Mas Rosso di.....

Many posts back I wrote about Vino Nobile di Montepulciano by Avignonesi. Last night we tried a different producer from the lesser appellation of Rosso di Montepulciano. Azienda Casale, 2004. What I LOVE about Sangiovese is the dusty red fruit dried herb quality. The texture is really fabulous. Good tannin structure and high acid are a good combination, and this wine has all those qualities (plus a little classic Italian volatile acidity on the nose - for those of you who care about that sort of thing)

As a side note, just in case all this Montalcino / Montepulciano crap is confusing.... Jancis Robinson, MW writes in the Oxford Companion to wine, "Rosso di signifies a red from the Italian zone whose name it precedes, often a declassified version of a long-lived, more serious wine such as Brunello di Montalcino or [in this case] Vino Nobile di Montepulciano."

Less serious and therefore in general less pricey... well, sort of. I think this was $24.99 at the Wine House.