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What We Say 2003 Vigna Garrone
ALERT: This is an extraordinary deal on an extraordinary wine. We have very limited availability, so please order before we run out.
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Mission Codename: Red’s Day Off
Operative: Agent White
Objective: Find Agent Red
Mission Status: Accomplished
Current Winery: Odoardi
Wine Subject: 2003 Odoardi Vigna Garrone
Mission Report:
: : 0600 Hours, Zulu : :
Agent Red has not reported in for 0530 debrief and is presumed missing. His last known location was the Odoardi Estate Vineyards in Calabria, Italy.
: : 0630 : :
Assets on the the ground in Calabria have been activated. Early reports suggest that Agent Red may still be at the Odoardi Estate.
: : 0800 : :
Assets have made casual inquiries at the estate and have found evidence which suggests that Agent Red was last seen enjoying more than one bottle of Odoardi’s award winning (the prestigious Tre Bicchieri) 2003 Vigna Garrone.
: : 0900 : :
Agent Red’s PDA and several cases of Vigna Garrone have been found on the Estate. The wine cases were marked, “Priority Dispatch Alpha, TWS Central Command” and were confiscated. The PDA and the wine are on their way back to Central Command for analysis.
: : 1030 : :
Agent Red has been located in a shady corner of the vineyard. He was found fast asleep under the shade of an olive tree, a slight smile on his face. On questioning, Red reported that his absence was necessary. In field debriefing follows:
“Yesterday I reported that Odoardi’s Savuto was a great wine. While this was indeed true, I discovered an additional gem, the 2003 Vigna Garrone. It was clear that I needed to maintain my cover to conduct additional investigation.”
While this was a somewhat flimsy explanation for his breaking of Wine Spy protocol, I excused his folly when I was able to taste the Vigna Garrone for myself.
Wine Spies Tasting Profile:
Look – Rich, deep, almost black-purple
Smell – Huge body with giant aromatics of wood, earth, mineral, fruit, casis and tobacco
Feel – Initially ultralight on the tongue, this wine has increasing tannins and ooomph with time in the air. Decant this wine to discover its fullness.
Taste – Deeply delicious flavors of mineral, and fat cherry, berry and spices
Finish – Long, strong and lingering with flavors that go on and on.
Conclusion – This is an INCREDIBLE wine with a full body and a complexity that leaves your mouth happy and wanting more. This particular wine has amazing flavor and texture with a unique mouth feel that makes you sit back and take notice of all the unique sensations and flavors of this wine.
Wine Spies Vineyard Check:
The Vineyard can be seen in this satellite photo
Pairing: A superb wine that pairs superbly with hard cheeses, roasted meats and antipasti.
Wine Spies Technical Wine Analysis
Grape Varieties:
80% Gaglioppo
10% Nerello Cappuccio
5% cabernet Franc
5% cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot
What the Winery Says
Odoardi
The Odoardi Estate vineyards, in the southern Italian region of Calabria, are more than 5 centuries old. The country estate, situated in the province of è Catanzaro in the communes of Nocera Trinese and Falema, produces Vigna Garrone, Savuto DOC wines, Scavigna DOC wine and olive oil. The vineyards here are farmed by brothers Gregorio and Govambattista Odoardi.
The Garrone vineyards here grow on the hills which slope toward the sea, exposed either to the Ionian Sea to the east or toward the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. The Savuto grapes that grow here grow on slopes that descend from the mountains to the banks of the Savuto River.
Leading Italian wine publication Gamberro Rosso says this about this 2003 Odoardi Vigna Garrone”
bq. “… a beautiful cuvee of gaglioppo with small percentages of Nerello Cappuccino, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot achieves Tre Bicchieri as it did in the 1999 vintage. This masterpiece is extremely complex and of great elegance; intense fruity aromas, and a perfect balance of good tannins, alcohol, and a long finish.”
Wine Description: Intense ruby-red. Wood notes and a deep Bouquet with nuances of berries, tobacco. In the taste harmoniously, with well balanced structure; deep and long response. 18 months in Barriques (barrels) and 6 months in steel tanks.
_Winemaker_: Stefano Chioccioli is a master winemaker of remarkable pedigree and renown. After graduating cum laude, Stefano Chioccioli used his degree in agriculture as a springboard to obtaining certification as an Agrogolist and later as an Oenologist from the University of Bordeaux in France.
From 1985 to 1991, Chioccioli worked for the Winegrowers House Chianti Ruffino S.p.A. In this seven year period, he worked for a year at the Pontassieve Plant as a wine taster while also carrying out oenological-chemical tests, analysis of the agrarian ground. After the first year of his employ, he was charged with the overall technical viticultural Direction of Ruffino.
Today Chioccioli works as a consulting winemaker to some of the most prestigious wine houses in Italy and France. Of winemaking, he says:
bq. The elements of my work begin from the viticulture; my approach to the wine world begins from a viticultural approach. Viticulture represents the elements of the qualitative production.
bq. When I begin a project, I always think to the target I must reach depending on the territory, where I’m working. The main target is to find the balance between the originality of the territory, expressed through its podiatric and climatic characteristic, and the technical culture that I bring about the territory.
bq. The most important target of the viticulture is to obtain a perfect grapes ripening. This idea, seemingly so simple, is in fact a very ambitious target.
