La Brancaia Il Blu 2006

La Brancaia Il Blu 2006: “La Brancaia Il Blu 2006

La Brancaia Il Blu 2006 is one of the best Super Tuscan wines around and with a growing reputation it won’t stay on my QPR doozy list for long. The 2006 vintage is sumptuous. A fantastic year for Merlot in Italy, that supple little grape has provided the knock out punch to the other great red of La Brancaia’s, Ilatraia. Usually, vintage after vintage these two wines can barely be separated both excellent though with very different flavour profiles. However, this year Il Blu is a baby giraffes neck ahead and with 96 points from Galloni and a Tre Bicchiere award, I had to get hold of this years vintage and see if the wine justified this stonking rating.

Swiss owned La Brancaia are foremostly fine exponents of Chianti Classico, and, like many other Tuscan estates with Chianti holdings, soon turned their attention to the cheaper and Bordeaux-esque Maremma to begin producing Super Tuscan wines. Still today these wines are wowing the critics. A little out of fashion in the noughties those in the know still swear by the Super Tuscan often rivalling, sometimes surpassing, the quality of Bordeaux and often for a fraction of the price. The interesting thing about Il Blu, a 50% Sangiovese, 45% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon wine is that it’s not actually from Maremma but grown within the Chianti jurisdiction.

The excellent thing about it, is that this wine can still be found for under £40. 96 Point wines at £40 are very few and far between especially from such a famous region. Although I wasn’t quite as impressed, to me 96 represents a unique barrier to push through, I happily award this wine 95 Points and a rubber stamped BUY.

As frequent readers of this blog will know, I spent 3 of the last 4 years living in Italy and one of the most beautiful things about it, excluding the people, countryside, food and wine, was the way these 4 qualities were often married. We spent many Friday evenings drinking and eating at the local Agriturismo’s, where you ate the produce from the working farms, many of these were not just farms and restaurants but also hotels too. At La Brancaia you can also take a vacation with a stunning location, great food and wine of course, and set yourself right in the heart of a gorgeous Italian wine holiday. Check it out here.

Back to the wine. I popped and poured the La Brancaia Il Blu 2006 on Sunday which, to be honest, was a good 5 years too early. The wines of La Brancaia, apart from the Chianti Classico which is surprisingly accessible young, should all be given at least 5 years in the cellar. Despite this it was very clear to see that this was a very special wine and after some time to breath I can say that, for 2009 so far, this is the best QPR wine of the year. If you love Italian wines you have to seek this out, if you are into Bordeaux you have to seek this out, if you collect wine to sell for profit… you have to seek this out. If an alien were to come down from Mars, point a gun to my head and forced me to choose just one wine to attempt to please his palate…I’d choose this wine.

Food Match: Duck, Pigeon or Venison.

Best Wines from this Producer: Consistently excellent within their varietal.

Chianti Classico
Brancia Il Blu
Tre
Ilatraia

La Brancaia Il Blu 2006 – BUY – £39
Deep dark ruby red edging on purple, the wine sits thick in the glass. On the nose you are taken on a power tour of fruit with cherries, plum and spicy vanilla oak. The wine is full bodied with the aromas carrying through to the attack. The mid palate is powerful and tannic at the moment but still enjoyable with the finish almost endless. Brilliantly structured, the wine hides the alcohol brilliantly and is sure to improve with age. 95 Points

Where can I buy this wine?
Europeans – Chicago WC – $47.50
Americans – Divine Golosita Toscane – €40
Brits – WineDirect – £39

Leave a Comment
Which wine would you give to an alien to showcase the best planet earth had to offer?

Italian Wine Blog – Wine90

“

(Via Italian Wine Blog – Wine90.)

Silence! The Last of the Giant Radio Telescopes Is Listening to the Universe

Silence! The Last of the Giant Radio Telescopes Is Listening to the Universe: “

<< previous image | next image >>

There’s a geek mecca in them thar hills. And don’t expect your iPhone’s GPS to guide you to it. Hidden in the green hills of West Virginia, in a 13,000-square-mile National Radio Quiet Zone, is the world’s largest fully steerable telescope.

The GBT (Great Big Telescope, Great Big Thing or Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, depending on whom you ask) is the most overbooked telescope in the world. The waiting list to get some time on this baby is long and prestigious. And with good cause: Its sensitivity to radio signals is unparalleled.

The telescope is so sensitive, in fact, that the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) has a van that drives around the surrounding countryside asking people to stop using their wireless speaker systems, electric fences, broadband wireless modems, military radar, etc. — anything that might interfere with the telescope’s readings.

With the growing popularity of radio-array telescopes, the GBT may end up being the last single-dish telescope of its kind built in the world. The difference between an array and a giant single-dish like the GBT is the difference between a zoom and wide-angle lens on your camera. The GBT is extremely good at finding a source in space by searching a wide area, while the radio array is like a telephoto lens that good at looking at the details.

Read on for a tour of this towering instrument of space exploration.

Above: The GBT is 485 feet tall, a nudge taller than the Statue of Liberty and a nudge shorter than the Washington monument. It was put into service in early 2000.

Below: The NRAO’s 140 telescope is just around the corner from the GBT. The 140 was out of service for a number of years, but has been brought back online in conjunction with an MIT project to study turbulent properties of the earth’s ionosphere.

Photos: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

“

(Via Wired Science.)