This has real energy in the mouth, lovely citrus and rosehip notes, red cherry fruit, strawberry. Lovely, still youthful. A bit liquory, nice spice. Mineral follow-through, sapid, almost salty, tense and vibrant, long fruit. Almost chewy yet rather refined. 93


1999 I Sodi di San Niccolo 13.5%


Cut red plums, smoke, hickory from the oak, a little flint, steel, apple core, lovely sweet violet note. Bright, fairly tense. I prefer the ‘97 to this. Tight and a bit oaky today. A bit chewy, lightly, full of bitter cherry fruit, classic austere, aggressive stuff. This is charged with fruit. Ready to beat your mouth into submission, but has fine fresh, ripe fruit. There is a lingering black cherry pit note on the finale. 91pts


Slide 5


Conclusions


It was a draw, sort of. The Gagliole flight was an unfair match. The 1997 brought a wiffle ball bat to a gun show and got blasted out of the water by that 1999. Which is of course to say the ‘99 was no fun and should have just stayed at home.


In general, the 1997 wines showed better than I had expected, the Prunaio and Fontalloro both showing a bit of heat stress character to them. The Gagliole 1999 was just excessive in every way. I’m sure it’s a very pointy wine, no doubt, just not particularly drinkable. The 1999 Gagliole showed a hint of that stylistic change as well and one has to wonder how much better both of those wines might have been with a lighter wine making touch.


The real gauge here, at least for my palate, were the I Sodis, a wine made from an admittedly difficult site which might be best set to benefit from a “perfect” growing season. True to form, that was my wine of the tasting. In context I think it showed me that while 1997 might be capable of higher highs than 1999, the consistency of the 1999  vintage makes it a better bet for current consumptions and cellaring into the future. I’ll bet my bottles on it!


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