Not long ago Jeff told me that a retailer had tasted a Domenico Selections wine and declared that it was "tanky."
"Tanky!" I exclaimed. "What the hell does that mean?"
Another kind of tanky
A curious comment because the wine is not, strictly speaking, a stainless steel-dwelling wine at all. It ferments in steel and ages in concrete vats. "He said it lacked roundness -- too tannic and rustic," Jeff told me. "He liked the other one though." The other one being the same producer's aged-in-large-wooden-barrels version.
Obviously, the lack of wood was the critical element here. The retailer preferred the oaked wine from the same producer, and from other producers as well. While he was doubtless thinking of the wines' appeal to his customers, the very word "tanky" strikes me as a visceral, personal reaction to a flavor profile that simply isn't the guy's favorite.
Different strokes.
I for one tend to prefer the "tanky" version of whatever wine is on offer. Less wood, the better. If the DOC or DOCG requirements include aging in wood, I'm going to prefer the wine that has a more integrated wood treatment, where the wood is in the background -- a supporting player, not the scene-stealing second banana. Part of it is from a desire to taste the fruit and the varietal characteristics clearly. Part is it because for me "woody" is as disparaging a term as "tanky" is to someone else.
A Guide to DS Tankiness
So, for the public good, here is a list of the Domenico Selections wines that age in steel and/or cement, touching no wood except on the vine:
Reds
Mustilli Piedirosso
Musto Carmelitano Serra del Prete (the tanky one, which is the one I prefer -- but that's me))
Villa Monteleone Campo Santa Lena
Whites
All of the I Stefanini Soaves and Spumante
All of the Angelarosa wines
Mustilli Falanghina and "Vigna Segreta" Falanghina
Mazzone Immensus Malvasia
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