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Sicily’s “First Growth”
2016 Tasca d’Almerita Vigneto San Lucio Riserva del Conte
June 30, 2022
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While many more great wines are being made in Sicily these days, I still consider Tasca d’Almerita the best. In the 1950s Conte Giuseppe Tasca decided to proceed only with producing the highest quality. This was quite a turn for Sicily at the time. At the Regaliali estate southeast of Palermo, he planted the San Lucio vineyard in 1959. The vines are bush trained in an avant-garde, almost magical format. Today these vines display an organoleptic memory.
Giuseppe called the wine from this vineyard Rosso del Conte with the mission that it would compare favorably with the finest wines in the world. (He meant First Growth Bordeaux) If you read Antonio Galloni’s complete vertical library testing of Rosso del Conte, you will see that he succeeded.
Meanwhile, the winery decided to produce a Riserva of this wine only in perfect vintages. The 2016 Riserva del Conte is only the second made; the first was in 2010; 2016 was an ideal analytic and organoleptic vintage. A 100% single vineyard, San Lucio, the wine blends Perricone grapes for structure and spice and Nero d’Avola for richness. As with the original Rosso del Conte, the wine is aged for 26 months in 500L chestnut barrels. It’s a powerful wine, austere with strong tannins in its youth. However, you can also sense its incredible complexity and balance.
2016 Tasca d’Almerita Vigneto San Lucio Riserva del Conte: Deep bright ruby. Multi-layered with enormous persistence with brooding fruit and dark spices. Rich, layered, polished fine tannins with notes of balsa, plums, and dark cherries. Vibrant acidity in the very long balanced finish. Sits at the top of the Sicilian wine pyramid. Outstanding - Superb 198/bottle
Special three-pack $543 (181/bottle)
Very limited. Wine will arrive at the end of July
Order by phone at 617.367.8605, or reserve here: order@federalwine.com
- Peter Hemenway
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