Ministre Imperial, Comte Abbatucci 2010

Abbatucci’s 2010 Cuvee Collection Rouge: Ministre Imperial Jacques-Pierre-Charles Abbatucci – which receives minimal elevage in older demi-muids – is utterly unlike any other red of my experience (and thus far it’s the sole red wine in his series from ancient cepages that I’ve tasted). Geeks among us please note that this mind-bending cuvee comprises – in diminishing proportions of 22-8% each – Sciacarellu, Niellucciu, Carcajou-Neru, Montaneccia, Morescono, Morescola, and (hey, I recognize this one) Aleatico. An eerily lovely evocation of herbal and effusively-flowering scrub akin to that of the corresponding white, General de la Revolution soars from the glass accompanied by sweetly ripe, high-toned evocations of fresh and distilled cherry and strawberry. Here too – but even more strikingly given that the wine’s red – there is a remarkable alliance of textural creaminess with refreshment and levity, harboring only the faintest and then most mouthwateringly tea-like impression of tannin. Mint, tarragon, tonka nut, and pronounced piquant evocations of cherry pit and almond, accent and set into relief a luscious, polished, yet palate-stimulating torrent of fresh strawberry, cherry, and blood orange whose sense of sweetness would ordinarily only be approached in a wine of over-ripe flavors. But here the impression is entirely fresh-fruited, juicy, and buoyant, leading to a kaleidoscopically interactive, saliva-inducingly saline, uncannily energetic, and virtually endless finish. I lack any experience to speculate on the maturation of this ca. 2,000-bottle cuvee (first rendered in 2007). Methinks, though, that many of us will count ourselves lucky to be able to witness that evolution. (To verify vintage, consult the first two digits that appear in tiny print on the back label immediately after the capital “L.”)