 Hello, welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Ortey. Hi, I'm Shareen Tan. Welcome back to the show today. We are going to do a little bit of vertical tasting today. A little bit, like two bottles. A mini vertical tasting. So for those of you who don't know what vertical tasting is, vertical tasting is actually tasting the same wine through different years, different vintages. So you can kind of see the difference of the year and what they gave the winemaker, right? Yeah, it really shows what each year would give to the wine and also I think it's difficult for a person to understand the aging potential of the wine if you don't know how it would evolve or you don't know like sort of like the track record or the history of the wine. So it's important, it's only when you have an idea of how it evolves over a couple of years that's when when you taste a new vintage you have an idea of the aging potential of that bottle in that specific year. And especially when you have wines like that are blends, like these wines that we have, I think you know people that are just getting into wine think about it being just a romantic product, the grape grows, you make it into wine, but the year gives different challenges. So in blends you know one grape might be a little bit ripe, one grape might not be as ripe, so you add a little bit more of this vintage, that vintage you take some off, there's a lot of blending that goes into place so it's just really interesting. Yeah, I think it also contributes to each consumer or professional's knowledge as well when you taste verticals like that because at times it may appear like maybe for example a 2014 rainy vintage for some countries, it may appear not as appealing at first, you know with a lack of fruit, it was wet year and things like that, but over time in 10 years or something some of of these weaker vintages will catch up with a lot more finesse and elegance, so that's also something you can learn from vertical tasting. Well let's get into it right, we've been blabbing around, it's actually a fun thing to do, we've got some super Amelia Romanians today, I just made up that term, I'm not going to be famous now. Tuscany is famous for some of his Bordeaux blends and blends with San Giovese super Tuscans, so Amelia Romagna why can't you have, we have two vintages of the pa, let me see if I pronounce everything right here, so the Palazona de Maggio Dracone Reserva from 2009 and 11, these wines are mostly Merlot with Cabernet Franck and a little bit of Petite, so I don't, and some Petite Verdeaux, so you know Amelia Romagna is a region famous for food, we were there four years ago, the food's incredible right, and not so famous for wine besides Lambrouche, but there's some interesting wines here, and there's this in this DOC, the Coli di Amola, there are actually some surprising good Bordeaux blends being made, even though I feel like this DOC is kind of a silly DOC because you can just plant anything there, so it doesn't make any sense, anyways Dracone Reserva aged 24 to 30 months in 500 liter oak, and we tasted this, we tasted one of these vintages at a business to business meeting in Piedmont and we were really shocked right, yeah particularly I was very high because I was very high on this bottle because of where it comes from, it offers great value for money and because it's not really famous for high quality wine, so you're not always supporting underdog, okay so let's give this a go here, we'll taste the 2011 first time over the 2009 we'll compare a little bit here, first of all you're going to get a dark color, deep dark color, obviously you're getting Merlot Petite Verdeaux ones that have color, let's give this a smell, I can smell it from here, that's exactly what I remember it to be, a little graphite, a little bit of violet, very pretty, you would to me this you would know is an Italian Bordeaux Blanc, doesn't scream Bordeaux to me, you don't agree, no no no I'm just contemplating, this is actually, I wasn't feeling so well today, now I'm all like perked up by tasting this, it's got plum, graphite, a little bit of capsicum, this cherry tanniness that I kind of get all the time with Central, Central Italian Reds, just a little bit of mocha, did I say mocha already, more coffee bean I would say, fresh coffee bean, just amazing this fruitiness, a bit of development and the palette is quite full on front palette, yeah but I don't think it sits very heavy on the palette, it has a lot of tanginess, very good acidity, finishes with quite a little bit of alcohol but it's still very balanced and bone dry, bone bone dry for me, there's not a lot of residual sugar here, this is maybe a little bit better, is this better than you remember, about the same, it's the same, I really like this one because for 25 euros retail price is pretty kick ass and and for 2011 I believe this wine still has many more years ahead of it to evolve more and deliver more, yeah you know what for being almost eight years old, not super