Feudi San Gregorio Falanghina 2006

Oz Clarke calls the Falanghina grape “high quality but little planted,” and says that it may have been responsible for Falernian, the most famous wine of ancient Rome. I’ve never tried it before, and while Wine Spectator hasn’t rated the 2006 vintage, this wine usually rates in the 88 to 90 range. So I jumped at the chance when I saw it was on sale for $20.

Unfortunately, at the first sniff I realized it was very lightly corked. Too bad, I thought, but a little bit of cork taint can ‘blow off’ and I can still get an idea of what the grape is like. When I tasted it the second “unfortunately” hit - it was insipid and empty. I had been half expecting this, as WS always recommended “drink now” for other vintages, so this wine is a couple of years past its prime drinking date. But still, I was hoping for a bit more.

I was writing up a post saying “don’t buy, this is over the hill.” At the same time I was searching WS to see what they had to say about cork taint generally, and I came across this comment: “At lower levels, TCA taint merely strips a wine of its flavor, making normally rich, fruity wines taste dull or muted, without imparting a noticeable defect.” This made me realize that I can’t rate this wine, even on a ‘this is how it rates now’ basis, since the lack of flavour may be due to the cork taint. But I thought I’d post this anyway, since the experience was an education for me. I’m familiar enough with the obvious musty smell of cork taint, but the more subtle effect of robbing a wine of flavour is something I hadn’t known about.

So, is this wine over the hill, or is it just that the low level cork taint robbed it of flavour? My bottle was uninspiring either way, but I’d certainly be interested to hear if anyone else tries this wine.

Price: $19.32
Score: No score
Value: No value
Region: Italy, Campania
Tasted: March 2009
UPC: 8022888650018