It has been a few years since that event held at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome. It was Luca Maroni's "Sensofwine", a grand tasting event with tasting tables that ranged far and wide across the best of Italian wines. It was on that occasion that I met the children of Mimmo Pasetti, and in particular Francesca with her red hair, just like grandmother Rachele, who gives her name to the Montepulciano Testarossa, one of the flagship products of this fine Abruzzese estate.
We talked about the Pasetti family's wines and about Montepulciano as one of the most interesting and promising varieties. At the end of the flight of wines presented by Pasetti at the event, I found myself with a deep, impenetrable red in my tasting glass. The Harimann.
Frankly, it took me by surprise – it was light years away from my idea of Montepulciano. Opulent, it drew glycerin arches on the glass, sumptuous in its wide-ranging aromas that spoke of amarena cherries in spirit, blueberry, cinchona – a wine from which there emerged, on the nose, an Arab market full of oriental spices, tobacco, and wafts of rosemary.
On the palate it responded with power, with an alcohol content approaching 15.5%, velvety tannins well-supported by freshness, with an endlessly persistent finish and a chocolatey close. A stunning wine, the product of a late harvest, with grapes picked in the first ten days of November for greater sugar concentration, trained on a tendone system with low yields not exceeding 80 quintals per hectare at the foot of the Gran Sasso, which overlooks the vineyard of Pescosansonesco.
A wine that fears no comparison with the finest Amaroni della Valpolicella.
The Harimann is a bold departure from the norm, a jewel in the crown of an estate that represents the best of Abruzzese winemaking.
Not an easy pairing for this colossus, capable of overpowering almost any food – a meditation wine, to be drunk at the end of a meal, perhaps accompanied by an aged Pecorino di Farindola Dop*.
To be continued……………
* Pecorino di Farindola Dop, a Slowfood Presidium, is a cheese produced in a limited territory spanning several municipalities between the provinces of Teramo and Pescara, on the Gran Sasso, including Castelli and Farindola, from which it takes its name. It is an ancient cheese, also mentioned by Pliny the Elder, unique in the world because it is made with pig rennet, which gives it a distinctive spiciness. It is crafted exclusively by the women of the villages belonging to the Consortium, using milk from Pecora Pagliarola sheep. It has the scent of herbs that grow in spring on the Gran Sasso, slightly spicy and aromatic, with an ivory paste tending toward yellow as it ages. Difficult to find. It can be purchased on-site or from Eataly.
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