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11.04.2008

2004 La Stoppa "Ageno" White Blend, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Most people faced a with the choice of merely a specific color of wine to drink will consider their stated preference between the options of red, white, or pink. My choice is none of the above. If I had to swear my allegiance to one color of wine, it would be orange.

I have a friend who has seriously suggested that the world ought to acknowledge orange as a legitimate fourth color when it comes to wine. I don't know that I'd go that far, but I would seriously suggest that everyone drink as much of it as they can get their hands on.

Orange wines aren't easy to come by, but to my mind they represent some of the most exciting wines being made on the planet. And this wine is a perfect example.

La Stoppa winery began in 1973 with the vision of Rafael Pantaleoni, who purchased the estate with the hopes of making a small amount of wine and an honest living for his family. The land, which occupies a nook in the Piacenza province of Italy's Emilia-Romagna region, has been planted with vines for well over 100 years. The estate's original owners left Pantaleoni and his daughter, who now runs the winery, a gift of some extremely old vines growing both Italian and French varieties.

With a lot of work, the Pantaleoni family have retained and nurtured some of the oldest vines of the estate, as well as carefully replanting and restructuring the vineyards to include more of the local varieties. The roughly 70 acres of vineyards in the shade of the estate's medieval tower are rather sparsely planted as well as nutrient poor from a soil standpoint. Consequently, those 70 acres don't produce much fruit, but Elena Pantaleoni and her winemaker Giulio Armani make good use of what they get.

And by good use, I mean making wines that speak of a startling vision, of which this wine named Ageno is perhaps the best example.

This wine is made from a combination of three white grape varieties: Malvasia, Trebbiano, and the extremely local variety known as Ortrugo, with the majority of the wine being Malvasia grown on 36-year-old vines. As a blend this is already somewhat unusual, but things get truly wacky as soon as the grapes are picked and destemmed, for instead of being vinified like a white wine, this one is treated like a red, which means chiefly that it is fermented with native yeasts in contact with its skins for more than 30 days. After this it is pressed off into a combination of steel tanks and neutral oak barrels where it ages on its lees (the sediment that settles to the bottom of the barrel) for 12 months before bottling without filtration of any kind.

This is the third vintage of Ageno of which only about 160 cases are made. This small quantity means that it may be difficult to find, but if you can, it is worth all the effort and whatever price you might have to pay, as it represents both a great achievement of artisan winemaking as well as a perfect example of why orange wines kick ass.

Tasting Notes:
A gorgeous medium amber-orange color in the glass, with a distinct haze of cloudiness, this wine has a phenomenal, almost otherworldly nose of exotic flowers, saffron, and orange creamsicle. On the palate it is weighty, with a texture that is almost tannic in quality, gripping the tongue with a velvet glove. From a flavor standpoint it is nearly indescribable -- brown sugar, honeysuckle, saffron, cream soda, and unbelievably, the distinct flavor of coffee and cream on a finish that can be measured in minutes. Evolves gorgeously in the glass, and I highly recommend decanting for 1-2 hours prior to serving, especially if you can keep it cool while decanting.

Food Pairing:
While the amazing individuality of this wine begs for careful consideration on its own, I enjoyed it with hard Italian cheeses and Jamon Iberico.

Overall Score: between 9.5 and 10

How Much?: $30

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

Posted by: Alder on November 4, 2008 6:13 PM: Tweet; Share this post elsewhere: Digg it! - Add to del.icio.us - Add to Stumbleupon - Add to Reddit; Filed under: Boutique Wines , Orange Wines , Undiscovered Wines

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Comments (12)

Reno wrote:

11.04.08 at 9:28 PM

interesting but where is the orange colour from?

is it possible the barrels were filled with red wine before?

Jack Everitt wrote:

11.04.08 at 10:38 PM

Wow, I didn't quite understand how much you loved this wine. Btw, $45 is a more likely price to find this wine at, rather than $30.

Also, I guess I didn't mention, but this wine had been opened for at least 4 days (or longer!); subtly suggesting that a 1-2 hour decanting could easily be a 2-4 day decanting.

Orange wines (which are sort of oxidated already) seem very slow at oxidizing compared to normal wines. A Gravner orange wine, for example, took more than a month to show real signs of Oxidating (in a bad way), etc.

Alder wrote:

11.05.08 at 12:07 PM

Reno, the orange color comes from two sources:

1. The same place the color comes from in red wine: the skins.

2. The oxidation that Jack talked about. As the wine is exposed to air with such a long soaking on the skins, it begins to darken in color.

James Barton wrote:

11.05.08 at 2:35 PM

Alder and Jack,

Is the organge color associated with Gravner's wines at all associated with the fact he ferments them in amphorae?

-James

Alder wrote:

11.05.08 at 3:03 PM

James,

I think the color of his wines is due to the same two factors I outlined above rather than the fermentation vessel. The other orange wine I love to pieces is the Movia Lunar, which is fermented in old oak casks rather than amphorae, but it, too looks like diluted orange kool aid.

Dylan wrote:

11.05.08 at 3:55 PM

You had me at "orange creamsicle." Sounds absolutely fantastic, the only trouble is the online source you offered won't ship to my state. Any other recommendations or am I out of luck?

Tish wrote:

11.06.08 at 9:12 AM

Alder, Would Damijan "Kaplja" fit in the orange genre? It is a Collio Bianco by a real hands-on, natural winemaker. I had the 2001 a few years ago; blend of Chardonnay, Tocai Friuliano and Malvasia, fermented with extra skin contact and unfiltered. I remember it as dark gold and very intense. In retrospect, I could say it was orange. Just never even heard the term applied categorically to wine... I think I have a bottle of the 2001 Damijan left; it was around $40 retail several years ago...

Alder wrote:

11.06.08 at 9:59 AM

Sounds like a winner! Most of the orange wines I know come from that region.

Jeremy Parzen wrote:

11.06.08 at 1:47 PM

I LOVE this wine... great post!

Fred wrote:

11.06.08 at 3:59 PM

The orange color is from the skins that are not removed during the fermenation process. It is detailed in the article.
I am a fan of this wine blog. Well done and written by a true lover of wines.

Madeira wrote:

11.06.08 at 4:58 PM

9.5 out of 10, wow! What I want to know is how many wines do your drink in a week? It must become addictive to not only buy different wines becuase of sexy labelling, colour, taste and type. I bet some people try wine simple because they have not tried a certain type. So once you tried Barolo, then you want to try Riojo, then Amorone etc etc - I guess its called getting the experience of the delights of life and to some people that equates to wine!

Jim Hutchinson wrote:

11.07.08 at 11:58 AM

I had lunch with Elena Pantaleoni and Giulio Armani at the lovely La Stoppa estate several years ago and they chose to serve Ageno as a palate cleanser instead of sorbetto. A couple of ounces, slightly chilled, served by itself between pasta and salad, was an interesting and appropriate way to use the wine.