So I eagerly signed up for annual Gavi tasting, presented by the Gavi consortium. The introduction was provided by Lars Leicht, SOMMJournal, VP of Education. He started with the basics, like Gavi is a mirror image of the big reds from Barolo and Barbaresco, being a white made from the cortese grape. Like Barolo, it has 11 townships making about the same amount of wine: 13-million bottles. The grape is not highly aromatic, unlike say sauvignon blanc or gewürztraminer. The way Leicht described it as “like hanging out with a sullen teenager: You really have to coax it out.” But if you do, you’ll find white flowers and a hint of citrus, followed by a bitter almond finish, which Italians love. Leicht went on to talk about the difference between red soil (greater body and structure) and white soil (elegance, delicateness, and more aromatics). He then proceeded to discuss the weather in recent vintages. And with this background, we could finally dive in to taste.

There were 44 Gavi wines to choose from. Each person had a notepad identifying their seat and a booklet with all the wines numbered. We’d fill the six empty boxes with the six wines we wanted to try – and repeat. The only limit was time. I started with the wineries we’d been to on tour. These included Il Poggio, La Giustiniana, Villa Sparina, Broglia, and Michele Chiarlo. Then I proceeded to wineries I’d heard about, like La Toledana, La Ghibellina, La Bollina, Picollo Ernesto, and Enrico Serafino, but never visited. Next up were wineries I’d never heard of, like Marchese Luca Spinola, Ottosoldi, Produttori del Gavi, Roberto Sarotto, Tenuta San Pietro, and La Zerba.

The wines ranged from meh to rich to concentrated to perfumed. There were also Gavi wines that make a good aperitif with good minerality. I always love Gavi wines from Il Poggio (light-bodied with aromas of lemon/lime), Broglia (floral and intense), La Giustininia (great minerality). I also thought La Toledana was quite impressive in its richness. Michele Chiarlo’s Gavi was elegant – a characteristic of the estate – and with the bitter almond finish that’s typical of the cortese grape.

All in all, it was a great primer on Gavi – which for me needs no introduction.

For more on Gavi wine, see my feature story for TASTES OF ITALIA magazine: “Inside Gavi: Piedmont’s White Wine Town”.

There are always four itineraries and this time we picked the orange one, not having visited the wineries previously. Unfortunately, I was not in the best of shape for a day of drinking (and spitting; I always spit), because my birthday was the day before. We had wine-loving Italians over for a lunch, which featured six bottles of wine for four people. Needless to say, I was a bit bleary-eyed and worse for wear.

 Nonetheless, I soldiered on. Here are my favorites.

REIS

First stop was in Montemarzino in the piazza in front of the church. There was a tent set up with several wineries pouring their wares. These included Pomodolce, La Spinetta, Mauro Veglia, and Sassaia. There was also Rèis, my favorite of the bunch. Six high school friends from the Langhe hills banded together in 2019 to start making Timorasso. They buy organic grapes from two sisters in Berzano. Their Derthona Timorasso was very good for a first effort. I’ll be watching their progress.

PAOLO POGGIO

Paolo Poggio was a real discovery. It’s no wonder we never heard of him before, as his is one the smallest wineries (only 4 hectares of vineyards) in the Colli Tortonesi, where Timorasso grows. We were invited into his living room, where in addition to the wines, he served us grissini (Piedmont breadsticks) and two egg tarts seasoned with herbs. We were the only ones there, until an Italian couple arrived, maybe 10 minutes later. At that point, Paolo took them to another room and was replaced by his son, Matteo.

Paolo’s grandfather founded the winery in the early 1900s, and now Paolo works with his son -- the fourth generation. They make two Timorassos: Rochetta from a single vineyard planted in 1993, now 30 years old. The vine age gives great concentration and power. And Derthona, a Timorasso made from younger vines planted in 2020. By law, it has to age in cellar for two years, so it won’t be available until later this year. The Rochetta is a steal at 8 euros. We’ll be back for a case.

MANDIROLA

We joined a virtual party going on under Mandirola under a thatched garden awning. The Italians came in waves. There were also a Dutch beer judge, among others. This was quite a popular spot and I can see why based on the wines.

At Mandirola, there are older vines than Paolo Poggio’s, dating back to the 1930s. They make a heavenly Timorasso from 90+ year old vines called Tantéi. Enrico Mandirola’s grandfather founded the farm in 1913. At the time, the tradition was mixed agriculture – so a bit of grapes, wheat, and corn. The winery played a part in the revival of Timorasso, since Walter Massa, the man responsible for saving the grape, originally sourced his grapes from Mandirola’s vines. (To read more about Massa and the history and renaissance of Timorasso, see my article, “Talking Timorasso”.)

In addition to the Tantéi, they make two other Timorassos. Their entry-level Derthona is made from 30-year-old vines, which is quite impressive. Mandirola also makes a sparkling Timorasso called Mon Cavarè, using the metodo classico or champagne method. With 24 months of contact with the lees, it’s a great example of Timorasso’s potential as a sparkler. This was the only bottle we bought that day.

Til next year, Timorasso!

We went by motor scooter (whose odometer always says 0, but that’s another story). We arrived at 2 p.m. to find it already crowded. It was gratifying to see so many Millennials and Gen Xers, who have largely fallen off the band wagon for wine, abandoning it for cocktails and craft beer.

This wine region is called Oltrepò Pavese. It’s a largely an area of sparkling wine, mostly made with pinot noir and chardonnay. Sparklers represented at least 75 percent of the 80 wines at this tasting. Tables were lined up outside of Frecciarossa’s beautiful 19th century mansion.

So we dove in. The first sparkling wine that I loved was Podere Pavolini’s Becedasco Alto. It was atypical of the region, being refermented in bottle, akin to the col fondo style of traditional Prosecco, which is cloudy with unfiltered yeast. Most Oltrepò Pavese sparklers use metodo classico, the same process as in Champagne. Metodo classico wines are always clear as a bell.

The lady pouring Podere Pavolini’s wines also had an excellent malvasia, called Aquapazza (crazy water). It was a still wine, very floral with enticing notes of tropical fruit.

There were many other sparklers that were quite good. Among my favorites was Bosco Longhino’s Casto Brut, a metodo classico wine made with 100 percent pinot noir (or pinot nero, as it is called in Italy). It had citric freshness and seductive toast. The winery was founded in 1895, so they’ve had well over a hundred years to get it right.

Another favorite was Montelio’s 17 Fiorile 1803, rosé sparkler made from pinot noir grapes. This uses the Charmat Method, so the bubbles are done in tank, rather than in individual bottles. The result is bubbles that have the texture of sea foam, rather than organized like strings of pearls on a necklace, like in Champagne and metodo classico wines.

Last but least among the sparklers was Calatroni’s Riva Rinetti Pas Dosé. This wine comes from a single vineyard called Rinetti. Pas Dosé means no added sugar in the dosage. It’s another 100 percent pinot noir done with the metodo classico technique, as all Oltrepò Pavese Metodo Classico DOCG wines are. The wine ages on lees for 48 months, giving it nice biscuity notes.

We tried several Rieslings, but they were just meh. The same goes for the pinot noir vinified as a still red wine. Claudio like some of them, but to me they lacked varietal character.

But the sparklers made up for it. They were good as any Franciacorta – which, by the way, uses the same grapes. All in all, it was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon.

“Asolo Prosecco. It’s a completely different story,” goes the ad from the Asolo Consortium.

