I only found out about this in late 2009 and I have had 27 February ringed on my calendar since then…

This is the night to open That Bottle. You know the one; that bottle that is always either too good for the company or for the food that is being served, the one you bought somewhere special, lugged home in your suitcase and can’t bear to open, the one you have been saving for a special event that hasn’t happened yet… go for it, tonight’s the night!

Open That Bottle Night was created by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, a husband and wife team who wrote about wine in the Wall Street Journal from 1998 to 2009. They invented OTBN in 2000, and it has been celebrated all over the world every year since then. It’s a worldwide event and always the last Saturday in February. They talk about thousands of bottles being “released from prison and enjoyed.”

Marco and I will be liberating a La Togata 1997 Riserva Brunello…. What about you?

Here’s the official guide to getting the most out of OTBN:

http://guides.wsj.com/wine/entertaining-and-celebrating-with-wine/open-that-bottle-night/

A microclimate is a local atmospheric zone where the climate differs from the surrounding area.

 The Brunello production area is nearly circular and has a 16 km diameter (10 miles). It covers 240.000 hectares (nearly 60.000 acres) of which only 15% are vineyards….

Montalcino town is at 565 metres above sea level. The highest point, the evocatively named, Passo del Lume Spento,[1] the long rettilineo (finally a straight bit of road…if you’ve driven it you may remember it with relief) is nearly 600 metres above sea level. Three rivers, the Asso, Orcia and Ombrone, frame and delimit the Brunello territory, causing humidity that sometimes shrouds the top of the hill in fog, but more often veils the north facing side. My father-in-law used to say that the people in Buonconvento “campano un anno in meno” (they live a year less) because so many of their mornings were spent in fog. Sometimes there is a basin of thick white fog below S.Angelo in Colle. You can usually make out the odd castle or podere floating without context, looking like boats on a great sea. The imposing Monte Amiata (1738 meters), protects the southeast side of Montalcino and acts as a sort of magnet, drawing away hail and heavy rain from this area.

Anyone who lives in Montalcino has daily proof of the different microclimates that abound on this hill. It hails in terrifying stripes or rains in concentric bands around the hill so that you are constantly switching the wipers on and off as you go up the hills. Just yesterday I saw the first almond trees in bloom, splashes of pink standing out in the military shades of winter, here and there from S.Angelo in Scalo up to S.Angelo in Colle. Any higher and the trees are yet to blossom. Next the mandorle blossom will be joined by bright yellow mimosa, blossoming in the protected and warmest spots first. There can be a months difference between the start dates of harvest amongst low-lying and high altitude estates. Our agronomist, Massimo Achilli, has seen a 5° C (9°F) temperature differences between the Valdicava area and S.Angelo on the same day at the same time….

Altitude and aspect (which way the vineyard is facing) are the main factors in determining temperature difference. The situation of a vineyard governs the maximum and minimum temperature in a given day, the thermal excursion (difference between day and night temperatures) and the Winkler Index (the total hours of sunlight per day). All these factors change the way that the grapes mature, not just in terms of how long it takes them to ripen, but also as far as regards their composition and characteristics when ripe and ready to be picked.

 Curioser and curioser….

[1] The Guttered Candle Pass, so named because of the wind that used to put out all the candles on horse-drawn carriages

I’ve just escaped from the tasting tent in the Fortress, my wrists shaking from too much swirling and my jaw aching from too much smiling.

Today’s excitements:

The 2009 vintage has been awarded four stars.

The plaque celebrating this vintage was designed by the Japanese artists Yuko and Shin Kibayashi, the creators of the wine manga “The Drops of God” (4.300.000 copies sold) and has now been cemented in place on the Comune Vecchio.

The Locanda Locatelli (www.locandalocatelli.com) in London, La Fattoria del Campiglione in Pozzuoli (Naples) and the Enoteca Bonatti in Florence were awarded the Leccio D’Oro prize for services to Brunello.

 2005 is proving to be an interesting vintage, and there are some gems amongst the 2004 Riservas…

I’m off to prepare for a maxi-merenda in the cellar with some private clients. Wonderful Cugusi pecorino and affettati, haven’t decided what to open yet. I’m Brunello-ed out.

The rolls of labels for 2005 and 2004 Riserva arrived today, in the nick of time for Benvenuto Brunello, the four day trade and press launch of these vintages which starts on Friday.

Those familiar enough with our label, should they scrutinise the small print, might notice two additions…. our website and twitter id are there for all to see.

