Nemo and Tinscvil
Castillo di Monsanto 1994

Wow! Here come Italian wines. Italian wine is a sort of root for me. I don't know which one is the first bottle I bought, but the very first bottle I bought for myself is Folonari's Bardolino. It was about 1,000 yen and I thought it was pretty reasonable. Thus I started my life with wine.

I came across with Nemo a long ago. At that night, my friend and I finished a bottle of Chianti Classico (a pretty old one, probably back in 1969) and we wanted more. So we asked a sommelier (the only sommelier then that was qualified by the Italian authority) to offer us some other Chianti so that we could compare them. Then he recommended us Nemo (of course mentioning that it was not really a Chianti). It was a fine combination of Sangiovese's fruitiness and Cabernet's strength. During the next two years, Nemo was always on my mind when I had to choose from a list of Italian wines. But I couldn't find one.

In late 1999, I went to a small rural town called Fukui with my family, where we lived for four years in 1980's. We dropped in an Italian restaurant called Cuccine (too easy an name, perhaps) for dinner. It had a wonderful cellar, and all the wines were offered at very reasonable prices. Among them, we found a Nemo. The delicate ballance of Sangiovese and Cabernet was still there, but this time Cabernet was a bit stronger and it took quite a while until we fully appreciated the sweetness of ripe Sangiovese.

It was a month or so later that I found Tinscvil in my town. Tinscvil is also made up of Sangiovese and a bit of Cabernet Sauvignon, but it's totally different from Nemo. When you drink Nemo, you will think (as I did) that basically it is a Sangiovese wine and Cabernet adds strength to it. But Tinscvil, though surely containning Cabernet's flavour, is more delicate and subtle than other Sangiovese 100% wines. One might say that Songiovese's fruitiness is maximally extracted by the addition of Cabernet. You may notice the note of fruits ever more. The name of Tinscvil means a tribute to the God. Drinking Tinscvil, you will thank the nature for giving us such great wines.

Many people, like Hugh Johnson, warn that addition of Cabernet to other softer varieties do not always yield a good blend. Here I completely agree with them. Blending grapes do not always mean blending different tastes; the blended species do not merely complement each other, they interactive more.