That’s true. Among top-of-the-line Proseccos, Asolo is a different territory — close to but separate from its more famous neighbor, Valdobbiadene-Conegliano — with a different history and different soils. But as one of only two Prosecco DOCGs, it’s little known.

That’s partly due to the fact that it was elevated to DOCG status relatively recently, in 2009. And despite its phenomenal growth since then, production is still dwarfed by its bigger, more famous brother. In 2021, bottles of Asolo Prosecco numbered close to 20 million. Valdobbiadene-Conegliano is five times that, at 100 million bottles. But both pale in comparison to the entry-level Prosecco DOC (560 million), which most people drink. The DOC comes from a far wider territory, which includes the flat plains, whereas both DOCGs come from steep hills, which makes a huge difference.

But Asolo’s obscurity is also due to its being largely ignored by the press when the topic comes to Prosecco Superiore. On a recent Wine Spectator online tutorial called “The ABCs of Prosecco Superiore,” Asolo wasn’t mentioned once, other than being shown on a map of Prosecco land as a whole. And that’s par for the course.

It reminds me of Chicago’s second-city syndrome. When I lived there, I worked in the art world, and New York City was the epicenter of the action. Chicago artists felt overlooked by collectors, dealers, and the art press, and gallery owners became furious if an artist decided to throw in the towel on Chicago and make the move to New York. Whaddya bet that winemakers in Asolo feel the same way about Valdobbiadene-Conegliano sucking up all the oxygen in the room.

The thing is, they make lovely wine. I had the chance to taste a few bottles of Asolo Prosecco on a Zoom webinar presented by the consortium (from Bedin, Bele Casel, Giusti, La Gioiosa, Perlage, and Tenuta Baron, to be specific). I found them all quite elegant and complex, with superfine bubbles. The appellation’s rules say that the wine should show “citrus notes (lemon, citron), fine and delicate honey notes, aromas of ripe apple and white flowers.” There’s also the characteristic green apple notes of the glera grape, which by law makes up at least 85 percent of the wine.

Like Proseccos everywhere, most Asolo Proseccos have their bubbles made in autoclave, using the Charmat method, or more properly, the Martinotti method. (Martinotti, after all, came up with the technique first and the Frenchman copied it later.)

Forbes writer Susan Gordon, who gave the Zoom presentation, did a good job explaining why glera does better in autoclave than with secondary fermentation in the bottle. “Why doesn’t the champagne method work in these hills?” Gordon asks rhetorically. “It doesn’t work because you have grapes here that are very delicate and very complex, but in a subtle way. Floral and beautiful fruited notes, there’s a lot of ginger in some of them and lemongrass. So the idea is, we don’t want to cover that up or complicate that with winemaking. So if you make them champagne style, you start to get secondary wine characteristics, like those bready or yeast notes.” In other words, glera can be done champagne style, but you lose a lot of primary fruit, which is its charm.

Asolo — like Prosecco as a whole — is enjoying an explosion in growth, particularly in the U.S., which consumes 55–60 percent of Asolo’s production. (Italians drink 30 percent.) Measured in hectoliters, production between 2014 and 2020 has climbed year by year: 22k, 39k, 58k, 95k, 128k, 140k.

Like all sparkling wines, there are levels of sweetness. The most traditional Asolo remains the most popular: Extra Dry. Extra Dry is considered medium-dry and contains a healthy dose of residual sugar: 12–17 grams per liter (g/l). Consumers love a bit of residual sugar, which adds to the wine’s fruity character. Extra Dry makes up almost three-quarters of production.

Next in line of dryness is Brut, which is drier than Extra Dry at 0–12 g/l and makes up 18% of production. (I know, it’s counterintuitive, but you just have to memorize the sweetness scale.) Most Bruts don’t go all the way down to 0. That’s reserved for a new typology (as of 2014) called Extra Brut, which is between 0–6 g/l. The name is intended to drive home its bone dryness. I’m in the minority who prefer this style, which accounts for only 2.5% of production. I’m happy to say that’s growing.

Maybe I’ll load up on it when I visit Asolo, which I’m hoping to do this spring. Judging from the pictures, it’s a lovely town. And knowing that Titian learned a lot about light from visiting this place is reason enough for this former art historian to go. Plus, there’s all the elegant Asolo Prosecco that awaits.

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of ruchè or grignolino. No one? That’s not surprising, because those grapes are pretty obscure.

Do yourself a favor and try both. Though they’re both native to Piedmont’s Monferrato region, the similarity ends there. Grignolino makes a wine that’s very pale in color, almost like a copper-tinged rosé, but don’t let that fool you; it packs a tannic punch. That’s due to the fact that it contains three or four times the seeds compared to other grapes, and seeds are tannin strongholds. Grignolino has delicate aromas that veer towards red fruit of the woods, like strawberry and red raspberry, as well as white pepper notes. I loved it at first sip. Chefs love it too because it doesn’t compete with the food. It’s a dry and clean dinner companion, with just enough tannic astringency to keep it interesting.

I love ruchè equally, but for different reasons. Whereas grignolino is lightly scented, ruchè packs a punch. It’s highly aromatic (which I adore) showing floral scents of violet and rose mixed in with berry and spice. It’s a pretty ruby-violet color, and there’s tannic potential here as well.

Obscurity wasn’t always the case for these wines — for grignolino at least, which was the everyday wine of Carlo Alberto, King of Piedmont in the early 19th century. In a 1877 treatise, Giorgio Gallesio wrote, “[Grignolino] is the grape that gives the best chance to make wines in the ‘French style’ ” — meaning aged in wood barrels. (Today, there are two competing styles: one is done entirely in stainless steel to emphasize the fruit; the other is matured in wood, as done historically.) And two centuries earlier, the Duke of Mantua, Ferdinando Gonzaga, would send his servants up to Monferrato to fetch his regular supply of grignolino.

Ruchè is a bit more obscure. We know it originates from Castagnole Monferrato and was forgotten for a long time. Its revival in the 1960s was led by the town’s village priest, named Don Giacomo Caudo, who was also a winegrower. It took a while, but the revival worked. In 1988, there were just 10 hectares planted. By 2016, there were 150. That’s still quite small in the scheme of things. Fortunately ruchè grows well, managing in spots that even the workhorse barbera can’t ripen. Originally, families drank barbera and grignolino for everyday and kept ruchè for special occasions, possibly because of that hint of aromatic sweetness or because of its aging potential.

On a trip in November sponsored by the Consorzio Barbera d’Asti e Vini del Monferrato, I visited two new wineries that specialize in these grapes.

Hic et Nunc

In the heart of grignolino’s ancient turf, you’ll find Hic et Nunc (‘here and now’ in Latin). When the winery was conceived almost 10 years ago, the decision was made to focus exclusively on native grapes and to make only monovarietal wines. Though barbera is their largest production, grignolino is their flagship.

“Here we are in the land of grignolino,” general manager Stefano Gervasoni explains. The winery is in view of Vignale Monferrato, a medieval village so named because vines have been here since the 1200s. (Vigna means vineyard.)

The Hic et Nunc winery and resort was built from scratch on land purchased from a second-generation grape grower, who remains to this day to manage the vineyards, which he knows by heart. The purchase was made in 2012 by Massimo Rosolen, who owns an HR firm in Lombardy. He started building the cellar in 2018 and finished in 2020.

