by Tom Hill

A self-admitted wine geek, Tom lives in Northern New Mexico and works as a computational physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory doing numerical neutron transport & large scale code development. He has been tasting wines since 1971, participates locally with a couple of large tasting groups in his area, and is practically a fixture at most California wine festivals, such as the Hospice du Rhône, Rhône Rangers, and ZAP. Other interests: Tom is heavily into competitive sport fencing (foil & epee), biking, cooking, basketball, skiing, backpacking, mountain climbing.

Tasted ths wine last night after a foil tournament in SantaFe (knocked out by this cute little 14 yr old girl... not good for the ego!!):

1. Morgante Don Antonio Nero d'Avola IGT (14%) 1998: Very dark color; rather Fr.oaked very lush/fragrant/perfumed spicy/licorice/boysenberry nose; soft/rich/lush/jammy rather Fr.oaked lush/ripe/boysenberry/licorice/grapey mouthfilling flavor; very long grapey/licorice/boysenberry rather toasty/Fr.oaked finish w/ a hard/tannic aftertaste; some like a grapey Dolcetto, much like a ripe PasoRobles/jammy Zin; a very/clean lush/ripe red; $48 on the Pranzo wine list.

1. Nero d'Alva: One of the indigenous/native varieties to Southern Italy, the few examples I've tried seemed rough & rustic, coarse; not anything to recommend for the variety. A friend planting a vineyard west of Buellton expressed an interest in this variety so that I'd try another one. This one was mightly impressive and showed very competent winemaking. It reminded me some of a jammy Paso Zin, some of Dolcetto, much of Refosco or Toreldego. Seems to me a variety very much worth exploring in Calif where, of course, it would put any Italian versions to shame.
2. Style: I would have to describe this wine as very much in an international/Parkerized style of winemaking. It did not have much of the hot/climate/bretty/barnyardy/goat pen character f many of the Sicilian reds I've tried. Therefore, my intellect tells me I should not like this wine as it's not representative of traditional Sicilian wines. Alas, I loved the stuff.

TomHill (still licking his wounds from last night)