Down Your eGullet: weekly Italian Wines

[Craig Camp]

VinoCibo.com Cellar Selection

2001 Perticaia Sagrantino di Montefalco, DOCG, Umbria (92)

Dense, brilliant ruby with purple highlights. Firm, concentrated ripe and bitter cherry aromas with touches of iodine, butcher shop and sweet oak. Smooth and voluptuous with dense sweet dark wild raspberry flavors balanced by an intense bitter cherry that dominates the sweet fruit and oak. The clean bitterness continues to balance the sweet cassis finish. Under all this fruit you can still find some firm tannins that suggest a few years of bottle age to get rid of all this baby fat. This is one big wine, yet shows breeding. ($40) A Jens Schmidt Selection-Imported by Montecastelli Selections.

VinoCibo.com Sottodieci - good wines for around $10

2003 La Carraia Sangiovese, IGT, Umbria (87)

This fresh, crisp sangiovese is the work of super-star enologist Riccardo Cotarella and is a tremendous bargain for everyday drinking. It is a brilliant light ruby and both the aromas and flavors are packed with delicious ripe cherry fruit laced with a bitter tobacco touch. I wish more Italian restaurants would get rid of the thin commercial Chianti wines they pour and use wines like this with real sangiovese varietal flavor. A Leonardo LoCascio Selection-Imported by Winebow.