The winery was designed with visitors in mind. The tasting room overlooks vineyards on one side and production facilities on the other. “The beginning and end of process,” says Gervasoni. People can peer into the barrel room through floor-to-ceiling windows from the floor above, and they offer four different tasting experiences to visitors.

In 2016, they bottled their first three wines in a leased facility. Now they have six wines and three grappas. Two of the wines are grignolino. The first is a rare sparkling grignolino called Mète. It’s a Charmat-method Brut rosé, which is fresh and easy, with pleasing raspberry aromas. It’s a wonder more folks don’t do a Brut grignolino — except for those pesky seeds that you have to separate out before fermentation and the costly autoclave tanks needed for sparklers. So yeah, it’s rare.

Their still grignolino, called AltroMondo, has the grape’s characteristic pale color and astringency. This grignolino is done in stainless steel, which underscores the red-berry fruit and spice. Gervasoni explained that grignolino dominated vineyards in this region until the 1960s, outnumbering even barbera, but then the ratio flipped for the simple reason that barbera was easier to grow and vinify. From being a wine of kings, “grignolino became a cheap wine,” says Gervasoni, “because farmers grew it at the bottom on the hill in the poorest soil. It lost its dignity.”

Thankfully it’s seen a revival in the last decade as consumers have become more adventurous and seek out indigenous grapes — no matter how obscure — and wineries like Hic et Nuc stay faithful to the native grapes.

Prediomagno

Ruchè is the thing at Prediomagno. This is another brand new winery, founded by a family from Milan who worked in the chemical industry. In 2016, Emanuela and Giovanni Novella bought a 19th century villa overlooked by the crenellated castle in Montemagno, as well as some abandoned vineyards. They wanted to create something scratch, rather than buy as existing winery. And so they did, excavating a state-of-the-art cellar beside the old villa. They hired Riccardo Cotarella as their consulting enologist to get things started. The winery was ready in 2018, which was also their first vintage of ruchè.

Of the winery’s 10 labels, there are four different interpretations of ruchè. Their flagship Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato is done in stainless steel tanks to preserve the perfumes, suggestive of ripe red fruit and rose petals. For Ruchè Nisus, they let a portion of the grapes hang on the vine for another month so they become partly shriveled, concentrating the sugars. As a result, this wine has more of a strawberry jam impression. They also a have a ruchè rosé, called Neonà (which I didn’t get to taste). Finally, there’s a charming, fruit-of-the-woods-scented Brut Rosé. “We are the only ones to produce a Brut Charmat based on 100 percent ruchè,” says son Eduardo, who studied business and helps his parents with marketing and communication.

Speaking of which, Prediomagno gets its name from the Latin praedium, meaning farm or estate, plus magno or large. The name also echoes the nearby town of Montemagno. Their branding plays with the tradition of falconry, which was big in this area in the past. The logo is a stylized falcon, and each wine has a different feather design on its label based on various types of falcons.

Keep an eye out for both wineries. But if you spot any grignolino or ruchè in your wine shop, promise me you’ll give it a try.

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Of all the wineries I visited on my barbera press trip this month, I was most psyched about going to Marchesi Alfieri. I’d already experienced the magnificent splendor of this place in the early aughts when taking clients of my company La Dolce Vita Wine Tours.

In the town of Asti, one sees the Alfieri name everywhere, especially that of Count Vittorio Alfieri (1749–1803), a dramatist who gained fame founding a new school of Italian tragedy. There are Vittorio Alfieri statues everywhere, a piazza named after him, and his childhood palazzo is now a museum.

In 1619, Alfieri’s ancestors gained title to the fiefdom where the winery now sits.  The town itself bears the name San Martino Alfieri. But the winery’s official start was 1696, when the castle, cellar, and surrounding park were built.

A historical footnote that I find interesting: Camillo Benso Cavour, one of the ‘inventors’ of Barolo wine, had a niece who married into the Alfieri family. As a wedding present, the couple was gifted a small parcel of pinot noir on this property. Remember, Count Cavour had dry, age-worthy Burgundy in mind as his model for Barolo and first tried to recreate that in Piedmont with pinot noir grapes. I remember hearing that he planted his cuttings (imported from France, of course) on this very estate. It’s still grown here.

I also remember meeting Marchesi Alfieri’s enologist, Mario Olivero (here since 1999), just after he’d returned from his first trip to Oregon where he tasted lots of pinot; he realized his needed improvement. We didn’t get to taste it on this recent visit, since it’s made only in ideal vintages, so I can’t speak to what Olivero has done with two more decades of experience with pinot under his belt. But he is using it now in a Blanc de Noir Brut, which was very good indeed.

The winery is still in family hands, run by direct descendants. Heading it are three elderly sisters with titles: Donna Giovanna (below), Contessa Emanuela, and Contessa Antonella San Martino di San Germano. One is married to a gentleman I met, Maximilian Hausendorf (if I got the name right). While he and I were standing in the grand staircase filled with portraits of ancestors, he pointed out a painting of Vittorio Alfieri himself, gesturing towards the ‘new’ port of Nice, France, then part of the Kingdom of Piedmont. I told him I felt like I was in a Harry Potter film, where the paintings might come alive and perhaps ask for a password. A genial fellow, he (fortunately) laughed.

We toured the castle, including a grand ballroom with witty trompe l’oeil paintings; a dining room done à la mode with Japanese paper rolls; a downstairs kitchen with everything an 18th century cook could want; and an orangerie for the family’s potted lemon trees, built by Benedetto Alfieri, Vittorio’s cousin, who was also architect to the royal Savoy family. This being a wine tour, we also visited their historic cellars, which are still in use.

And finally, the wine. Altogether they make up to 150,000 bottles from four grapes with seven labels. During our earlier seminars, we’d tasted their Barbera d’Asti La Tota, which comes from several different parcels. This is a barbera I’ve always liked, as did our wine-tour clients, who tasted it at meals if not the winery itself. It was always a big hit. Barbera behaves very nicely with a touch of oak, and this ages for one year in second- or third-pass barrique and tonneaux, so it’s a light touch, just enough to add some spice and vanilla to the ripe plum flavors.

At our sit-down tasting, they served us two vertical flights. The first was their flagship Barbera d’Asti Superiore Alfiera, coming from a single vineyard close to the castle. Here we’re talking old vines, or partly. The oldest date from 1937, but over two-thirds were replanted in the past 20 years. Still, the concentration of fruit bespeaks vine age. That’s married with 15 months in barrique. Delicious.

The second flight was Costa Quaglia Terre Alfieri. Terre Alfieri is Piedmont’s newest DOCG, established in 2020. It pertains to both reds (nebbiolo) and whites (arneis). It can come from 11 townships in the area where the Langhe, Roero, and Monferrato converge, and it’s the only DOCG to straddle two provinces: Asti and Cuneo. (“That’s sure to be a pop-quiz question somewhere,” whispered one of my fellow journalists.) This nebbiolo has the gentler personality of a Roero (the DOCG zones abut), rather than the fierce tannins of Barolo. Olivero said he likes his nebbiolo to be ready to drink immediately, then could age further. He hit the target with this wine.

If you drink Italian barbera at all, it probably comes from the Langhe, more times than not a marquee Barolo name who the importer works with anyway. Thus Barbera d’Alba dominates retail shelves in the U.S. But the grape’s ancestral home is Monferrato, which straddles Asti and Alessandria provinces. Meaning Barbera d’Asti and Barbera del Monferrato are the real deal, the Ur barbera. 

