For the first time ever we gathered together seven top producers who brought with them a wine of their choice to share with 45 of our excited customers, over dinner. The only stipulation we gave the growers was that the wine had to have at least 10 years bottle age.
The setting was Bermondsey Street's Zucca. A bonified institution for Italian foodies, Zucca's slick and super-friendly team did not disappoint -serving up seven deliciously elegant, traditional Piedmontese courses.
In no particular order the wines were:
Rather like the growers, each of the wines had their own very distinctive personalities, however there was a common and quite remarkable thread running through all of them. Fruit. Yes, the wines had softened and gained in complexity with age but without exception there was a total dominance of fruit and absence of secondary characteristics. I was expecting at least one or two to offer something up a little more evolved but all seemed to be ageing rather gracefully. This equally applied to the oldest wine there, Altare's 1995 Langhe Arborina, which was my wine of the night.
The Altare, Correggia Roero Riserva, Marengo Brunate and Carobric from Scavino were all moreishly "a point." The rest of the wines were gripping, seductive, complex and could clearly benefit from another 5 to 10 years bottle age each. Most notably the Voerzio, this is brilliant but still several years off its peak.
With a last sip of Marengo's Brunate the evening for our table drew to a close, all too swiftly. It was a lot of fun.
A presto, Zucca!
