Tasting Tenuta Ulisse

Our final winery visit on the Abruzzo wine tour was at Tenuta Ulisse which is located in Crecchio in the Chieti province.

This winery was started by the Ulisse family in 2007 with a goal to become a leader in the region. It is run by brothers Antonio and Luigi. They had a production of 40,000 bottles their first vintage, despite a difficult market, they have continued to grow and ten years later, they are producing just over a million bottles a year. They only use their own grapes so their vineyard holdings have grown as well. They sell half of their production in Italy with the rest sold on the export market in 40
different countries.

The family firmly believes in the winemaking traditions of the region, almost 90% of their grapes are pergola trained. They believe the classic training technique works best with the region's terroir in giving them the greatest flexibility in creating shade or allowing more sun to reach the grapes as needed.

The winery is state of the art. They press in an oxygen free environment. They use cryoselection or cryoextraction to determine the most sugar rich grapes. Fermentation is low and slow. They chose a restrained approach to using oak barrels as they prefer to showcase their fruit and their labor in the vineyard.

The Tasting

Trebbiano 2017 - The grapes for this wine come from a sandier area of the vineyard. Fresh, grassy, grapefruit citrus flavors with good acidity.

Passerina 2017 - They made their first vintage of this in 2012. It is
also grown on sandier soils closer to the sea. Fruity with white peach and chamomile with fresh acidity.

Cococciola 2017 - Elegant, delicate, light floral notes with citrus aromas and flavors of lime and grapefruit with a light mineral finish.

Pecorino 2017 - This is their main white wine. Tropical aromas with mango and citrus, fresh mineral note with a hint of balsamic on the finish.

Cerasuolo 2017 - Nice texture with raspberry aromas and flavors with fresh acidity and light tannins.

Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2016 - Fruit forward with cherry and raspberry, no oak. Soft tannins, easy and smooth.

Amaranta Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2015 - Sourced from a 55 year old vineyard, this wine had aromas and flavors of ripe dark plums and berries, a floral note of violet with a touch of vanilla, it was full bodied with smooth ripe tannins and had a persistent finish.

10 Vendemmie Limited Edition - Multi-vintage red wine combining 10 years of Montepulciano which is aged in French oak. Dark, rich and intense yet soft, round and approachable.

Nativae Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2015 - Sweet blackberry aromas and flavors with smoke and graphite, velvety tannins, nicely balanced with a smooth, lingering light mineral finish. My favorite of this tasting.

Head winemaker, Luigi Ulisse

After enjoying the prior red wine so much, they opened the following unplanned white for us to try before we left. Both of these wines are fermented with wild, native yeast.

Nativae Pecorino 2016 - Fresh, crisp and fruity with a mineral laced finish.

All of these wines are recommended.

Lust Zinfandel 2007

My husband loves this wine so he purchased quite a few bottles at a recent Michael~David dinner that we had attended. Last night, I decided to open a bottle to serve with dinner. I was making a roasted southwestern pork tenderloin, sweet potato fries (w/ chipolte ketchup) and a salad consisting of baby lettuce (fresh from my garden) with strawberries, red bell peppers, red onions and walnuts tossed with a white balsamic-raspberry vinaigrette. This turned out to be a great pairing. It is a bold wine that really stood up to the strong chipolte seasoning while complementing the fruit flavors. I opened the bottle a 1/2 hour before I served it as I have found this wine to be more enjoyable when I do so. The Lust Zinfandel by Michael~David 2007 was a dark purple color with a ruby rim. It has intense aromas of very ripe mixed berries and baking spices-both allspice and ginger with hints of cedar. It has flavors of creme de cassis, milk chocolate and also more of the baking

Nocera - A Native Grape from Sicily

Nocera is a native grape from Sicily. It comes from the Messina province which is located in the northeast. Nocera is a quality red wine grape that is most known as a blender in the red wines of the Faro DOC. I had the opportunity to taste some pure versions (which according to Wine Searcher are rare) this week at a trade tasting held at Roma Restaurant in Houston. Wine production in the region dates back to the 14th Century BC, however, phylloxera decimated the vineyard area in 1881 leaving it at a fraction of its original size. The area boasts a Mediterranean climate with sunny days and coastal breezes, moderate rainfall, and mild winters, all ideal for grape growing. The Nocera grape is a bluish/black color and has a thick skin which allows for the production of structured wines with prominent tannins which are balanced by good acidity. High alcohol is common. Red wines produced from the grapes are an intense ruby color with purple highlights and aromas and flavors of dark fruits a

The Salta Tour 2012

Vine Connections and Pioneer Wine Company hosted a seminar and tasting event for Houston's wine trade and media at Backstreet Cafe yesterday. All but two of the wines were from the Salta Province of Argentina. Salta is the most northern wine region in Argentina lying close to the Bolivian border. The climate is very extreme due to the high altitude. Plantings start at 5,000 feet above sea level and climb to 9,000 feet, making these vineyards the highest in the world. The intense sunlight the area receives helps to create grapes with more anthocyanins, these are the color pigments which result in softer tannins, lower astringency and more intense flavor. The wines produced are extremely pure, concentrated and terroir specific. Torrontes Riojano which is considered the best of the three Torrontes clones is the most widely planted grape with plantings of Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Tannat increasing. The seminar started with a tasting of four Torrontes wines, three from diff

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