I recently spent three intensive days there on a press trip sponsored by the Consorzio Barbera d’Asti e Vini del Monferrato. Two mornings of seminars, eight winery visits, and well over 100 wines tasted. Here are some of the people we met.

Agostino Pavia & Figli
Agliano Terme, Asti

I love these guys. They are the figli or sons of founder Agostino Pavia, who’s now 90 and less involved than he used to be a few years back. Until 40 years ago, these fourth-generation grape growers produced vino sfuso or bulk wine for locals who’d come to fill their demijohns with wine and bottle it at home.

Agostino built the cellar in 1985 and lives close enough to keep watch from his doorstep. The sons have worked in the vineyard since the ripe age of 14. Nowadays Giuseppe also deals with the cellar while Mauro handles the office. (Mauro jokes that his brother is “hopeless” in an office setting, being more at home communing with the barrels.)

This is the smallest winery we visited: 12 hectares and 90K bottles, of which 90 percent is barbera and the remainder local grapes like grignolino and albarossa. Their largest production is a Barbera d’Asti called Blina, refined in stainless steel tanks. It’s a barbera for immediate drinking, showing the grape’s dark juicy side. For a longer finish and greater depth, you have to turn to their two single-vineyard Barbera d’Asti Superiore, La Marescialla and Moliss. But be forewarned: they pack a punch. The 2018 Marescialla weighs in at 15.5% ABV.

Cossetti Clemente e Figli
Castelnuovo Belbo, Asti

Expecting a winery, we were all surprised when our bus turned into a horse farm, rolling past white fences and a dozen chestnut quarter horses. The change of plans owed to the steady rain (welcomed by growers after a dry fall), and this new tasting room was cozier than their headquarters, with its fireplace blazing. It seems Clementina Cossetti’s husband has a passion for horses. Not a bad life: a winery and a horse farm.

 In business since 1891, Cossetti Clemente e Figli is another fourth-generation winery. But now three women run the show: Clementina Cossetti is at the helm, supported by her sister Giulia and mother Maria Emma. They manage 35 hectares and 20 labels in Monferrato and beyond, of which barbera and moscato is 55 percent. This year, they were joined by consulting winemaker Beppe Caviola.

Their flagship wine is La Vigna Vecchia, a Barbera d’Asti Superiore from 35-year-old vines. The label features the cursive handwriting of Clementina’s father, Mario.

Another barbera line is Nizza, a newish DOCG begun in 2014. Nizza has historically been a subzone where the best Barbara comes from. In the 1950s, the grapes fetched higher prices — and still do today. Nizza has longer aging potential and more structure than other barbera appellations, as illustrated by their Nizza cru, Crivelletto.

Il Falchetto
Santo Stefano Belbo, Cuneo

Il Falchetto is a traditional winery run by three brothers: Giorgio, Fabrizio, and Adriano Forno. Grape growers since the 1600s, they started bottling in 1940. Now they own six estates scattered across Monferrato and the Langhe. They got their start making Moscato d’Asti in the moscato hotbed of Santo Stefano Belbo. Then 25 years ago they bought land in Agliano Terme to grow barbera.

We had lunch with agronomist Giorgio Forno and his daughter Margherita. A lot of discussion revolved around being a woman in the Italian wine industry. Margherita had 26 women in her class at Alba’s enology school, but only four got jobs where they could actually get their hands dirty in the vineyard or cellar. Most women are relegated to the front office, where they do marketing and administrative work. Necessary work, of course. But Margherita is one of the lucky few who can work in a family winery as an enologist and roll up her sleeves.

She recommended Senza Trucco (Without Make-up), a documentary on four women winemakers making natural wines. She also mentioned an annual gathering for up-and-coming winemakers, Sbarbatelle, where she has appeared on the program. Organized by the Italian Sommelier Association (AIS) and held at the Marchesi Alfieri winery nearby, this attracts the new generation of winemakers, both men and women.

Michele Chiarlo
Calamandrana, Asti

Michele Chiarlo needs no introduction. But it you’re new to Piedmont wine, let it be said that he was a central player in taking Barolo onto the world stage, and later worked the same magic for Nizza when it was the appellation was just an idea.

Michele is semi-retired now, and the winery is in the capable hands of his sons, Stefano and Alberto. Annual production is 1.2 million bottles with 24 labels sourced from properties in Monferrato and the Langhe. But half is their entry-level barbera and moscato. In practice, it’s really two wineries. One makes their high volume wines: a clean, quaffable Barbera d’Asti called Le Orme and a popular Moscato d’Asti. The other half of their operation is managing the 11 prestige vineyards, from Cannubi in Barolo to La Court in Nizza.

Four Nizza barberas come the La Court vineyard, which also contains an Art Park. Part of Le Orme is sourced here. Continuing up the scale is Cipressi, named after the ancient cypress trees on top of the hill. Though it’s their entry-level Nizza, the 2015 vintage got a perfect 100 points from Wine Enthusiast.

Then we arrive at two Nizza Riserva wines: La Court (from 45-year-old vines) and La Court Vigna Veja (65 years old). These wines are the pinnacle of polish and depth. They have a rich, velvety texture and dark fruit, which in time will show chocolate, coffee, and balsamic notes. Stefano prefers to drink his wines before they lose their primary fruit. If you do too, he advises you to uncork La Court before 8 to 10 years.

Vinchio Vaglio
Vinchio, Asti

I was very impressed with this cooperative winery. Coops have a bad rap due to many substandard examples. But Vinchio Vaglio is at the quality level of Alto Adige, where excellence in coops reigns.

Now with 192 members, the coop unites the ancient rival towns of Vinchio and Vaglio Serra. When established in 1959, the bylaws explicitly state that the president and vice president must come from each town and preside as a team.

For many years, Giuliano Noé was their enologist. Noé is one of the godfathers of the barbera revolution in the 1980s, when barbera went from being a rustic farmhouse wine to something more dignified. Noé was also one of the movers and shakers behind the age-worthy Nizza DOCG. He retired from Vinchio Vaglio in 2018 and was replaced by his right-hand man, Giuseppe Rattazzo, so the same approach continues.

That approach is very good indeed, based on the wines we tried. First up was a delightful frizzante freisa called La Martana. One usually finds this native grape vinified as a still wine, but I’ve always loved this gently sparkling style. It’s more refreshing and brings out freisa’s lovely raspberry and rose aromas.

Their flagship is Vigna Vecchia, a Barbera d’Asti Superiore. The brainchild of Noé, this project was launched in 1987 in order to uplift the reputation of barbera. They mapped vineyards older than 50 years (vigna vecchia means old vineyard), added a strict selection of grapes, a long maceration, and aging in French barrique. For the 50th anniversary of this wine, they came out with another version, Vigna Vecchia 50º, aged exclusively in stainless steel. Both are excellent. The original has spice from the wood, while the new version more purity of fruit. I’d happily drink either anytime.

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Coming up: More on Monferrato, including the historic Marchesi Alfieri estate, as well as two newcomers, Hic et Nunc and Prediomagno.

Today is International Rosé Day. To celebrate, I’m posting about a recent Rosautoctono tasting.

Say what?!

Rosautoctono doesn’t roll off the tongue easily, like rosé does. But let’s break it down. Rosa means pink in Italian. Autoctono is their preferred word for indigenous or native. So Rosautoctono is a pink wine made from native grapes.