Originally it seemed like a logical evolution of our “communications strategy” (er, that’s me chewing a pencil down in the office). We have a new website. I’m on twitter. I check. I post. Why not tell people?  Search engines find us but the combination of palazzone being a noun (a big palace), the common loss/addition of  zeds or the other 4 Palazzone wineries cluttering Tuscany and Umbria make it a hazardous journey. We also have a Facebook fanpage (www.facebook.com/ilpalazzone) but I thought that in a Bottle On The Table In A Restaurant scenario, twitter is more likely to be immediately useful.

Shall we, shan’t we… will we, won’t we… I researched and pondered and spent many an hour trying to find the most elegant twitter bird. Including websites is pretty commonplace these days but there are a lot of opinions out there about putting twitter ID on high end wines, particularly those destined to age like Brunello. And generally the agreed place is the back label. We only use importer specific backlabels in Canada and America so it was front label or nothing.

And then I started worrying about that bird: what if twitter is superseded by another version of itself? Will it destroy the romance of our traditional label? Worse still, will it be considered inappropriate/tawdry for a wine of Brunello’s calibre/price point? In a good scenario will it create an avalanche of contacts that stops my children having their dinner on time? Is our production too small to merit the effort of investing in a social media presence? Am I fuelled by ego combined with the frustration of ploughing through the internet day after day and never finding a reference to our tiny reality (which of course is Our Whole Existence for me and my family)? Lonely?

Il Palazzone is a tiny niche producer – we made exactly 3916 bottles of 2004 Riserva and 11536 bottles of 2005. My husband and I live on site and manage the property with the assistance of two great workers, Florin and Jalil. And that’s it. Hardly worth the agony for these kinds of numbers. But the bottom line is I would like to make it easier for people to connect with the estate. This is a real farm run by real people. What’s the point in playing hard to get? Apparently the whole point about social media is interaction. How can I listen if I make myself ex-directory? And all that mystery and allure – surely that’s something that starts as soon as the wine starts swirling in the glass and the first layers of aroma begin to emerge?

So I checked with the owner, made sure Marco knew what twitter was, threw caution to the wind and confirmed the new graphics.

And we are excited to see what will happen next.

It goes without saying that I am readying myself for the anticlimax of Absolutely Nothing.

NB. What’s in our bottles, the result of five years’ work, is infinitely more important than the label, there’s no doubt about that. I will be posting about 2005 and 2004 Riserva very soon.

The split in opinions is evident in the title and comments of Seattle Wine Gal’s great January post:

http://barbaraevans.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/social-media-strategy-or-tacky-putting-twitterfacebook-info-on-wine-labels/

All the Carnevale celebrations planned for this weekend have had to be abandoned because of snow and the children are very disappointed. They insisted on wearing their costumes all day regardless. The steep road to the estate has frozen underneath the snowfall and we haven’t been off the property since Thursday.

We’ve made a snowman with stick arms akimbo, surprise biscuits for Marco and crogietti. Crogietti exist all over Italy with different names (cenci, bugie and chiacchere) and are fried pastry strips with honey… it’s probably a good thing that they are only made at Carnival time.

Marco has been shaking trees all day to try and prevent snow damage. He’s a man who loves his plants and our mimosa and cypress trees should survive intact thanks to his efforts. The vines are dormant so they are not at risk. Actually the snow just means there is a higher level of water in the ground to which they will have access later in the year (a good thing).

It was when I started taking pictures of the childrens’ toys trampling heart biscuits to commemorate the combination of Valentine’s Day and the Year of the Tiger that I realised I was losing it. Mercifully Scirocco winds are predicted for tomorrow and with any luck the road will thaw, we’ll take the children out in their fancy dress and I will be able to stop baking.

Photos of snowy Il Palazzone can be seen on www.facebook.com/ilpalazzone

Our 2004 is now available in the US!

No, that’s not a typo, I do mean 2004. We made all of 8.633 bottles of this wine, bottled on 31 July 2008 after over 36 months of wood aging in large Slavonian oak barrels (botti) and a short period in tonneaux (medium-sized French oak). We release our wines a little later than is usual (the 2005 vintage is already “out” for most producers) so that our wines can benefit from an extra year of bottle aging in perfect conditions (our cellar), particularly necessary for a complex vintage like 2004.

