Earlier this year I was lucky enough to attend a tasting of fantastic wines from Collefrisio in the Montepulciano D’Abruzzo region courtesy of the Chen family at their lovely home in Yuanlin, Taiwan. The Tasting was an opportunity to do some menu testing for recent Cordon Bleu cooking school graduates Chun Fan and his wife for their upcoming restaurant opening. Their amazing home, adorned with Chun Fan’s Mother’s beautiful paintings was an ideal location for a tasting.
Thanks to Andrea Bianco from Collefrisio for a great introduction to the wines. Three of the four wines were 100% Montepulciano, while, interestingly one wine – the Confronto is a blend of Montepulciano and Primitivo, usually only found to the south in Italy. The two worked impressively well, with the acid structure and finesse of the Montepulciano complemented by the heavier, juicy, ripe fruit and licorice flavours of the primitivo.
Undeniably, though, the star of the show wine-wise was for me, the Collefrisio ‘Semis’ Montepulciano D’Abruzzo. With the juice macerated on the skins for an unheard of 365 days, followed by extensive ageing in oak and bottle, the 2011 vintage (current release) offers incredible concentration of sour cherry and sweet toasted coconut and spice. The tannins were firm, but not over the top as might be expected bu such a long skin contact. A real show stopper.
Complementing the wines was some great food from Chun Fan’s kitchen. Great slow food with 22 hour braised pork, beef slow cooked at 74 degrees for nine hours among the highlights. Can’t wait for the next tasting!
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