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2017 Giampiero Bea Lapideus Umbria Bianco $75 bottle
Giampiero acquired a parcel of 80-year-old Trebbiano Spoletino in the town of Pigge di Trevi several years back, and 2017 marks the fourth vintage of this exciting addition to the Bea lineup.
“Lapideus” spends a month on it skins after pressing, followed by over 200 additional days on the gross lees. Racy, with a precise sense of acidity, the wine emphasizes drive over density and an underlying salinity.
A subtle note of honeyed sweetness at the wine’s core speaks of its warm-climate origins, and Bea’s propensity for wildness reveals itself in a fascinating cheese-rind whisper in its aromatics.
2015 Paolo Bea Rosso de Veo Sagrantino $80 bottle
This 2015 is Mike Tyson in his prime: potent, assertive, brazen, and making no concessions to polite society. Monstrous in its tannins, it nonetheless presents them in such a multifaceted way as to almost transcend their viselike grip; the tannins themselves have layers, offering classic sandalwood spice on one level, mineral-saturated depth-charge stoniness on another, and—most thrillingly—a direct, naked evocation of crunching into dripping-ripe berries. Four years of élévage did nothing to blunt this astonishing wine’s unmitigated expression of freshly plucked grapes, and this is a monumental “Rosso de Veo” that should live for a very, very long time.
2015 Paolo Bea Pagliaro Montefalco Sagrantino $120 bottle
Bea produces perhaps his most renowned wine from pure Sagrantino grown on the prized hilltop site of Pagliaro, situated at 1300 feet above sea level in Montefalco proper.
This 2015 is absolutely jaw-dropping in its intensity and presence. Bea’s wines at their best offer a panoply of spices so intoxicating, so far-reaching, so evocative, as to nearly defy belief. The only wines that approach Bea’s in that regard are perhaps the most un-sculpted Syrah-based wines of the Northern Rhône, but even those feel as if they have governors on their accelerators in comparison to top vintages of “Pagliaro.”
Similarly large in scale to the “Rosso de Veo,” this actually presents with greater precision and nuance, its overall attack more subtle but ultimately no less impactful—direct evidence of a great terroir translated with consummate skill.
