Murder A La Carte

Chapter 16

Beppo had selected eight wines for me to taste. I knew a bit about Nonno Filippo"s afternoon tastings, from stories told and from my surreptitious surveillance from the closet in the corner of the room, but this was the first time that the bottles were arranged for me.

Nonno Filippo used this time of the day to learn about wine, something he had done assiduously all his life. The eight wines were always selected in groups, always with something in common, but they could come from anywhere in the world. My grandfather used the time to compare the styles and analyze how the same grapes or blends could yield such different results, depending on where they were grown, the microclimate, winemaking strategies, and other factors. Today, all the wines displayed on the tasting table were based on the Sangiovese grape and, as if to make me feel at home on my first try at this routine, Beppo had selected all Tuscan wines.

Sangiovese has been grown in this region for centuries and it is responsible for many great wines, among them the perennial favorite — Chianti. The formula for Chianti was developed by Baron Bettino Ricasoli, the nineteenth-century lord of the Castello di Brolio. He also happened to be the first prime minister of Italy following its unification in the 1860s. His descendants still owned the property — the estate has been in the Ricasoli family since 1141 A.D. — and they still make world-famous wine from the vineyards surrounding the castle.

Sangiovese is also responsible for many other non-Chianti wines. There is, of course, Brunello di Montalcino, one of the most expensive wines in all of Italy. There"s also a host of so-called Super Tuscans — wines loosely based on Sangiovese, cabernet sauvignon, and other “foreign” grapes — blends winemakers believed were so good they didn"t need to comply with the Italian government"s restrictive laws in order to qualify for the moniker of Chianti.

The little grape is also the base for other, less well-known wines, but still popular and very good indeed. I gazed at the labels and saw that it was a hodge-podge of Sangiovese that Beppo had chosen for me that day. There were two bottles of Morellino di Scansano, a rich, ripe full-bodied red from the Maremma, a popular region of western Tuscany; three bottles of Sangiovese di Toscana from different properties; and two other Tuscan blends that included Sangiovese as the main component. Apparently just for fun, or perhaps to use as a benchmark, Beppo sneaked in a Sangiovese from Umbria, the region bordering Tuscany on the east.

All the corks were pulled but remained in the neck of the bottle. A simple, clear glass was positioned in front of each bottle, and a pad and pen were left at one end of the table, with the wines already listed on the top sheet of paper, including descriptions of the wines" origins, grape percentages, production levels, and approximate market price. There was no attempt to hide the identity of the bottles — this was not to be a blind tasting. Nonno Filippo"s goal at these afternoon tastings was to learn about the wines, not judge them, and he wanted as much information as possible at his fingertips to enhance the learning process. Beppo made certain that I would have the same advantage, and thanks to the comfort of routine, he didn"t feel that it was important to ask whether I agreed.

I pulled the cork from both Morellino wines and poured a small sample of each into nearby glasses. Then, lifting one glass in each hand, I walked to the window to take advantage of the afternoon sunlight streaming into the room. The wines were both remarkably deep purple-red, a sign of youth but also a sign of depth and concentration. I stuck my nose into the first glass, inhaled deeply, then withdrew it and repeated the action with the second wine. The first was very fruity and floral, with focused aromas of blackberry and toast, and a whiff of dust and earth for good measure. The second glass yielded a bouquet of rose petals, tobacco, black cherry and wet earth. Breathing deeply and examining both wines again in the window light, I took a mouthful of the first wine. It tasted like it smelled, but with slowly evolving layers of fruit, separating themselves into black cherry, raspberry, leather, and pipe tobacco. The second wine was less complex, favoring simple fruit flavors delicately balanced against accents of wet earth and mushrooms.

In this way, I worked my way around the table, tasting the wines in pairs or triplets, depending on the styles available, but always comparing each wine to something else. At one moment, with my nose plunged deep into a glass, I paused and smiled as I thought of my grandfather. This was what he did every day; this was his passion, and he would be standing here now tasting these very wines if he was still alive. The thought pained me a bit, but I was acclimating myself to the new arrangement, and I smiled at the thought that I was taking his place, that this was now going to be my routine. Catching myself in mid-reverie, I invoked a silent caution: I had not yet decided whether I was staying in Tuscany, and frankly didn"t know what I was going to do.

“Don"t go too fast,” I muttered aloud, to no one but myself, a caution that applied to tasting wine as well as sampling the other pleasures of life.