Ask any experienced sommelier for list of iconic Italian producers, and Paolo Bea is sure to be on it. Bea is most known for his incredible and age worthy expressions of Sagrantino, and he has been an icon and champion for native Italian wines for years. For those unfamiliar, Sagrantino is Umbria's signature indigenous grape and by far their most prized. It's a burly, powerful variety known for roaring tannins and crunchy, ripe black fruits with notes of smokey cedar and tons of herbs and spices like anise and rosemary. If high tannins are your thing then Sagrantino is your perfect match. These wines are intense and fiery in their youth but also bursting with charm and powerful fruit that stands up to and even harmonizes with the muscular structure. Paolo Bea is an icon for a reason as he somehow manages to tame this wild beast of a grape and turn it into some of the most seductive and pleasurable wines of Italy.
While Paolo Bea's style is sometimes put in the natural wine camp, the family's winemaking experience dates back over 500 years, and the wines are just incredibly traditional and without any modern, flashy winemaking techniques. In essence, Paolo was making "natural wine" before natural wine was even a thing. Despite their low sulfur additions, zero new oak, and more rustic traditional winemaking, these powerful, tannic, behemoths crafted from the classic varieties of the Central Italian waistline are generously ripe and fleshy and often clock in around 14.5 to 15% ABV. These wines are often so big in youth they would make any Napa wine but Harlan Estate pink in the cheeks. As high-end Italian importer Neal Rosenthal puts it "Bea’s wines remain singular—boisterous, unabashedly wild expressions of their undulating, sun-drenched hills of origin, each new vintage of which is eagerly anticipated by a legion of loyal clients." Their opulence and grippy tannic structure is balanced by a space opera of exotic spices, herbs and aromatics tantrically woven into a velvet fabric. These are a must try for vinous explorers and all those passionate about Italian wine. If you love rustic, traditionally made wines or native Italian grapes and have not discovered these yet, welcome to your next dream wines. - BRANDON KERNE, MASTER SOMMELIER
Per Rosenthal Wine Merchant (Paolo Bea's US Importer): “Rosso de Véo” is a selection of the Bea estate’s younger Sagrantino vines, principally from the Cerrete vineyard which graces the highest point in Montefalco, between 1300 and 1500 feet above sea level. The soil is clay and limestone infused with small pebbles from an ancient riverbed. This wine is vinified in a similar fashion to the single vineyard Sagrantino with a long cuvaison which extends forty to fifty days. The wine is then aged one year in stainless steel tanks, two years in large oak barrels and another year in bottle before release. The wine is not filtered. Production varies depending on vintage … 9000 bottles were produced in 2005, the first year this exclusively Sagrantino-based cuvée was created."
93 Points By Eric Guido, Vinous
"The 2018 Rosso de Veo is exotic, mixing crushed stone mineral tones with blackberries and dusty dried flowers. This is cool-toned and racy, sleek and slender, impressing with its vibrancy and saline-tinged wild berry fruits as violet florals cascade toward the close. Grippy Sagrantino tannins linger through the finish, yet the balance here is off the charts, as the 2018 tapers off potent yet still aiming to please. Forty-five days of maceration on the harmonious beauty, which also finished at a respectable 14% abv. Give this a short stay in the cellar and then reap the rewards."
3100BB
