04 Monte Antico, Toscana IGT

A confusion of the senses. Tired, meddling, and petty, like a sick in-law snowed into your apartment for the weekend. This bottle just won't go away, and I keep taking it, keep holding my tongue. I'm trying not to offend anyone, but it's only getting worse. "Super Tuscan" or not (it is, allegedly, a "blend" of sangiovese, merlot, and cabernet, though I'd rather call it a "mixture"), there is nothing either super nor Tuscan about it. Forget terroir and the endlessly dry arguments about whether or not such "French" grapes belong in Italy (near the border, on virtually the same latitude as Bordeaux); if Toscana is about anything, it is about powerful flavors--in its acerbic Chiantis, its bloody, silken meats, its Valrhona-like cabs and merlots. So how's this get even an IGT designation? Monte Antico is a cheap ploy--bringing Super Tuscan to the masses, I suppose--that hardly understands the very wine it's trying to mimic. They might as well go all the way. Oh, stake out a full-page ad in one of the magazines, slap a critter on the label. Maybe a fox or sloth.