Since this is the first one, I’ll explain how it works:  with the lights out one of us goes into the cellar (read- closet in the spare bedroom) and literally blindly picks and bags a bottle.  Then we taste and discuss.

Last night’s wine:

Ok, first big surprise is that it’s a white.  Typically we store the reds and whites in different parts of our cellar (again, just a closet on the shady side of the house) but somehow this one ended getting mixed in.  So I’m already pissed because I’m fairly certain that, with the exception of some ultra-premium bottles stored in a separate part of the cellar-closet, that all the whites we have are pretty shitty because we’ve drunk all the good ones.  Not to mention, we figured it was a red and therefore did not chill it, so our first taste will be room temperature. Admittedly, the above may have jaded my first impressions.

Nose: Lemon, Apple, the greener, not-so-ripe fruits, I’ll throw apricot in there.  A sort of pithy-ness. Not very aromatic.

Palate: There’s the lemon again.  Apple and maybe I’ll call that pithy-ness apple skin.  A slight minerality that makes me think more of darker stones (granite? I’m not much of a geologist…) than limestone or chalk.  Acid is reasonably present, not screaming but substantial.  Body is medium plus…well at least that’s interesting.  Alcohol medium.  Finish falls off a cliff.

Conclusions-

-Clinton, “I don’t know.”

-Lindsay,  “Something Italian from somewhere in Italy.”

The reveal: Marco Carpineti “Capolemole” Lazio Bianco 2009; A blend of Malvasia, Bellone, and Trebbiano $11, 13% abv

What we learned: Frankly, not that much since I’m surprised the Malvasia didn’t give the wine a little more ripe and flowery perfume.  I’m sure the natural inertness of the Trebbiano didn’t help, but oceans of “Italian wine from somewhere in Italy” are indeed made with it.  Bellone?  I don’t know what that is so I’m going to look it up…..

What the experts say about Bellone:

-The Oxford Companion to Wine is not much help saying only, “very juicy ancient dark grape grown near Rome.  About 3,00 ha/7,400 acres survived into the 1990s.” That’s cool, so maybe we’re looking at white made at least partially from red grapes?

-I didn’t find it indexed in The World Atlas of Wine.

-In an entry about Lazio, The Global Encyclopedia of Wine says only, “There are restricted plantings of southern Italy’s Greco and outcrops of the local bellone and bonvino (bombino bianco) all used in minor roles in blends.” Jesus, this is an obscure grape.

- From Wikipedia, “Bellone is a red Italian wine grape variety that wine historians believed was cultivated in Roman times. A white skin clone also exists.” Dammit… it’s probably the white clone after all.

-Finally…after literally a minute of goggling I found this article which not only references the producer of the wine we just tasted but also notes that bellone is quite full bodied which probably explains the fuller mouthfeel we noted above.  Thank you Internet!

-And one other thing.  I’m fairly certain “Bellone” translates into “big and beautiful” in Italian.  How can that not make you smile?