Palazzone Terre Vineate Orvieto Classico Superiore 2009

Palazzone’s Terre Vineate Orvieto Classico Superiore is consistently outstanding year after year, and the recently released 2009 Palazzone Terre Vineate Orvieto is no exception. It offers up its usual feast for the eyes as well as the senses. Soft, savory scents of wildflowers and dried honey emanate from the sun kissed 2009 Palazzone Terre Vineate. Soft and seductive it carries the intoxicating scents of spring in every draught of its delightful bouquet. Moreover, all of this lovely Orvieto’s olfactory goodness follows through on the palate, so that each and every sip of the 2009 Palazzone Terre Vineate Orvieto recalls spring and the vernal awakening amidst the budding green and amber-hued hills that surround Orvieto. This Orvieto Classico, like the vaulted town of Orvieto itself, appears timeless – a cross between the ancient and the eternal. The 2009 Palazzone Terre Vineate combines the best attributes of the golden-hued abboccato style of Orvieto, for which Orvieto was once famous, with all of the freshness and vivacity of contemporary Orvieto. In the 2009 Terre Vineate, the Dubini family has fashioned a dry, captivating wine of grace, elegance, and distinction that speaks directly to the senses. It purveys a truly aesthetic quality, worthy of the city for which this distinctive wine is named. Some prefer drinking the Terre Vineate moderately chilled (40° F or below), while others will favor sipping this Orvieto cool, rather than cold. In our experience, the seductive side of Orvieto blossoms with a more ambient temperature, so consider allowing the 2009 Terre Vineate to sit in the glass a few minutes before consuming, but as you like it.

In Orvieto, the wine that bears the name of Italy’s most illustrious hill town is best known as an aperitif or a starter wine with a delicate first course. Hence, the 2009 Palazzone Terre Vineate serves as a wonderful aperitif and much more. Displaying more body and flavor than most contemporary Orvieto, the 2009 Terre Vineate offers splendid accompaniment to fish, pork, lightly smoked meats, and cheeses. A simple grilled fish, served with a creamy cheese polenta, provides one of our favorite companions to Palazzone’s Orvieto. Sautéed scallops in a cream sauce, served with homemade pasta, lentils and peas, provide another superb pairing. For those seeking heartier fare, pea and lentil soups pair beautifully with this wine, too, as does a thick bread and cabbage soup with a cheese crust – the kind that is served in homes and local trattorias throughout northern and central Italy. And remember, with the comely 2009 Terre Vineate one always has the welcome option of serving only fresh fruit, a bit of cheese, and freshly baked bread. Enjoy!

Palazzone is a stunning estate that sits atop a hill overlooking the venerable hill town of Orvieto. A more appropriate testimony to the illustrious name of Orvieto would be hard to find, as the estate and the wine at Palazzone do justice to the accolades and the unabashed praise that millennia of joyful Etruscans, Romans, and assorted moderns have heaped upon Orvieto and its seductive white wine. Orvieto Classico is certainly the most representative wine of Umbria; it can also be one of Italy’s most consistently delightful white wines. Unique among Italy’s white wines for its complex blend of five varietals, Orvieto is rarely an easy wine to make because of differing ripening timetables for each of its five varietals and the requisite difficulty of proportionate blending. Palazzone incorporates in artful fashion all five of the traditional varietals into its Orvieto: Procanico, Verdello, Grechetto, Malvasia and Drupeggio. For centuries, Orvieto was a semi-sweet wine, not unlike France’s Vouvray, but today nearly all Orvieto is vinified dry. Some producers still turn out small quantities of amabile or abboccato, the designations given to sweet Orvieto, but the very finest producers like Palazzone seem to impart a wonderfully rich, silky body and an intensely fruity bouquet to their wine, without the residual sugar that most contemporary wine drinkers eschew. Thanks to the Dubini family, the present guardians of Palazzone, their estate is now the zone’s benchmark for quality. The Dubinis bought the estate in 1970. Within two years they had resurrected and restructured the neglected property and fashioned it into what has become the model estate in Orvieto. The semi-abandoned country house was fixed up and 40 acres of vineyards were planted on soils of volcanic origin with ideal southeastern exposure. Molto bene!