That’s also the name of a new transregional organization uniting six appellations in five regions of Italy: Istituto del Vino #Rosautoctono Italiano. That cross-regional part is important. Some would say it’s miraculous. For as anybody knows who’s spent time with Italians, they are a nation of campanilistas. Which means to say they’re loyal to their own belltower (campanile) and believe their town is the absolute best in the world.

Despite this, those five regions that have historic ties to rosé wine decided to band together in 2019 to ride the wave of popularity that rosé now enjoys. Perhaps because rosé goes by different names in various regions — chiaretto in the north, rosato in the south — they landed on this unwieldy rosautoctono name. But, as Shakespeare says, a rose is a rose by any other name. And there’s power in synergy, especially when it comes to marketing. 

“Here in Italy we have very historical production of pink wine, rosa, but in small quantities in small areas,” says Franco Cristoforetti, president of the Chiaretto di Bardolino consortium on Lake Garda and one of the driving forces behind the new association, together with Luigi Cataldi Madonna of Abruzzo. “So we never could export much outside Europe. Rosautoctono was born to let the world know that Italy is one of the main producers of pink wine. Very high quality, and very different from south to the north. These different styles can match with every market’s needs.”

Indeed, from the pale pink color of Lake Garda rosés to the cherry-lollipop hue of Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, rosé takes every form in Italy, which makes 10% of the world’s rosé.

Even Prosecco has gotten in on the act, debuting the new DOC category of Prosecco Rosé last year. Its numbers are growing fast: In 2020, production was 17 million bottles. This year, it’s expected to grow to 60 million. Given the universal love for Prosecco, Cristoforetti sees pink Prosecco as a Trojan horse that will allow the smaller rosé appellations to storm the gate alongside it. “Prosecco Rosé can be the key to open the market,” he declares.

As part of that marketing push, the Chiaretto di Bardolino consortium just launched a Change.org petition to get a rosé emoji officially added.  “You can find red wine, sparkling wine, but not pink wines. So we at the consortium thought this was digital discrimination,” says Angelo Peretti, a journalist and consultant. So they designed and submitted a rosé emoji to Unicode Consortium, and are asking all rosé fans to sign the petition, “so they can share their love of a good glass of pink wine on social media.”

Stay tuned for more on Rosautoctono wines. I’ll be writing about them in an upcoming feature in Tastes of Italia. Meanwhile, grab a bottle of vino rosa and kick back. Nothing could be finer in the summertime.

Last year, wine writers raved about the 2015 vintage of Brunello di Montalcino, including me. This year, we’re all shouting hosannas about 2016.

Both vintages were rated 5 stars by the Brunello Consortium. That’s exceedingly rare. Since 1945, it happened only once before: in 2006 and 2007. But the frequency of 5-star vintages is increasing, no doubt due to climate change. In the 40 years from 1945 to 1994, there were just nine vintages rated 5 stars. That compares to ten in the 25 years between 1995 to 2019 (the last vintage rated). Great for today’s Brunello drinkers, but not so great for the planet.

I can attest to the excellence of both vintages, thanks to a Wine Media Guild tasting of the 2016 Brunellos and 2015 Reserves. We had more or less 45 wines (a few bottles got stuck in transit).  

Montalcino’s winemakers consider 2016 a “classic” vintage, whereas 2015 was a hot one. It’s a bit like the duel between 2000 and 2001, when the American press drooled over the hotter 2000 vintage, but winemakers back in Italy felt that 2001 was better — more classic and definitely more age-worthy. They proved right in the end.

When comparing the 2015 and 2016 vintages, Italian wine writer Daniele Cernilli called us Americans out on our tastes: “2015 has different characteristics that derive from weather conditions which make it more akin to Anglo-Saxon tastes [his emphasis], which include a more evolved bouquet, warmer fruit, and tends to privilege tannic opulence as a venue for complexity. 

I think we can dismiss Cernilli’s comment, since American wine critics were united in praising the 2016 Brunellos. Across the board, these wines show a finesse and vibrancy that was pretty darned thrilling. The year’s exceptional weather — a mild winter with early budbreak, just enough rain in a cool spring, a warm but not excessively hot summer, and a picture-perfect September with low humidity and large diurnal temperature swings — created grapes that were fragrant, ripe, and in perfect balance. You can feel that in the wines.

I came prepared with a list of critics’ top picks, plus some wineries I know and love from our tours. Happily, they often intersect.

I first made a beeline for Le Chiuse’s 2016 Brunello di Montalcino, since Wine Enthusiast gave it a perfect 100 points. (I didn’t want to find the bottle drained dry by my fellow WMG members.) Plus, I like the owners, having visited the winery on our hikes down the north side of Montalcino’s towering hill. The Magnelli family is related to Ferruccio Biondi Santi, considered the father of Brunello, on the wife’s side, Simonetta Valiani. Their property used to grow grapes for Biondi Santi’s Brunello Reserves, but at a certain point, the two farms split up. The Magnellis first started making their own wine in 1993.

This 2016 was a beauty. It opened with aromas of violet typical of Le Chiuse, followed by crushed wild berries with savory undertones. The refined tannins and bright acidity will allow this one to be a keeper.

Close by is La Mannella, also in the north subzone towards the top of the hill. (For more on subzones in Montalcino, see my article “Brunello Basics.”) I haven’t been there in years, and that’s shame, because I was quite impressed with their Brunello 2016. That high altitude brings cooler temperatures, especially at night, which allows the vines to rest. That gives a brighter acidity to the wines compared to the lower, hotter subzones, and greater finesse. Owner Tommaso Cortonesi sticks with a traditional approach, using large Slavonian oak casks. I need get back to this estate ASAP.

La Gerla was new to me. Still in the north subzone, it too was once a Biondi Santi property. Businessman Sergio Rossi bought the land in 1976, then created the brand in 1978. Following his death in 2011, wife Donatella Monforte took over. La Gerla Brunello 2016 comes largely from vines planted in 1976, and it shows. The wine is packed with ripe blackberry fruit and shows whiffs of baking spice and worked leather. The texture is velvety, the acidity present but not sharp, and the finish long and mesmerizing.

Another favorite of mine came from Castello Tricerchi, located just below the DOCG’s northern border. I first discovered this winery in 2016 at a Benvenuto Brunello tasting. Though new to me, the Tricerchi family is old, dating back to the 1200s when it was part of the medieval oligarchy in Siena. Their fortified castle is every bit as impressive as the Montalcino fortress itself. In 1800, the property passed to an ancestor of the current owner, Tommaso Squarcia. In 2013, he and his uncle stopped selling grapes to the cooperative and kickstarted the winery under its present guise.

Whatever they’re doing, they should keep on doing it. I loved their 2016 Brunello A.D. 1441, a special selection from two vineyards. (Its name comes from the founding date of their castle.) It had plush, concentrated blackberry fruit; hints of spice; and a warm, enveloping nature. Unfortunately, they make only 2,000 bottles of this special Brunello.

I always find Castello Romitorio’s wines top notch, and their 2016 Brunello di Montalcino was no exception. Again, this vintage showed concentrated flavors (cherry compote, dried flower, leather), firm tannins that will grant long life, and an endless finish.

Here we’re west of town, in the Bosco subzone. This is another visually spectacular winery, not just because the main building was once a 12th century hermitage, then a 15th century fortress. It’s also because it belongs to Sandro Chia, a famous and idiosyncratic artist who has his sculptures, artwork, and personal objets d’art strewn about the winery like a living museum. His son, Filippo Chia, works with him in the winery and is a talented photographer to boot, as his photos hanging in the winery demonstrate. Visit this winery if you can.

