Neitea 1998 Toscana I.G.T. Rosso

geespot

New world fans...stop reading right now. This wine is an old world gem, a steal at this price. I got this directly from a guy who works for the import company and happened to be having a tasting at my LWS today. I tasted this baby and the shop and it screamed for lasagna, hollered even. So I ran out and bought all the stuff and made a killer lasagna with both beef and sausage. This wine exhibits a ruby center with browning edges, shows it's age well. Nose is very dirty, I get tree bark, black olives, maybe a very slight undertone of black cherry but the fruit is far behind the terroir driven aspects. On the palate, very smooth, hints of licorice, black olives again, subtle dark fruit towards the mid-palate and then at the relatively long finish the cherries finally make their appearance along with some anise or fennel-like flavor. The acidity is calm and balanced and the tannins are smooth and refined. No heat whatsoever from the alcohol. This is a tremendous food wine, anything red sauce, sausage&peppers, braised dishes like osso bucco, heck even pizza come to mind too. Those Italians sure know what to drink with their food. At this price, for such a well aged and obviously well cellared wine, this is a fantastic deal.

Tasting Tags: cherry dirty food-wine old-world red-sauce smooth tree-bark