On August 20, 2011, wine critic Antonio Galloni talks of his travels in Tuscany on eRobertParker.com. Galloni had the chance to taste the grapes and walk through three great Merlot vineyards. Check out his comments on Petrolo’s Galatrona in his post below.
“On Thursday Tua Rita was harvesting the last of their old vine Merlot for Redigaffi. We will have a video up in a few days. Further north in Bolgheri (about 45 mins away by car) I walked through several of the Merlot parcels at Ornellaia used for Masseto. Here the fruit was much more backward and probably won’t be picked for another 3-4 weeks. It is amazing how different the raw fruit is in these vineyards and in the various sub-parcels. You could spend an entire lifetime trying to understand the subtleties.
Yesterday I traveled to Petrolo, where I tasted a number of samples of Merlot right off the vine. The fruit showed wonderful density and staying power on the palate. Proprietor Luca Sanjust told me the fruit is about a week away from being ready.
So far the fruit is looking good, but it is an early harvest, even by recent standards. -Antonio Galloni”