old, there's not a lot of tertiary notes, I'm not getting a lot of tobacco, mushroom everything, it's still quite fresh, you know right now for me, I'm about 90 out of 100 but that could change as we taste through the bottle, I think very good, it's so food-frying, what do you think, I really like the tannins as well, it's small towards the sweet tannins, a little bit sandy but it still sits very nicely on the palette, very nice long finish, imagine this with some tally of tally, did you just finish the wine over here, yeah I like it with some tally of tally, I'm in a good mood now, I have to check you, all right next, Balazzo di Maggio, Balazzo di Maggio is nice enough to sense all vintage 2009 Dracone Reserva, same blend, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdeau, I just want to make sure we have some for tonight, kidding here, this is 2009 so this is 10 years old now, same process 24 to 30 months, what we could find, although you know I haven't been tasting with this wine for a long long time, I think 7 was the first vintage they did this from what we found, as far as I know from what I searched online is 2007, this is immediately I can tell the nose it seems a little bit older than 2011, you get more of this hey dry up Mediterranean up note for me on the nose, I'm so you know 9 already feels like a hotter here to me, the fruit even though there's more tertiary it feels a little more plush, I don't know what 9 and 11 was like in Amelia Romagna, I know they were good vintages in Tuscany which is the province right to the south, of course not as good as 2010 was just a legendary Vintage in Tuscany so I'm imagining 9 and 11 were similar because about similar you get excited so yeah sorry you can interrupt me, no no that's fine, I get a little bit I get a touch of dried mushroom tobacco but then other than that very similar profile to here, I get plum mocha, some black cherry, I want to taste it, not as much fruit up front as the 11 for me more tertiary, tans are a little bit more dried but it's more of a developed wine so I really like it's charming me, what about you? I prefer 11 if I want to just jump right to trade a conclusion because 11 has more broadness and divine structure but I think some people may like 9 right because it's obviously more developed, a little bit more tertiary, less primary fruit but it has again a certain silky elegance to it on a palate, it doesn't have a lot of tomato leaf, a lot of tobacco so that tells me okay this one's not super long but it has some more time I think it can go if you want some more of that tomato leaf some of that tobacco some of that tertiary stuff you can go a little bit farther with 9, I'm only enjoying it just for me it's kind of this is definitely flamboyant in Italian-y, central Italian-y, this is a little more French-y to me a little bit more round and balanced what do you think you don't agree with me? No no no I just think that more or less the same profile for me because like I said for 2009 I get that Mediterranean up which is very Mediterranean Italian to me so I think I would go probably about 90 unless it's probably 90 warm probably unless I will help to taste through to see can I have a more definitive conclusion, so what's this taught you about these wines this little mini varicose tasting? I think it's very important to if you have the capacity and storage right important to get a couple of bottles of the same vintage if you really like a wine and make sure you taste it once a year or so because for me 2009 is a little bit past the prime for my palette although I think a lot of people would have actually appreciated been evolving a little bit more I actually taste it I think it's it's become they're both very very enjoyable wines so a great job I was really surprised to see wines of this quality I know there's we've tasted some fantastic wines in Amalera Romagna but a lot of times you find just kind of average table wines these are super high quality serious wines they're going to press a lot of people right in terms of points actually I am one point higher than you I will score this 92 point wow this is a very good wine potentially even a plus behind I do think it's a very good wine and drink canal and within the next two years or so for this actually I'm a little bit less than you I think it's 89 because I think it could have been a better wine I'm set to know it today because I think maybe in two years ago it might be a better wine but yeah this so this is cool if we had all the vintages then you could this is the current release which is how crazy is how cool is that so you could get a little bit more but you know nice job check out some of these wines you know I'll put them in the description box anything else I do on vertical tasting these wines Amalera Romagna Italy it's just do more do more of this sort of tasting yeah so guys check it out and if you like this video please subscribe to our youtube channel it's got a point shovel I will see you at an next episode