The Frugal Oenologist: Conte Brandolini Vistorta Merlot 2006

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Conte Brandolini Vistorta Merlot 2006

I'm not a great fan of Merlot, the cheaper ones tend to an unpleasant bitterness. This Italian one from Friuli however is a good one. Medium bodied, it has a well integrated character, with plum and black cherry, soft tannins and an only slightly acerbic finish. Curiously, the PA price of $11.99 is well below of what you'll find anywhere else.

1 comment:

Susan Karper said...: Dear Mr. Bernard,
I am the business manager for Habitat for Humanity of the Lehigh Valley in Allentown, PA. For the past six years, our affiliate has had as our premier fundraising event a wine tasting where we focus on great wines for under $20.00 (a challenge in Pennsylvania!). As I was researching the wines we have selected this year, I was thrilled to find that several of them, including Conte Brandolini Vistorta Merlot 2006 and Anciano Tempranillo 2004, were reviewed on your excellent blog, The Frugal Oenologist.
I would like to use your descriptions of the wine in our brochure, and will of course reference you and your blog in the listing. My husband (who is our official wine taster) and I would also be very pleased if you wanted to partner with us in the event in some way, since you and he seem to have a similar taste in value wines. The event takes place Sunday, November 6th in Bethlehem, PA.
So, please let me know if you are interested in learning more about our event. There is some information on our website, www.habitatlehighvalley.org, but I could give you a lot more detail over the phone. Thanks you – I hope to speak with you soon.

Susan & Larry Karper
610-776-7737 X309; October 2, 2011 at 9:37 AM

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Some Personal Notes...

I was born and grew up in Belgium. There, as in all of the francophone world, children, as soon as they were old enough to sit up at table to have their dinners (usually at midday) with the adults, were allowed a glass of wine. The thought behind this was that they should enter their turbulent teens already accustomed to alcohol and not treat it as yet another exciting discovery, to be abused with the ungovernable energy that the hormonal storms of those years produce. By and large, this premise was a sound one. The level of alcoholism in the French-speaking countries tends to be well below that of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian ones, never mind the United States. To be sure, this datum can be challenged on a matter of definition: while there may be fewer binge drinkers who get raging drunk whenever they have access to alcohol, a goodly proportion of the working class, which habitually has a glass or two of wine with breakfast, is working on a mild buzz throughout the day. Still, the results are less deletirious: they function. At one point a Prime Minister of France, appropriately named Mendes-France, himself an anti alcohol crusader, launched an initiative to persuade the French to throw away their wine and drink milk instead. Needless to say, the project was still-born. The French consume as much wine as ever. The point I'm trying to make is that it seems to me that it is eminently possible to go through life enjoying one's wine without being seriously impaired in one's judgement or one's work level. In the old days in Europe one had the main meal of the day at noon, invariably following that up with a nap, so that when one returned to work one's mind was again clear. Nowadays dinner tends to be taken in the evenings, which means that one isn't really fit to do much serious work afterward, but I would argue, pace all you workoholics, that one's evenings should be devoted to less demanding and more congenial activities. I have enjoyed my evening wine throughout a long life, I've drunk some very good bottles and remember them fondly, and I would urge you to do the same.S

The Frugal Oenologist

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Conte Brandolini Vistorta Merlot 2006

1 comment:

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