Let’s Drink Wine
Campo Al Mare Bolgheri 2021
Welcome to Cellared With Ryan Isaac, where I share wine reviews and stories about what’s in my glass.
I’m back
I was 22 when I went to my first professional wine tasting. My age was probably the driving factor behind why my editor sent me. It was held at the Limelight, a church-turned-nightclub-and-multipurpose-venue in Manhattan where clientele were more likely to score party drugs than fine wine. During the ’90s, it was a popular destination for a diverse collection of people looking for a good time.
A quarter-century of life has eroded most memories from that rather tame evening, but the spit buckets endure. More KFC than Tiffany, there was a bucket placed on each table where wine was poured. Guests received a couple ounces in their glass. They tasted, contemplated, reflected, manipulated their eyebrows accordingly, contemplated once more, and spit. In practice, the spit-bucket deposit isn’t much different than discarding your nightly mouthwash into the sink. But I trust that most of you don’t get ready for bed in a suit and tie. With strangers by your side.
For those of you who do, keep swinging; you do you.
Recently, after nearly 20 years away from the professional wine world, I have been conducting tastings for a couple stories I’m working on for studyfinds.org. My previous formal tasting experiences stem almost exclusively from my time as an editor at Wine Spectator. I learned from some of the very best in the business in a setting where editorial integrity was always paramount.
Tasting and enjoying, in retrospect, sometimes seemed to be at odds. I left the world of wine in early 2005. Safe to say some things have changed. What exactly, I hope to learn in the coming months. I look forward to sharing these findings with you.
Over the past few weeks as I’ve surrounded myself with wine, I’ve loosened up. I realized that I don’t need to arrange blind tastings with spit buckets and other formalities. Initially, I tried tasting through a half dozen wines at once — swirling, sniffing, sipping, tasting, and spitting. It was joyless. I was tasting from the comfort of my kitchen table, so why shouldn’t I approach it from a place of joy and playfulness? Might that make for a better story?
Enter the Campo al Mare Bolgheri 2021. For the first time during this recent slate of tastings, I gave myself the space to enjoy wine. Guess what? I enjoyed the hell out of it.
I poured a glass, swirled, sniffed, took a few sips, and jotted down some impressions. I went through this exercise again before topping my glass off and sitting down on the couch. That’s one way normal people drink wine, right? My impressions of the wine evolved while the wine itself evolved in the glass. This young wine needed some time to open up.
Can I taste hundreds of wine a year in this fashion? Doubtful. But the quality of the experience more than compensated for the session’s single-tasting output.
I recommend the wine. Let’s start there.
At $32, it’d better be good. For me, that’s more than I’m going to pay for an everyday drinker. What kind of quality should we expect at that price? I’m recalibrating those expectations, too, as I return to the market. But if you are the type of wine drinker who regularly spends $30 for a bottle — or if you need some help choosing a bottle as a gift — this wine could exceed expectations.
Campo al Mare is located in the western Tuscany winemaking region of Bolgheri. With vineyards overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc vines benefit from the microclimate. The proximity to water tempers the summer heat.
The 2021 vintage is a Super Tuscan blend with 60% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Petit Verdot. In a centuries-old winemaking country — the Folonari family, which owns the winery, has a history in the business that dates back 300 years — the colloquial term “Super Tuscan” is relatively new; it refers to the Bordeaux-style blends that once would have required that these higher-end bottles be designated as lowly table wine.
The wine welcomed me with an inviting nose of ripe red fruit, fragrant dried figs, and dark chocolate-covered cherries. There’s a sweetness on the palate that persists but doesn’t overwhelm, and it subsided over time. It’s a fuller-bodied wine that evoked memories of cherry pie and has enough enough acid and tannic structure to stand up to a variety of foods. I found it really enjoyable. I was also grateful that I chose to enjoy it as I had, and I’d like to open another bottle in 3-5 years and see how it’s evolved. (We’re definitely going to talk about aging wines and drinking wines too young in this space.)
Here at Cellared, I plan to share notes about wines and any relevant anecdotes from my past. Eventually, I’ll work my way into a regular cadence. I’m sure the content will evolve, too.
I’ve already begun to explore — with the help of some long-time wine professionals — the evolution of the wine market over the past 20 years. What has changed? What’s stayed the same? What matters today?
Stick around and let’s find out together.
Hope you will talk about Pinot Grigio and Argentina Malbec.