Wine of the Week: Planeta La Segreta Rosso DOC
Wine: Planeta La Segreta Rosso DOC
Grapes: Nero d’Avola (50 percent), merlot (25 percent), syrah (20 percent)cabernet franc (5 percent)
Region: Sicily, southern Italy
Vintage: 2011
Price: $8.99
Availability: Lee’s Discount Liquor
In the glass: Planeta La Segreta Rosso is a deep crimson-red color with an opaque purplish core going out into a fine, slightly violet-to-pink red rim definition with medium-high viscosity.
On the nose: The wine brims with jammy crushed red and black berry character and cherry fruit soup. It has some phenolic and underlying roasted and toasty character, but that is playing second fiddle to all that delicious and fragrant juicy fruit that emanates from the bowl of the glass.
On the palate: It is a nice mouthful of a wine with juicy black and red slightly spicy fruit, blueberry pie, crushed pink peppercorns, sweet chewing tobacco, cherry juice, huckleberry sauce, ripe black berries, toast points and loads of chewy minerals. Although the tannins seem very forward through the midpalate, the wine actually appears measured and balanced despite its forward fruity appearance. The finish is excellent with yet more black cherries, crushed ripe brambleberries and good structure and backbone, and for a wine at less than $9 this has staggering fruit.
Odds and ends: This is one of my favorite everyday drinking wines. It is from the superb Sicilian producer Planeta, one of the great little family-owned wineries making tremendous value wines from this historic island. Try it with a medium-rare bistecca fiorentina (T-bone) and french fries. Drink it now through 2016.
Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.
