Campi Nuovi Montecucco DOCG 2018
Background
If you’ve been with us for a while, this bottle may look familiar. It’s one of our favourites, and was the first on the list when we decided we were doing a Tuscan-themed pack. The DOCG of Montecucco is sandwiched right between Morellino di Scansano and Brunello di Montalcino. We haven’t really touched on Brunello before. The truth is, the Brunellos that show the kind of typicity that we’re going for check-in at about $60-70 to start and go up in price quickly from there. For the casual wine drinker, that can be a little steep, so we often use this Montecucco as a kind of ‘baby Brunello’, to give people an idea of those flavours without the hefty price tag. It should be said that most Italians are fiercely passionate about their regional food and drink, so if the Nonnas and Nonnos in Montecucco heard we were comparing the two, they’d be furious (this’ll be our secret!). But for all intents and purposes, we’re confident in saying that if you like this Montecucco, you’ll probably be a big fan of Brunello too.
Montecucco is a fairly new DOCG, having only gained that status in 2011, but of course, winemaking here goes back hundreds, if not thousands of years. Campi Nuovi is run by the husband and wife team of Daniele and Nadia, who are both Tuscan locals, and BIG into organic agriculture. Green fertilizers, manual weeding, and a heavy focus on soil sustainability help their southern-facing vineyards thrive. Daniele, who studied winemaking in neighbouring Brunello di Montalcino, makes wine in that style. This wine is ripe, with a rustic charm and a little bit of oak-aging that helps to highlight some of the woodsy herbal Sangiovese flavours.
While we’re talking about oak and barrels, this might be a good place to learn a little bit about Slavonian oak. (No, not Slovenian… SLAVONIAN). In the past, we touched on the difference between American oak and French oak. Basically, American wood is from a hotter place, and has a wider grain to it. American oak has more surface area for the wine to interact with. It usually imparts ‘sweeter’ aromas and rounder tannins. French oak grain is closer together, so it imparts less of those sweet aromas and the tannin from it is a little sharper.
Tasting Notes
Wood from Slavonia (a forested area in northern Croatia) has VERY tight grain. The oak flavours and tannin it imparts are much more subtle and sometimes can be hard to detect. Slavonian wood has traditionally been the wood of choice in northern Italy. All the best Barolos and Barbarescos have probably been aged in Slavonian oak. Daniele from Campi Nuovi worked in Piemonte and brought this style of barrel to his own production here in Montecucco. So while his neighbours in Maremma are making ‘Super Tuscans’ with French oak (we’ll talk about that in the next writeup), Campi Nuovi is going old-school Slavonion with this wine.
Food Pairing
Woody Herbs - The fruit on this wine is fantastic. Rich and dark berry flavours with an almost brambly-mulled character. Great for cold weather! But the noticeable inclusion of that wood and gives this wine a forest-y character that would be great with rosemary or oregano.
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