While I was enjoying a wine tasting at the Fine Wine Source in Livonia, I was thinking what a great job the representatives at The Vintage Wine Company have in being able to taste and pour some great wines, potentially daily while they work.  The Vintage Wine Company is the distributor locally for Maisons Marques & Domaines, who originally was the marketing arm for Louis Roederer USA, Inc.  I just had two Italian wines from Querciabella, and I was going to try two other ones as well, and I did not know this winery until that day, which is not that hard to understand.  Alongside of the original hectare of vineyards are oak trees, and the name Querciabella translates to “beautiful oak.”

The third wine that I had was Querciabella Chianti Classico DOCG 2015, which is fitting for a winery that began in 1974 in Tuscany.  What is more Tuscan then Chianti Classico and a wine that I basically grew up on, even including the old straw wrapped bottles that add charm to many Italian restaurants.  Chianti Classico has to be Sangiovese and this wine is pure Sangiovese.  The fruit is hand-harvested and then destemmed but not crushed, it is sent to temperature controlled Stainless Steel vats where the fermentation and the maceration would take shape, the maceration lasts about twelve days and after complete malolactic fermentation, the juice is transferred to French oak barrels, both big and small ones, with only five percent being new.  The aging of the wine and the selection process for the Chianti Classico production takes about fourteen months and then there is an additional three months in the bottle.  This was a solid and rich Chianti perfect by itself and would be awesome with a big dinner with a great tomato sauce and plenty of spices, this wine would shy away. 

The last Italian wine was Querciabella Camartina Toscana IGT 2013, it is the estate’s signature Super Tuscan, but it is only produced in stellar vintages to maintain the prestige. The wine is a blend of seventy percent Cabernet Sauvignon and thirty percent Sangiovese.  The fruit is all hand harvested, destemmed and placed into five-ton French oak fermenters, where the alcoholic fermentation, maceration and malolactic fermentation occur.  The Sangiovese juice usually takes about twelve days, while the Cabernet Sauvignon usually require about twenty days.  Then the juice is transferred to French oak of which twenty-five percent is new and they are aged for twelve months.  Then the assorted lots are tested and the best are selected to be assembled in the final blend, which requires an additional year of aging.  The wine is then aged an additional six months in the bottle before release.  Eight-hundred-fifty cases were produced, plus some specialty larger individual wooden boxed bottles.  They figure that the prime time for drinking this wine is between four and eighteen years after harvest.  This was a charming wine and delivered every way possible, just from the visual of its deep color, the nose told you that this was a keeper.  A wine that had to be chewed to appreciate the layers of especially black cherries and other dark fruits that stayed with you for a nice long finish.  For me, this is a special occasion wine and should be paired with an excellent special cut of meat.  I was totally pleased and I think that I was so in awe, that I forgot to take a photograph of the wine.