Other exceptional 2016 Brunellos came from Carpineto, Col d’Orcia, Il Poggione, La Magia, and Poggio Antico. But this vintage was excellent in all four corners of the Brunello DOCG zone. So snap it up before it disappears.

How to tackle 243 wines? That was my dilemma at the Chianti Classico Collection 2021, held May 20 in New York City.

Complicating matters, the Chianti Classico Consortium had decided to present a mix of vintages and classifications. Vintages ran from 2015 to 2019 in the regular Chianti Classico category, and from 2012 to 2018 in both the Reserve and the Gran Selezione tiers. How to get a handle on that?

Plus, the format wasn’t anything I’d experienced before. Arriving at your chosen timeslot, you were led to a small table that only you occupied. Using an app, you ordered four wines at a time, waited a few minutes, then a server arrived to pour. It was a simple and elegant solution to social distancing. 

Until I dove in, I didn’t realize how well it suited my plan: I’d decided to taste by commune (township) to see if I could detect broad differences between locales. I limited myself to four of the nine communes that make up the Chianti Classico zone — Radda, Gaiole, and Castellina, which comprised the medieval League of Chianti, a military jurisdiction under Florence which had the black rooster as its emblem — plus Castelnuovo Berardenga to the south. If this had been a normal walkaround tasting, I would have wasted most of my time hunting for bottles. It was the perfect opportunity to compare.

My rationale? Winemakers have long been debating the topic of subzones in Chianti Classico, the original nucleus of the broader Chianti appellation. It makes sense to me, given the enormous size of the Classico DOCG zone, but it’s very contentious.

Roberto Stucchi of the historic Badia a Coltibuono (a monastery turned winery, founded in 1051) argues for it. In a 2014 letter to the DoBianchi wine blog, he wrote, “This zone is too large and diverse to remain locked in the current DOCG regulations, which make no distinction between the extremely diverse expressions of Sangiovese in its original territory.”

Stucchi goes on to say that the first and easiest step would be to allow the commune name to be written on the label. He notes, “Today, someone vacationing in Gaiole might return home and buy a Chianti, wrongly believing it’s a wine produced in the land she or he visited. With clearly defined communal appellations, this wouldn’t be the case.”

“The next step,” Stucchi writes, “would be to define village appellations, the smaller zones that are distinctive and that would clearly define some of the top wines in the appellation. So we could have Panzano, Monti, Lamole,” and so on.

Three years later, Stucchi’s sister, Emanuela Stucchi Prinetti, joined forces with Francesco Ricasoli of the equally historic Castello di Brolio estate (founded in 1141) to launch a Gaiole Vintners Association, putting words into action.

Other growers’ associations have popped up since 2015, and I have to assume they share the same thinking. These include associations in San Casciano, Greve, Radda, Castelnuovo Berardenga, and San Donato. You have to believe that eventually this movement will take root officially.

Trying to compare apples with apples, I worked my way through the communes by choosing basic (“annata”) Chianti Classicos whenever possible, instead of Reserves or crus. Of course, differences in vintage, blends vs. pure sangiovese, and soil composition made this a fool’s errand. But it’s something I’d wanted to try for a long time, and now I had my chance.

Radda in Chianti

The altitude of Radda in Chianti, highest of them all, was evident in the verticality of these wines. Distinguished by high-keyed acidity, the four I tried all tended towards red fruit like cassis and tart cherry, best exemplified by Caparsa’s Chianti Classico 2017, a 100 percent sangiovese. Radda wines were the most ethereal of the lot.

Gaiole in Chianti

Gaiole wines had more depth and breadth than Radda’s, leaning towards a fruit-of-the-woods mix of red and dark berries. Riecine’s Chianti Classico 2019 showcased sangiovese’s racy qualities, with tart cherry, bright acidity, and dusty tannins. (Match this with a wild boar ragu.) Whereas Castello di Cacchiano’s Chianti Classico 2016 had sweet, delectable cherry fruit with a light floral scent, the sangiovese here being tempered both by time in the bottle and by a splash (5 percent) of traditional Tuscan grapes, namely canaiolo, malvasia nera, and colorino. Perhaps it was the luck of the draw, but five of the seven Gaiole wines I tried were blends. (By DOCG law, the limit is 20 percent other red grapes, with a long list of permitted grapes, both native and international.)

Castellina in Chianti

Warmer and drier than Radda, Castellina produces wines that are plush and ripe. San Fabiano Calcinaia’s Chianti Classico 2019 exemplified this, with sweet fruit backed by whiffs of baking spice and soft ripe tannins. A traditional blend (with 10 percent colorino and malvasia nera), it gave a warm and harmonious impression. And 2019 happened to be an excellent vintage in Chianti Classico. Perhaps for that same reason, Bibbiano’s Chianti Classico 2019 also stood out. This 85/15 sangiovese/cabernet blend had plush, ripe mixed-berry fruit, velvety tannins, and was well balanced.  

Castelnuovo Berardenga

The wines from Chianti Classico’s southernmost commune aren’t quite the brooding giants of Brunello di Montalcino, but they come close. This commune is lowest in altitude and is less densely wooded, more open, hot, and sunny. As a result, the wines are riper, rounder, and full-fleshed. Of the pure sangioveses, I found Castello Bossi’s Chianti Classico 2018 to have an appealing warmth. With vivid forest fruit and soft tannins, it was drinkable now. Bindi Sergardi’s La Ghilanda Chianti Classico 2018, a single-vineyard wine, had darker fruit than its pure-sangiovese brethren to the north. In structure, it was loose-knit and relaxed, with no sharp edges nor in-your-face acidity. Just enough to give it vibrancy and make it a perfect food wine, as all Chianti Classicos are.

UPDATE: In their June 2021 meeting, the consortium voted overwhelmingly to approve Additional Geographic References (below). For now, that’s only in the Gran Selezione category, but they say the rest will follow in the “near future.”

They also voted to change the grape requirements for Gran Selezione Chianti Classicos. Henceforth, the 80% sangiovese minimum will be increased to 90%. The balance of red grapes will be only local, native varieties. That means international varieties like merlot and cabernet will be prohibited. No hint as to whether that will be eventually be applied across all tiers of Chianti Classico. Read more here.

The first time I went to Friuli was in 1998 to scout a bike tour. Claudio and I were newly engaged, and I was clueless about the Collio, the easternmost crescent of land abutting Slovenia. I had no sense of this porous borderland where Latin and Slavic cultures intersect. All I knew was reading a map while driving on mountain switchbacks induced a throbbing headache. On the bright side, I was crazy about the pastries: cinnamon-swirled, raisin studded, and fit for any Austro-Hungarian Emperor who once ruled this land.

The next year Claudio and I founded La Dolce Vita Wine Tours. We offered a wine tour in Friuli, but it didn’t sell. Not one phone call. Friuli and the Collio simply didn’t register with wine tourists back in 1999. Nor were wineries ready for them, with few tasting rooms and fewer websites. (To be fair, those were the days of dial-up broadband.)

I was surprised by the lack of interest. After all, Collio winemakers had been leading the way in modernizing Italian white wines for three decades, after Mario Schiopetto introduced German winemaking techniques in the late 1960s, deploying Italy’s first cold-fermentation stainless-steel tanks. Suddenly, oxidized white wines were a thing of the past.

