Rosso di Montalcino, Pertimali 2003

Italian wines offer wonderful value. Not necessarily the most commonly held view, yet one I hold true. Take last nights wine at a dinner party hosted by my cousins. I'd sold them this wine and was thus a little on-the-line as to whether it was going to hold up to a very slow roasted shoulder of pork. It was magnificent. It tips the scales at £15 and for that you get a wine that drew oohs and aahs when each person took the time to have a good long moment with it. There is nothing flashy about Pertimalis Rosso. Grown in the cooler northern part of Brunello it is wine as wine should be. A partner. A cradle. Complex, a conversation piece, full of character. Not in your face, "oh what a card" stuff. Subtle, refined, intrigueing. The sort of person you'd choose to sit on a train for 10 hours with. Evelyn Waugh not Alex Garland.

I suggested David decant it some three or four hours in advance. I'd done a little experiment at work. When we came to sit down there it was, open, but still not fully. Perfect. Gas in the tank. There was something curiously Bordeaux-esq about the nose. Old Bordeaux though, something like 1978 or a 1975. Definitely Medoc. Then the warm tanned leather works its way in followed closely by bramble and hawthorne and you're no longer in France. You are somewhere innately more concerned with texture and earth elements. Finally, at a further swirl, a sense of mocha and dark chocolate fills the glass. See what I mean? This is character. If the nose carries on it's shoulders a vague sense of austerity and the world worn traveller the palate is broad, generous and ripe. There are ample tannins, mouth coating layers of berry fruit and amazingly for such a warm vintage, a freshness of acidity. We are talking man-on-wire balance here. Matched with the salty pucker of slow cooked pork in all it's sweetly saline juices it was tremendous.