2004 is the first five star year for Brunello since 1997 (the so-called vintage of the century). Some of the lower-lying estates had problems due to excess heat in the summer but our Due Porte vineyard is at 530 metres above sea level (one of the highest vineyards in Montalcino) and so in 2004, our vines enjoyed the benefits of this altitude; cooler temperatures and near-constant wind. In true Brunello fashion it is deep ruby red with garnet hues. The nose is very textured with variegated layers of berries and fruit that broaden to spice, leather and tobacco with final balsamic notes. This wine is intricate and elegant, balanced and complex in the mouth with a strong character.

Il Palazzone 2004 received 91 points in both Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate and was considered “outstanding” by Tom Hyland in VinoWire. Switzerland’s prestigious Merum magazine gave it 3 stars and it won a silver medal in the Decanter World Wine Awards. My favourite review is the four stars from Greg St.Clair at K&L Wine Merchants who wrote an incredibly comprehensive vintage report having tasted over 165 Brunellos during a two week stay in Montalcino last year:

“The enticing aromas of complex fruit and baked apples with cinnamon embrace your olfactory senses; hints of leather and intrigue linger at the glasses edge. On the palate, this wine is very rich, but in a sensually delicate way. While lush, it is soft muscle, graceful, full and pulsating. The flavors weave into a silky fabric, caressing your palate, wistfully teasing you to wander toward the finish. Supple warmth, warming luscious flavors with superb balance and drinkability make this is a truly superb wine”

http://blog.klwines.com/httpblogklwinescomuncork/2009/5/5/2004-brunello-di-montalcino-vintage-report.html

It makes me want to reach for a corkscrew…

Our US distributor is www.domaineselect.com

It often happens that not being certified organic appears to be a big black mark for an estate (a #fail to use my new-found twitter vocabulary) that I was especially pleased to be interviewed by Ben Simons on www.vinotology.com about Il Palazzone’s position. This estate, like so many others in Montalcino and elsewhere in Italy, is “environmentally engaged” yet we have no means of communicating this shorthand.

Get organic certification might seem the straight-forward answer, but, of course, it’s never that simple…

Click here to see the post: doing-things-the-right-way.html

There are DOCG rules for everything so it should come as no surprise that the wood ageing of the wine is also monitored. However this is one area where there is a lot of room for different interpretations which result in very different styles of Brunello. Wood (i.e. time spent within, size, age and provenance) is at the heart of the contentious division between “modern/international” Brunello and “traditional” Brunello

Producers have to show the exact date that the wines went into wood and the precise exit date. Any interruptions must be accounted for in the wine registers. The current regulations insist on a minimum of two years in wood and the wine can be released on the fifth January after harvest. The original aging time for Brunello, when the DOCG was set out back in 1980 was four years in wood with the same release terms. Over the last thirty years the obligatory time in wood has been halved, chipped away six months at a time, from four to two years.

 Many producers currently exceed the minimum time in wood. Here at Il Palazzone we always give our Brunellos three or even four years in wood, the “traditional” time. In our case this decision is connected with the volume of the barrels we use. We use mostly large Slavonian oak (the comically named “botti” which go from 18 Hl to 50+ Hl) so the ratio of wood:wine is very much weighted towards the wine. Those producers who favour French barriques (225 litres) are more likely to adhere to the minimum 24 months since the extraction is much more pronounced due to the smaller volume of the barrels. There are also producers who use tonneaux (500-700 litre) or a mix of all three, depending on vintage characteristics and/or estate philosophy.

There is no DOCG legislation regarding volume or provenance of the wood so there is a huge variety of sizes and kinds of oak being used in Montalcino (and of course the additional variable of how old the barrels themselves are and how often they are used).

Just for the record, at the very beginning of Brunello, over a hundred years ago, barrels were made from chestnut wood. Marino Colleoni at Sante Marie www.santemarie.it has experimented with chestnut barrels and the results are amazingly tannic but very interesting.

Nowadays everyone in Montalcino uses oak but it may be from France, America or Slavonia with consequential differences in the grain and in the taste/s conferred to the wine. Slavonian (no not Slovenian) oak is from Croatia, from a part of the Danubian plain known as Slavonija. Slavonian oak is famous for making the most long-lived casks.

Not least, we are plagued about whether to adopt US or GB spelling of “aging” or “ageing” in estate literature, not to mention the circular from the Consorzio about seven years ago which suggested replacing the verb “invecchiare” with “affinare” wherever possible. In Italian the latter is considered to be free of the negative implications of ageing. It doesn’t have the same effect in English where we have ageing gracefully and oil and sugar refining but there you go; even the wood lexis is controversial in Montalcino.