Flash forward to 2010. I returned to the Collio on a press trip. By then, tasting rooms were everywhere. And there were plenty of journalists eager to write about Collio wine, including me. (See my article “Peaks of Perfection: The Collio”.) That trip was a deep dive into this hybrid culture. I had the best polenta in my life — rough-ground and rustic, cooked in a copper kettle over an open fire. I scrambled through WWI mountain trenches, once bloody and cold and now an open-air museum. I marveled at the plentitude of Roman riches in the museum of Aquileia, the Roman Empire’s gateway to the East. And I got full immersion in Collio wine. Well appreciated by the ancient Romans, then prized by nobles from the Republic of Venice and the Imperial Hapsburg Court, I found it pretty great too.

Flash forward another 11 years, and I’m invited by the Collio Consortium to a Zoom tasting. This was intended to showcase the spectacular 2019 vintage. “If I were a winemaker, I would want to put a tattoo of 2019 on my body,” said Italian journalist Matteo Bellotto, one of two speakers on our Zoom call.

Perfect weather in September meant the harvest wasn’t rushed by threat of rain. Winemakers could pick at their leisure, based on maturity of the grapes, not weather.

Winemaker and sommelier Mitja Sirk confirmed as much, saying “it was a jump to the past” in his pick date, which fell in September, like decades past, rather than August, like in recent overheated years. “It’s better to wait for cooler nights and fuller maturation,” he says.

Adding to 2019’s perfection was rain in May, which helped the vines survive a dry, hot summer. That heat brought intensity and concentration to the wine. The weather was everything a winemaker could hope for.

We tasted six wines, all whites. That’s a pretty accurate reflection of the priorities in the Collio, where vineyards for white grapes (86 percent) significantly outnumber those for reds (14 percent).

“The Emperors used to like white wines, and leave the red for the common people,” Bellotto explains. “And we’ve got the climate, which is perfect for white wines.”

The Collio is wedged between the Julian Alps and the Adriatic, and constant breezes between the two bring dramatic temperature excursion­s. Which leads to more aromatic wines.

All the wines we sampled were Collio DOC 2019 and had Collio traits: little to no oak, dry (no more than 4 g/l residual sugar), and crystal-clear in their varietal character.

Ribolla Gialla, Conti Formentini

Here’s something new I learned from Mitja Sirk: “As a tradition for our place, the first wine to taste is always ribolla gialla.” This ancient indigenous variety has a pronounced acidity that makes it a good opener. (Aperitif derives from the Latin apertus, to open, as in ‘open your palate to the meal to come.’)

Back in 2010, I tasted quite a few orange wines made from ribolla gialla. The grape’s skins have abundant tannins, which enables that kind of approach. But Conti Formentini’s version has nothing to do with that style. It’s clean as a whistle, smacking of tart Granny Smith apples with a light floral bouquet. This wine went beautifully with a kumquat tagine I happened to make the next day, having enough acidity to stand up to the citrus. 

If you happen to visit San Floriano, be sure to stay in this winery hotel. The property has belonged to the Formentini family since 1520 and has all the trappings of a Renaissance castle. It boasts the oldest cellar in the Collio.

According to Sirk, the grapes in this wine come from the “sweetest spot” for ribolla gialla in the Collio. That’s San Floriano’s highest hill, whose cool altitude and temperature excursion temper ribolla’s tendency to over-produce. And because the grape is a late ripener, this bottling benefited mightily from the leisurely pace of the 2019 harvest.

Friulano, Ronco Blanchis

As Collio natives, both speakers were huge fans of the friulano grape. “Friulano is like an old friend. It’s a comfort food for us,” Bellotto enthused. “This is the real voice of our land!”

Sirk agreed. “Friulano is the key to understand the different villages, the different hills, and of course the different styles of each family,” he said, noting that every producer is going to put forth his best efforts in crafting a good Friulano to satisfy the local market — namely friends and neighbors.

Ronco Blanchis is a small winery just below San Floriano, run by Giancarlo Palla and his two sons. Its winemaker, Gianni Menotti, was deemed Winemaker of the Year by Gambero Rosso in 2006.

He gets my vote. This was our favorite wine of the lot, not because of the cool rocket-shaped bottle, created for Collio wineries in 2009. It was that blast of concentrated fruit that won me and Claudio over, redolent of peach and pineapple, as well as its creamy texture, lively acidity, and super long finish. The winery website says that their Friulano grapes are often attacked by noble rot. That would explain the rich texture and opulent aromatics. Sirk describes this as being a Friulano in “a flowery mood,” adding, “It’s very seductive.” I couldn’t agree more.

Malvasia, Blazic

“If Friulano is the wine every producer makes and everyone drinks, Malvasia is more intimate; it needs the right spots,” Sirk says.

Blazic is another small producer. (Collio as a whole is full of them, the average winery being just six acres.) Founded in 1923, the Blazic winery near Cormóns specializes in malvasia (of which there are 23 variants in Italy) and ribolla gialla. But frankly, this wine just didn’t ring my bell. I got tart apple and not much more. I guess I’m used to malvasias with more aromatics.

Pinot Grigio, Tenuta Borgo Conventi

Now we get to the Collio’s most widely planted white grape, pinot grigio, which makes up 29 percent of production. Combined with sauvignon, these two grapes constitute half the Collio’s output.

Pinot grigio and its cousin pinot bianco were brought to Friuli by the French Count Theodore de La Tour back in 1869. Both have found their footing here. But Sirk thinks pinot grigio from the Collio is misunderstood. “Our terroir is not suitable for that everyday, crispy, easy-drinking glass of white wine.” Instead, their pinot grigios speak of terroir.

Bellotto goes on to say, “In pop music, you can have Shakira, and you can have the Beatles. We have the Beatles. It’s not the summer hit that you find all over the place. We have something much deeper.”

This bottling from Tenuta Borgo Conventi was very good indeed. The 50-acre winery makes three lines. This is from their middle tier, between the intro and the single-vineyard cru. It has nice fruit that suggest pear and lemon/lime citrus, some savory herbal notes, refreshing acidity, and a finish goes on forever.

Pinot Bianco, Toros

For a long time, pinot bianco was the forgotten cousin, used only in blends or to enhance chardonnay. Now it’s enjoying the stage all by itself. It seems winemakers have caught on to its great connection with the local ponca soil and microclimate here.

The 27-acre Toros winery is run by Franco Toros, and is now in its fourth generation. Sirks calls it an “iconic” estate in the Collio. “They have this signature of always using a little bit of barrique,” he says, but not more than 20 percent. Just enough to give this pinot bianco a velvety rich texture, helped along by batonnage. Full bodied, with ripe pear and a touch of hazelnut, this is a gentle, elegant wine. (It was my husband’s second favorite, after the Friuliano.)

Fantazija Collio Bianco, Polje

My second favorite was this one. During my press trip, I learned to understand and love Collio Bianco. It’s essentially a blend of any white grapes except for extra-aromatic ones, like traminer and muller Thurgau. So Collio Bianco ends up being the artistic signature of the house.

This Fantazija from Polje was a blend of chardonnay, ribolla gialla, and sauvignon, some fermented and aged in oak and some not. It was a beautiful fantasia, with the zippiness of ribolla, the body of chardonnay, and the aromatics of sauvignon (in this case mango, like in New Zealand).

