Blogcast: Gregory Smolik and the wines of COS, Sicily
I tasted with Gregory Smolik yesterday at the Domaine Select portfolio tasting in New York City. You may remember Greg from last year’s Real Wine World project. Greg is now the Midwest Regional Manager at Domaine Select.
Although he’s no longer on his own, he still has his passion for the wines of Italy. I recorded us tasting the wines from the biodynamic producer COS from Sicily. COS owner Giusto Occhipinti (pictured right) was there but he does not speak English. As with the philosophy of biodynamics, the wines are made in an extremely natural style complete with respect for the lunar cycle. These wines from indigenous grape varieties are also fermented in terra cotta amphoras.
We taste three wines:
1. Rami 2005, a white wine made from insolia and grecanico grapes (find this wine)
2. Pithos 2005, a light red made with nero d’avola and frappato. This was my favroite wine of the three. (find this wine)
3. Cerasuolo di Vitorra, a red aged in old oak barrels (find this wine)
Listen to Greg from the floor of the tasting talking about food pairings, using wood in winemaking, and descriptors such as “the inside of a walnut shell.” Find out which wine Greg says “you and I could drink three bottles each of this and we wouldn’t get a headache!”
Listen here (12 minute mp3 file)
Thanks for the audio help, Tim!
tags: wine | biodynamic| Sicily
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On October 18th, 2006 at 5:48 pm ,Anonymous wrote:
You are very welcome, Doc. Welcome to the wine audio club
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Tim Elliott
Winecast
On October 24th, 2006 at 12:29 pm ,Anonymous wrote:
The wines sound great. How much are they?
On November 1st, 2006 at 7:51 am ,Dr. Vino wrote:
To anonymous,
I wrote Greg. These are the ballpark retail prices he said:
Rami $19 -22
ceresuolo di vittoria $22- 26
Pithos $39 – 41
On November 12th, 2006 at 7:31 am ,Anonymous wrote:
This article caught my eye because of the name. My maiden name is Smolik, my father’s family was from Bohemia. (I know it’s a common name there, but we don’t see to many Smolik’s here.) I must say, the information on wines from Greg is well-prepared and interesting.