Review: PassioneSentimento Rosso

In Italy, as well as in Europe in general, wine is heavily regulated. In order to sell a wine with a specific designation, winemakers must follow specific guidelines related where the grapes are grown, types of grapes used in a wine, ageing of the wines, winemaking processes, etc. In many ways, I think this regulation is a good thing. It creates some stylistic consistency and gives consumers some level of confidence regarding what to expect from a wine.

While those regulations, rules, guidelines, whatever you want to call them, are good in many ways, it’s also interesting to see what happens when winemakers break those rules. Sometimes a tasty and interesting wine is the result. Such is the case with this wine.

PassioneSentimento Rosso, from Famiglia Pasqua, breaks about 10 different rules for a red wine from this region in Veneto: a Merlot-dominant blend, grape provenance, vinification timing and aging regimen, to name a few. In fact, the name itself is a play on how the winemakers bent the rules while making this wine. It’s a play on words in reference to the appassimento process, in which grapes are dried (like raisins) before vinification. It’s the process used to make Amarone, where the grapes are dried for four months, removing up to 60% of the water from the grapes. This concentrates the sugars and flavors, resulting in a wine with very concentrated flavors. For PassioneSentimento Rosso, Pasqua winemakers used what you might call an appassimento-light process. They dried the grapes for 4-6 weeks, which removed only 15-30% of the water. This gives the wine some of character of an appassimento wine, at a fraction of the cost, but they weren’t allowed to label the wine as an appassimento. Instead, they came up with the similar sounding name, which translates to mean “passion and feeling.”

This wine is part of Pasqua’s “Romeo & Juliet” line, although you don’t see Romeo and Juliet specifically spelled out on the label. The design of the label, however, is inspired by the Romeo & Juliet wall in Verona, Italy, where you will find graffiti to Juliet.

The wine itself is good. The nose is really interesting, with dusty herbal aromas, spices like nutmeg and black pepper, and berry aromas like raspberry, cherry and strawberry. The palate delivers vibrant cherry, raspberry, raisin and spice flavors with good acidity and a nice mouthfeel. The finish is long with lingering berry and spice flavors.

Wine: Famiglia Pasqua, Romeo & Juliet, PassioneSentimento, Rosso
Varieties: 40% Merlot, 30% Corvina, 30% Croatina
Vintage: 2017
Alcohol: 14%
Rating: 87
Average price: $16.00
Disclosure: This wine was received as a media sample.

What others say about this wine:

• Wine Casual
• It’s a Winederful Life
• The WineKnitter

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