Posts Tagged Piquentum

The World Atlas Of Wine asserts that Croatia is “a country full of original, if elusive, rewards…” It helps then, to have someone like Sasha of the distributor Tasty Wine Company separate the rubies from the garnets. He turned me on to an Istrian winery called Piquentum, which makes some fascinating stuff.

Back in May, I wrote about my experience with the Piquentum Teranum in this post. Though clearly well made, this wine simply wasn’t to my taste (more an indication of a flaw in my palate than in the wine, surely). I let the other bottle of Piquentum wine, a 2009 Istrian Malvasia, languish on my shelf for months thereafter.

It was worth the wait. This wine was most certainly to my taste.

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When traveling, I frequently buy a few bottles of the local wines and/or spirits, seduced by their unavailability in Chicago. Especially when the dollar was stronger, vinous ballast would accumulate in my suitcases until the handles buckled and the seams began to unravel.

My greatest triumph was to return from Italy with no fewer than 13 bottles of hooch divided between my checked bag and carry-on. It was January 2002 — a dollar bought 1.15 euros, and you could bring as much liquid as you damn well pleased onto the plane. Blessed memory.

Since then I’ve managed to bring my booze-buying addiction under control, partially through self-restraint but mostly through the depredations visited upon the U.S. dollar by noted economists George W. Bush and Barack Obama.  I memorably escaped from Burgundy — Burgundy — with just six bottles, and more recently, I returned from Vietnam with one lonely bottle of snake wine.

(To pack wine safely in your suitcase, I recommend slipping each bottle into three or four medium-thick socks. With my hard-sided luggage, I have yet to lose a bottle. …Knock on wood.)

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Many people think of Teran, when they think of it at all, as a varietal, which it is, except when it isn’t.

Officially, Teran can only be grown in iron-rich terra rossa, the karst soils found in specific sections of northeastern Italy, Slovenia and Istria. “Teran” grapes grown elsewhere are merely Refosco (or Refošk). Teran then, by definition, is not just a varietal but an expression of its terroir.

I’d sampled some Slovenian Terans when I visited a few years ago, and honestly, I didn’t like them very much. They may very well have been well-crafted wines, but the notes of iron simply didn’t agree with me. I feel the same way about Bleu, Stilton and Gorgonzola cheeses — however lovingly and artisinally made they may be, I can’t get over the moldy taste. It’s a flaw, I know, but what can I do?

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