Sagrantino – how will it fare in the new era?

Nebbiolo, considered Italy's most tannic grape variety and especially impressive and powerful in its Barolo guise (see yesterday's report on our night tasting Barolo 2010), has a contender that can beat it at its own game: Sagrantino (see more than 80 tasting notes below).

This unique Umbrian red variety, which originates from around the town of Montefalco, produces compact bunches of small berries whose skins show an extremely high concentration of polyphenols, resulting in deeply coloured wines loaded with tannins. The name Sagrantino derives from the Latin sacer, or sacred, a reference to its historical use in communion services...