2008 Ca’ Del Solo Muscat
A lovely sweet peach aroma, musky aromas of honey, some lychee and a bit of gentle spicyness. Light flecks of honey coated dried banana chips come through, which I really enjoy. You also get some super savoury elements backing up the sweet, spicy aromas with just the slightest hint of a diesel element (a good thing!). Almost like Randall Grahm has been doing work on his classic Citroen and then has made this wine after washing 99% of the oil off his hands! The palate has a medium weight body, which doesn’t tell the lie you tend to get from Alsatian aromatic wines which have a sweet, fuller nose and dry, light palate. This flows from nose to palate better than a majority of European Muscat at this price point. There are some really tasty spice and bitter citrus pith, masked at first by a round full fruit flavour and then released gently. The mid palate is all about tropical fruit and honeycomb wax, and then the palate dries up, delivers a little more spice and then reveals its party piece, a very clean, lemon driven finish. I really like this wine. 8.5/10
2007 Ca’ Del Solo Albarino
It is almost as if someone has got hold of a piece of flint, squeezed a grapefruit over it and then dropped a single drop of orange oil on the rock. This wine has a lovely sweet and zesty citrus aroma, mixed with some ginger skin giving it a bit of spice. The palate has crisp apple and lemon, mouth wateringly zingy fruit and then a savoury(dried orange?) and grapefruit pith flavour. It has a long, very long, subtle citrus and spice finish, with (perhaps) just a little too much acid for me – but I am drinking this at room temperature and without food, which I think would cover that up. Not the sign of a bad wine by any stretch of the imagination, just me trying the wine in a state that most people won’t! It is so crisp, and so clean, this is a super Albarino, and reminiscent of a couple of wines I’ve had from Northern Portugal. This is a stonker of a wine. 8.5/10
2005 Ca’ Del Solo Nebbiolo
There is a British shot putter called Geoff Capes who was Commonwealth Games champion twice, and won the World’s Strongest Man competition twice. This man was all about power, but a little known thing about him was that he breeds budgerigars. Imagine this massive man, with supreme power having the most delicate touch, handling tiny, fragile baby budgies! This wine is like Geoff Capes in that it has massive power, but has a soft, gentle element just containing all that strength.
Initially, you get richer, sweeter berry fruit, and some cherry syrup on the nose, and then it has dark liquorice melted on a hot road aroma coming through. But then you get the violets and hints of chocolate covered Turkish Delight giving it that exceptional gentle element. The palate displays some up front tannin, a kick of spice, and then cherry stone and a tar element, and then you get a flavour that reminds me of lavender, once again providing the silky element containing the power. The finish has a lot of acidity, cleaning your mouth of the sour cherries and tar leaving a long finish. Barolo watch out, this outperforms everything at its price point. 9/10
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