An Italian Wine Tasting Of The Dolcetto

An Italian Wine Tasting Of The Dolcetto – Episode #497

July 7, 2008

Gary still thinks the Dolcetto wines are some of the best values out there and these little wines from Piedmont bring serious thunder.

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Comments on this episode(293) Leave a comment ›

“Advantage of the new mic is that we’re not distracted by Coldplay cons…” by richardvinifera
“How about some Dolcetto from Dogliani and Ovada?
Dogliani is more …” by diana baur
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Wines tasted in this episode:

2006 Grimaldi Dolcetto D’albaDolcetto d’Alba
2005 Pietro Rinaldi Dolcetto D’albaDolcetto d’Alba
2006 Azelia Dolcetto D’albaDolcetto d’Alba

Links mentioned in todays episode.

293 Responses

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July 7, 2008

Dave H
Love the Mascarello t-shirt, and psyched to see you’ve popped into Terroir. (I need to stop in more often so I can run into you there.)

Don’t love the clip-on mike…

QOTD: last week was an interesting wine week for me as I was on a family vacation to Michigan and had the opportunity to taste some local wines from the Lake Michigan Shore AVA and on the whole I was darn impressed. My favorite maybe was the 06 dry Riesling from Tabor Hill, perfectly bone-dry, classic petrol and latex thing going on, nice minerality, and even a decent deal at tasting room prices. (I came fairly close to buying one to send into WLTV.) Their Cab Franc was totally overpriced (like 30 bones or so), but again I was super impressed to see solid wine-making, very good fruit, and utterly classic varietal character. Even the Reserve Chard was completely restrained with a very nice, Burgundian nose (slightly odd flavor on the palate, but still perfectly decent wine).

Overall I’d say Tabor Hill showed better (to my palate, which is very much not in the California direction) than probably 80% of the places I visited in CA, and that’s disregarding the fact that they gave us 8+ pours for free, with their entire selection available.

On the other hand when you go through the tastings at a number of small wineries in a not-very-wine-savvy location, you get plenty of clunkers. Everywhere seemed to be pushing their “semi-dry” wines as crowd pleasers, every one of which I tasted was completely lacking in the acidity necessary for an off-dry wine, although again the source fruit was not bad. Out of curiosity I took a taste of the sweet peach wine at Round Barn, which was fairly god-awful (canned peach juice, basically), but out of respect for the LMS I’ll peg the worst wine of the week the Hugo Shiraz my parents brought up with them, which somehow managed to be simultaneously undrinkable and deathly boring.
July 7, 2008

The Original Marc
QOTD: Worst – whatever was in the keg at my girlfriend’s friend’s fourth of July party. Best – Olde Main Pale Ale.

Both are beers, but I didn’t have any wine over the weekend so I figured I’d go this route.
July 7, 2008

Antony
On the wine front, I had a bottle of Chevalier de Lascombes 2004. It was good but not brilliant.

On the geek front, that mic’ really is not working for you. May be that it’s cheap (in which case try a Countryman B6 from B&H). More likely, it’s too sensitive which would mean checking out if there is a ‘trim’ option in the audio menu on the camera. If not, you can buy pads to reduce the dbs. Other things to try are setting the audio levels manually and putting the clp mic’ through one channel and the on camera mic’ through the other – just to give a bit of ambience. Finally, if you’re out and about, make sure you’ve got a fluffy wind shield.
July 7, 2008

Jay
Wow! Sorry to say it, but thumbs down on the new mike. You sounded like you had the head cold of a century!
July 7, 2008

pawncop
Great episode, cannot wait for 499 nor 500.

QOTD – had to work the weekend so no wine for me but earlier did have a bottle of Franciscan 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon that I really enjoyed.

Did not have worst bottle but did have a 2005 Justin Cab that was good but not as good as the Franciscan.
July 7, 2008

Chris
Can you please throw the mic away? I spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with the sound…. I was very distressed during the whole show. It’s just not right.
July 7, 2008

TLR
QOTD

Best wine Crossings Sav. Blanc from New Zealand very crisp very refreshing

Worst – 1981 Charles Krug Cabernet just too old
July 7, 2008

Rick D
Forgot to say I bought a bottle of the 2005 Pietro Rinaldi Dolcetto Dâ€™alba the last time I ordered from WL. Now I can’t wait to try it.
July 7, 2008

Rick D
QOTD: 2005 Bodegas Castano “Solanera Vinas Viejas” Yecla, Spain. This was my first wine from this region and I will now seek out other examples. No worst, only had this one bottle unfortunately.

