The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's 50 best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.
Viinin Kuvailu
The Story
Reclusive winemaker Enzo Pontoni in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region is truly one of the greatest in Italy. Unfortunately, his fiercely uncompromising approach to quality in the vineyards and cellars ensures that there is never enough wine to go around, but we have secured excellent allocations of a wide range of his wines this year. In order to give as many people as possible a chance to experience these beautiful creations we decided to host an unprecedented tasting in the Chiswick store showcasing a wide range of Enzo’s wines. Bruno Besa, an expert on Enzo’s wines who has been working with him for almost 20 years joined us for this tasting. Despite having visited Enzo in his winery almost every year for the last 20 years, Bruno remarked that he had never tasted so many Miani wines from bottle at once. We were lucky to have Bruno on hand to share an unparalleled level of insight into what makes these wines so special.
The Miani wines are becoming more sought after every year, and it is very unlikely that the opportunity to put on this tasting will ever arise again.
Sauvignon Sauvignon Zitelle – these two expressions of Sauvignon Blanc are from a single vineyard (‘Le Zitelle’ means spinsters in English) that Enzo acquired in 2006 and completely replanted – his grandfather had made some of the original plantings here many years ago so this site has a special place in Enzo’s heart. The vines are just becoming old enough to produce wines that live up to Enzo’s high standards and these are the first releases of Sauvignon Blanc from here. The Cava Sauvignon is from a section of very poor soils that give an extra-concentrated wine show very dense, exotic flavours and deep minerality. The Alto is more aromatic and expressive at the moment with great purity.
Vuosikerta 2008
The season was characterized by an autumn and a winter which were not particularly cold and with little rain, conditions which favored a slightly early bud break compared to the preceding vintages. Spring, and the first vegetation, saw the appearance of adverse meteorological conditions, with frequent rainfall until the end of May which caused a slowing of plant growth, a slowing which, nonetheless, did not have harmful effects on vine health. June and July, instead, were warm and dry, while in August there was scattered rainfall which helped the vines to sustain regular growth of both the vegetation and the grapes.
The months of September and October were very favorable for harvest operations, thanks as well to temperature swings from daytime heat to nighttime coolness, optimal conditions for grape quality. Sangiovese was picked during the last ten days of September, while Cabernet continued to be harvested until the middle of October. From the very beginning of the harvest the musts showed very interesting colors and aromas, which indicated that the vintage was of very high level indeed.