A large part of the enjoyment of fine wine is pulling a perfectly aged bottle from your collection. Anyone can buy a current vintage release, but when your guests glance at the bottle and see that it’s 10 or 15 years old, it often adds a special allure to the dinner.
The wine media focuses mostly on new releases and that’s understandable. But here at Tuscan Vines, we occasionally feature an older wine and call these articles “Cellar Notes“. These will be most beneficial to those who have cellared away age-worthy wines and wish to know how they’re doing after slumbering all these years. You will continue to see these “Cellar Notes” features in the future.
Today’s Cellar Notes wine is from the Brunello producer Argiano and is the 1999 Argiano Solengo. Solengo was controversial from the very start. The inaugural vintage was the 1995 and the blend of the wine through the 1999 vintage was 25% Cabernet, 25% Sangiovese, 25% Merlot, and 25% Syrah. It always struck me as a wine searching for an identity as it seemed to lack any decisive personality, and instead seemed to be generic red wine. Cellaring, has paid off.
The 1999 Solengo is dark, violet red in the glass. It has wonderful aromas of cassis, toast, licorice and floral tones. In the mouth, the wine is full and round with ripe blackberry flavors, leather, and warm earth tones. Slight black licorice and dusty minerals appear on the finish. The wine is very much displaying the Montalcino terroir. Acids and tannins are all in balance and it was wonderful with a variety of foods.
Beginning with the 2000 vintage, the wine is now a blend of 60% Cabernet and 40% Merlot. And to me, that’s the flavor profile the 1999 showed. It was a great Cabernet based Super Tuscan; an “Italian Bordeaux” to coin a phrase. Threw a heavy sediment, so decant in advance. 93 points, about $40 upon release. Price is noteworthy because current releases of this wine soared to almost $90 per bottle, but have now fallen way back down. Recent releases (the 2005) are less than $40.
 |
| 1999 Argiano Solengo |
I (obviously) don't keep up with this stuff as much as you do, but I was shocked to read what you wrote about the pricing fluctuating like that. Do you think that's a function of cheaper grapes going into the blend or Argiano just settling on a price point in a competitive marketplace?
I had a few bottles of '96 and '97 of this back in the day. It's probably been ten years since I've had one. Some were quite nice and others were disappointing. I'm down to a solitary bottle of '98 now. I know that wasn't a great year, but perhaps it'll approach the quality of your '99. "Producer over vintage," right? 🙂
I don't know what the deal is with Argiano or this wine. I've not seen another "top shelf" Italian wine take the fluctuations this one did. When this was released, and Wine Spectator went Gaga for it, the price just jumped, seemingly $25 each vintage. Then one day I walk into a local retailer, and there it is, $38. So I grabbed a few. Before that, I think 1999 was the only vintage I bought because as you say, 1998 wasn't so great, and then the price got silly.
I think you could easily open the 1998 now. Grill some meat and see what happens. 🙂 Honestly, I'm still not sold on the overall quality of uniqueness of this wine. I had the 2005 and it was too oaky and drank like a generic Cabernet. Maybe it'll turn into the 1999, but I've largely stopped buying this wine so I'll have to pick on someone else's cellar to see that.