Winter Wine Journeys Track Glowing Notices
26 February 2025
Buongiorno ~
Winter allows winemakers greater latitude for travel, than the active growing season, enabling many colleagues from the Northern Hemisphere to converge in leading food-and-wine capitals of the world, to share information and wines with each other and the public. As I write, I have just returned from such a gathering in Paris, and in a few days I depart for another in Miami. This year, an accompanying stream of applause in the critical media highlights our wines as not to be missed — a welcome magic carpet, to the palates of many new followers, but also an obligation, for me to facilitate the introduction.
In my travels in Europe, I happily exploited my duty to present our wines at Vin Expo in Paris, with a treasured prelude of a few days in the company of my brothers in Piemonte, near our childhood home outside Alba. Also while there I was able to share a rustic reunion dinner in the village of Carrù, the “Gateway to the Langhe” Nebbiolo growing region, with colleagues from the Zonin Family wine estates of Italy, hosted by Domenico Zonin and accompanied by one of the leading wine consultants of Italy, Beppe Caviola. Dating from the Middle Ages, Carrù is the site of the historic, intensely popular annual Festival of the Fat Ox ( Bue Grasso), which had just concluded only weeks before.
Held this past year in mid-December, the festival celebrates the vital, living tradition of esteemed Piemontese-bred cattle, and had been attended by more than 15,000 visitors from all over Europe. We were fortunate to enjoy our feast in Carrù on beef tartare, as well as the classic Bollito Misto, which I could not resist preparing for you in video to accompany our Nebbiolo Reserve 2021. It’s naturally my pleasure to demonstrate the simplicity of one of the great dishes of my homeland, and its appeal with its most treasured wine. I hope you will notice the apron of Dalmatian design, made famous in the kitchen of my longtime friend and inspiration, Chef Patrick O’Connell of The Inn at Little Washington. Any blunders in the preparation are entirely my own 🙂
Prior to Vin Expo in Paris, Vert de Vin (“VV,” below) published tastings of our wines which lent very welcome attention to our table, at the booth which we shared with several other Virginia producers. In a wine exhibition convening some 4,000 individual brands, worldwide, presenting upwards of 50,000 wines, the widely circulated report in Vert de Vin furnished a high-profile platform, making the event a great success for us, and for the region as a whole.
Now, looking ahead to James Suckling’s Great Wines of the World/USA events in Miami at the end of this week, we are preceded by tasting reports at JamesSuckling.com (“JS,” below) which not only support interest in what we’ll be pouring, but which update a loyal clientele we’ve cultivated there for many years. These two distinguished tasting reports frame several of our most popular wines, with a strongly positive consensus :
Cabernet Franc Goodlow Mountain 2017 VV, 95
Cabernet Franc Goodlow Mountain 2019 VV, 96
Cabernet Franc Goodlow Mountain 2021 JS, 94
Cabernet Franc Reserve 2022 VV, 92
Fiano Reserve 2021 VV, 92/93
Fiano Reserve 2022 JS, 92
Nascent 2019 VV, 94
Nascent 2020 JS, 94
Nebbiolo Reserve 2020 VV, 93/94
Nebbiolo Reserve 2021 JS, 92
Octagon 2007 VV, 94
Octagon 2015 VV, 92
Octagon 2016 VV, 93
Octagon 2017 VV, 94
Octagon 2020 VV, 94
Octagon 2021 JS, 93
Paxxito 2019 VV, 98
Paxxito 2021 JS, 93
Vermentino Reserve 2023 JS, 91
Vermentino Reserve 2022 VV, 92
Viognier Reserve 2023 JS, 93
Our vast wine assemblies unfailingly feel surprisingly intimate for us, with the attention of a worldwide community of critics focusing on our latest vintages with eager attention. The vital center of this following, however, is certainly the reader of these Winemaker Notes. I’m happy to report, it doesn’t matter, where we go. There’s a destination we know, beyond Paris and Miami. With fine wine to be opened, we return to the world of shared pleasure.
Cordialmente ~
Luca Paschina Winemaker