Don’t care for the new mike. I agree with “Withnail” You no longer sound warm, personal, intimate as you usually do. Also, magnifies the swishing sound as you are tasting.
July 7, 2008

Pete G
I’m diggin the new format. Love the upgraded intro – very “Get Shorty esque”
Gonna hafta get used to that “swish/swirl” mic though.

QOTD: No bad wines this weekend. Best? Riondo prosecco.
July 7, 2008

Andy
Thanks for the Dolecetto G always a interesting wine…
QOTD— We had a Italian white wine tasting and all of them were pretty good …. The best was 2006 San Gimignano and the least favorite was a basic Orvieto …. but still acceptable
July 7, 2008

Joe
Can’t wait to see you in SF! I’ll be there, don’t know what I’m gonna bring yet though.
July 7, 2008

Wendy
The best: 2004 Kanu Limited Release, KIA-ORA, Noble Late Harvest. A Stellenbosch white dessert wine from South Africa with a BIG sweet flavour.
Mouth coating and perfect in small amounts that can be tasted on and on and on.

The worst: none this time.

Wendy and Bill
July 7, 2008

Lb in KS
Hey G… don’t read too much into this, but, now…when you spit… I have the urge to go pee? what’s up with that?
qotd…I only drank one bottle of wine over the weekend. A Riesling I made myself other than that it was beer… hey it was the 4th.
July 7, 2008

Smith MBA
Dolcetto is a solid grape. Always into the piemonte.

No wine this weekend. I crushed my finger under a television helping my buddy move so it was tough to open up a bottle. I’m ok only a little gash.
July 7, 2008

Neil
QOTD: The best wine: Chateau Sansonnet 2003. The worst wine: Chimney Rock 2000 Elevage. I guess it didn’t hold up to time.

The microphone has limitations: 1.) It’s a condenser mic which makes your voice sound sqished; 2.) When you say “Hello everybody…”, and “Mott, Link it Up..” it distorts your voice instead of sounding louder; 3.) It really does a great job of picking up on the spit bucket sounds whicj may or may not be a good thing. How about putting it farther away from your squawk box on a lapel or something. Scratch that, how bout going back to the overhead mic? Huh???????????????
July 7, 2008

M
QOTD: Had a lot of favorites! It was along weekend. Had reds and whites from Languedoc. Had a red from the Rhone area. Maybe the worst was a taste of tempranillo from somewhere in Spain, not rioja. Liked the spanish rueda/verdejo.
July 7, 2008

Gonzo
QOTD:
Best wine this weekend – Buty Columbia Rediviva 2002. It was probably the fact I was drinking it with my fiance who I hadn’t seen in a month or maybe the amazing Fillet Mignon we had it with (FYI Marx Brothers in Anchorage, AK is awesome), but man that was a tastee bottle of the vino.

Worst wine this weekend – Lone Canary Sauv Blanc 2006. Flabby, although it had a nice melon component.
July 7, 2008

Adam J
QOTD: The wine one wine I had this weekend was the worst one ever. David Kinor Merlot. It smelled interesting, like tomato stew at first, then like old twizzlers, but it just tasted awful.

Wasn’t really a fan of the mic either. The sound wasn’t quite right.
But on a positive note: great show, I dig the new wristband.
July 7, 2008

Lysandus
I’m going to have to try this “tar” wine.
July 7, 2008

Palmer
best: ‘06 Magito Rivertrace Blend North Coast (Sauvignon Blanc 82%, with 8% Viognier and 10% Verdelho thrown in).

worst: none. didn’t drink anything bad.
July 7, 2008

RonC
Nice upgrade to the show.

QOTD: Had 2 wines over the weekend and both were excellent (2005 Argyle Pinot Noir and 2006 Staete Landt Pinot Noir Marlborough).
July 7, 2008

GrapeStuff
QOTD: Didnt have wine this weekend , had beer.
July 7, 2008

Deano
Gary great episode I really like the wrist band. I hope i get one because when i initially emailed my book receipt i didn’t get a response. But i did buy a couple books an email the receipt to book@winelibrary.com I am loving the yellow thats for sure.

QOTD:
-Went wine tasting up in Napa and the best wine was the Reserve Alpha Omega and i believe it was an 2005 Cab estate grown and it was silky and very good. The worst was when we rode the Gondola ride at Sterling and once we got to the top after waiting 45 MIN in line FTL The wines were pretty weak. I would say the worst was the 2005 Cab that we had it pretty much sucked. Also the Pinot Noir sucked too. I was unhappy with Sterling in General.
July 7, 2008

Lawrence Leichtman
The miking is terrible. Sounds like you are in a barrel. I liked what you were doing before. I had no bad wines this weekend. We went through 12 Portuguese and Spanish reds and whites many bought from episodes of the show. Not a dog in the bunch and several outstanding Duro’s. Wines that were bought back from as early as episode 77.