5/19/10 updates

Gurrida, 'Victory', 100% Grenache, Sicilia 2002
-M+,beautiful brick color, raisin, stewed fruit, prune, cherry, raspberry, slightly oxidized.
Grenache main grape in Rhone blends and most Cotes du Rhone and Chateaunuef-du-pape. Yields soft, lightly colored yet full wines endowed with deep notes of strawberry and raspberry. It is particularly common in Spain as Garnacha, and Sardinia, as Canonnau,
The Gurrida estate, above the town of Randazzo at an altitude of 850 meters, comprises 36 hectares that are under water from late October to mid March, when the River Flascio breaks its banks.
Viticulturalists who have never actually seen the gnarled, unpruned vines protruding from the mirror of water refuse to believe their survival is possible.
Early 1800s planted with Grenache, the French variety, at the behest of Lord Nelson. When Lord Nelson's Sicilian property was divided up and sold in the late 1960s, the Cesarò family of nearby Giarre purchased the Gurrida estate.
A lawyer turned agriculturalist, Angelo Cesarò set to work on the abandoned vineyard in 1990, and he now produces a velvety red table wine that he has called Victory, in memory of Nelson's flagship at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805, when the British Navy destroyed Napoleon's fleet.

Terre del Principe, 'Castello delle Femmine', Terre del Volturno, Campania 2008- 50% Pallagrello Nero & 50% Casavecchia
Terre del Principe =The Prince’s Land
M+, Raspberry,candied cherry, baking spice, fresh black pepper, wood tannins, tart, smokey, bitter almond finish

Castello delle Femmine (Women's castle) named after an castle where young women went be trained in “ars amandi” or the art of love. The vintage made by hand during the last 20 days of october.

Poggio di Bortolone, Cerasuolo di Vittoria Classico, Sicilia 2006- Nero d' Avola and Frappato
-----Classic IT. Red, Med, bright red fruit, blackberry, cranberry, dried rose, acidic, hot earth with little spice.
Not New but a bit more info-
Terre del Principe, 'Fontanavigna',100% Pallagrello Bianco, Terre del Volturno, Campania 2008
-Named after old fountain in area- Hand picked in first few weeks of September.
Fresh fruit, apple, pineapple, melon, balanced with finish of dried apricots