Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

Recently I submitted to a free consultation for our Instagram profile. I was informed that for a winery there is not nearly enough wine in our feed. Apparently what would really bump us up the algorithm would be more pictures of grapes and failing that glasses of wine every second post. Enough pesky shots of buds and leaves and Montalcino panorama. Unfortunately we are a good four months away from grapes purpling on the vine and making wine involves rather more than merely drinking it.

So while I determined to ignore the advice I had received, it did make me think. Due to the dearth of visitors, I am certainly not tasting our wines in the way I used to. Newsflash: even if you run a winery and live in Montalcino, if you only make 180 cases of a wine (e.g. Le Due Porte 2015) that has a twenty year drinking period, it’s not the first thing you reach for as a weekend tipple.

In the Before Times, even off-season I was welcoming guests almost daily and pouring with and for them. By this point in the year I was ultra-familiar with every nuance of the new vintages having had a daily connection with them. I would know exactly how long they needed to open in the glass or the bottle, how they tasted side by side and was able to recognize them from the first whiff in the glass.

These days I am still on first-name terms with our sfuso wines; we are constantly checking in with the evolving wines in the barrels in the cellar; 2017 Brunello, Le Due Porte 2016 (due for bottling in June), vintages 2018, 2019 and embryonic 2020. But with restaurants closed, celebrations and occasions postponed, trade fairs cancelled - and without guests at the cellar or in our home - I have become estranged from our bottled wine.

This is a shameful state of affairs and, of course, easily rectified. I decided to make friends again with our 2015 Brunello. The minute I opened it I was struck by a lightening-bolt frisson of recognition. Love at first sight? More than that, it was the utter joy of unexpectedly coming across an old friend and finding them in a great place, looking even better than you remembered. The fond familiarity of picking up just where you left off in spite of a year of not being in touch. It was like admiring an attractive man at the airport and then realizing that it is your husband waiting to meet you.

All the adjectives and a lot of pride, exactly the expression of Sangiovese that I most esteem and love. Well done #teamilpalazzone!