Variety: 100% Montepulciano
Region:Â Monte Conero, Italy
Cost: $17 (SRP)
Winemaker’s Notes: A red with full body and structure produced solely from Montepulciano grapes. It is matured in traditional oak casks for at least one year before it is sent to the market. It combines the typical aromas of cherries of Rosso Conero with an imposing but pleasantly mellow structure. If properly preserved, the wine can be aged at length.
My Review: Ok, can we first talk about how much I laugh every time I get wine and it talks about how it can be “aged at length”? I’m not questioning the truthfulness, but I always think it’s cute that anybody thinks I have the proper space (or space in general) or patience to age a bottle of wine.
Alright, enough about how I just dive right into a bottle of wine – let’s talk about the 2016 Garofoli “Piancarda” Rosso Conero DOC.
In the glass, the wine was a nice ruby red colour, while on the nose I picked up aromas of ripe fruit, mostly cherries with a slight jammy quality. In the mouth the 2016 Piancarda was dry, with good fruit flavors; there was a surprising amount of fruit for a wine that manages to avoid being a fruit bomb.
My only real knock on the wine is that it started out a bit hot. The 2016 Piancarda sits at 13.5% alc/vol, so not terribly high, but at first sniff and sip it had a bit of that hot alcohol note; give it a few minutes to open up though and that goes away. I don’t normally decant wines under $20 (because I hate cleaning my decanter, not because I don’t think they’re worth it), but this could definitely benefit from spending 20 minutes in a decanter while you finish making dinner.
My wife and I paired the wine with cacchio e pepe, a recipe out of Chrissy Tiegen’s first Craving’s book that’s become a house favorite. It was a good enough pairing, but I’d say it probably would have been a better pairing with some red meat or aged cheese; a good ribeye or some some crisp parmesan or smoked gouda.
For $17 I thought it was a good value, and it’s one I’d grab again off the store shelf.
Editor’s Note: I received this wine as a free sample for review.