The rules for Collio Bianco, drawn up in 1968, are about to change. According to Sirk, “We hope in the next two years we can talk about Collio Bianco as a blend of only local grapes.” That means this Fantazija Collio Bianco would no longer be allowed. Chardonnay and sauvignon have been here since 1869, but they aren’t native to Collio. I’m sad to see such a delicious wine relegated to the dustbin, but I understand the rationale. As Sirk explains, “It’s easier to present around world as a blend of local grapes grown on Collio hills.”

Bellotto elaborated that some winemakers are trying to replicate historic blends, based on how farmers used to plant their vines: ribolla gialla at the top of the hill for acidity, then friulano for body, and malvasia for aromatics.

I’m not happy about it, but I get it. I guess that gives me all the more reason to rush out and buy a bottle of this Fantazija. And I’d advise all white-wine lovers to give any Collio white wine a try. Just be sure to look for the 2019s.

Collio stats
350 wineries
6.5 million bottles
17 grape varieties, plus Collio Bianco & Collio Rosso

With summer fast approaching, I’m already thinking about what I’ll uncork with my salads, seafood, and BBQ. A recent tasting (virtual, of course) reminded me that I could be content all summer long drinking the wines of Sella & Mosca.

Flying into Sardinia’s Alghero airport, you pass over a vast sea of vines, stretching some 1600 acres. These belong to Sella & Mosca, a landmark both from the air (these being the second largest contiguous vineyards in all of Italy, after Banfi) and in the history of Sardinian wine.

The property was first used as a nursery for 1,671 types of vines when it was founded in 1899. Two gentleman from Piedmont, Eriminio Sella and Edgardo Mosca, came to the island on a hunting trip. Being a lawyer from a banking family and an engineer respectively, they knew little about wine. But they knew a good opportunity when they saw one (I’ve been told they went to Alaska to check out the Gold Rush), and this was an opportunity staring them in the face.

They knew that Piedmont had suffered through the scourge of phylloxera, as did most of mainland Europe. But Sardinia wasn’t affected. “Isolation has the same root as island or isola in Italian,” notes Alfonso Gagliano, Sella & Mosca’s North American brand ambassador. That isolation saved Sardinian viticulture.

So the duo set about establishing a nursery close to the port of Alghero, where crates of baby vines could be shipped to all parts of Europe and as far as Argentina. Shortly after, they seized another opportunity: They bought more than 1300 acres of land from the township of Alghero. It was uncultivated marshland, where three rivers converge. Full of rocks, it was being sold on the cheap. With financing from the Sella Bank, they bought it and reclaimed the soil. In 1903, they built their first cellar and started producing and bottling wine.

Since then, Sella & Mosca has passed through several hands. It’s now part of Terra Moretti, a small but esteemed group that owns Bellavista in Franciacorta, Petra in the Maremma, and Teruzzi & Puthod in San Gimignano, among other wineries.

Torbato

This obscure grape is the reason I went to visit Sella & Mosca in the first place back in 2016. I’d been knocked out by its unique aromatics at a Tre Bicchieri tasting and learned that the torbato grape would have died out completely if it hadn’t been for them. With its thin skin, torbato is difficult to grow, and its high pectins make it hard to clarify, so most farmers have abandoned the grape.

We tasted two versions. If you like your sparkling wine brimming with fruit, you’ll love Torbato Brut ($21). This charmat-method sparkler is a pretty straw color and has a bit of salinity and savory notes backing the fruit. It’s just the ticket for raw oysters and all things seafood.  Ditto for Terre Bianche ($21), their still torbato. It has a complex bouquet of pink grapefruit, chamomile, and yellow plum, with beguiling bergamot notes. There’s also something that hints at diesel, like in a fine aged Riesling. I’m totally smitten with this wine.

Vermentino

Whenever I’m asked to recommend affordable summer wines, Sardinian vermentino tops my list. It’s the island’s most prevalent white grape. And Sella & Mosca’s La Cala Vermentino ($14) set the prevailing style, which is clean, crisp, and fresh.

Back in the 1970s, vermentino was the complete opposite: big in alcohol, high in residual sugar, and often oxidized. At lunch, local factory workers would dilute it with soft drinks. Sella & Mosca came up with a lighter style by converting their vermentino vineyards to a pergola system. That provided shade, thus lowering both sugar and alcohol.

I love vermentino’s minerality, which is particularly distinct when grown in limestone, like here. La Cala also has tropical scents of mango and papaya, coupled with a creamy texture and bright acidity. It’s a refreshing summer wine, perfectly suited for grilled seafood with a squeeze of lemon.

Cannonau

If vermentino is Sardinia’s white flagship, then cannonau is its red. Cannonau was long thought to have come from Spain during the period of Spanish domination in the 1700s. That thinking was reinforced by the fact that cannonau shares 80 percent of its DNA with garnacha (grenache in French).

But that theory was smashed to smithereens in 2014, when archaeologists discovered 3,000-year-old carbonized grape seeds in an underground storage silo used by the indigenous Nuragi people — a sort of Bronze Age fridge. So the speculation today is that cannonau is native to Sardinia, and the Nuragi people were the first to make wine in the Mediterranean. Whatever the case, cannonau pre-dates the Spaniards’ arrival by two millennia.

In the panorama of Sardinia cannonau, I find Sella & Mosca’s Cannonau di Sardegna Riserva ($18) particularly appealing. It’s a lighter style that plays up the grape’s ethereal perfumes, so suggestive of violets and red fruit of the woods. There’s a balsamic accent adding depth, and gentle silky tannins. This wine would go quite well with a North African tangine. I can vouch that it went beautifully with Melissa Clark’s recipe for white bean soup with turkey and greens.

Tanca Farrà

Tanca Farrà ($26), a 50/50 cabernet/cannonau blend, has deeper color and brawnier tannins than the straight cannonau. “We want to take from the cannonau the elegance, and we want to take from the cabernet the structure and color,” says winemaker Giovanni Pinna. The cabernet ages in second-use French barrique for 12 months, while the cannonau spends that time in large oak cask. The result is a complex mix of floral, savory, and balsamic notes, with enough tannins to give it some heft but be approachable (and delicious) now.

It was just by chance I discovered just how good this blend is with barbecued ribs, thanks to our doggie bag of leftovers from Dinosaur BBQ. My husband and I were both pigs in heaven with this match.

Bottom line: Sella & Mosca offers an array of summer wines at a good price. Find them here.

For more about Sardinian wines, see my article “A History of Sardinian Wine in 7 Bottles.”

Ask any American where the Maremma is and you’ll come up with a blank. Wine nerds might know it for Bolgheri, the birthplace of Sassicaia, Ornellaia, and the whole Super Tuscan category. The rest shrug.

And that’s a shame. This is a beautiful area on the Tuscan coast, which has a completely different character from the Tuscany most people know. It’s a land of sea breezes and shimmering light reflected off the Mediterranean. It’s still agricultural, though the fruit trees and grain have been replaced by vineyards in recent decades. Luckily, the ancient gnarled olive trees have been left untouched. So too the Etruscan ruins, remnants of a pre-Roman civilization that mined metal from the Apennine mountains that rise like a wall parallel to the sea. Apart from the Italians that flock to the modest beach towns in August, the Maremma remains blessedly free of tourists.

I’ve been coming to the Maremma since 2003 for our wine tours. But, like many wine travelers, I’ve spent the most of my time in the Upper Maremma around Bolgheri and Castagneto Carducci, where the most famous wineries are found. The southern side I really don’t know, except as a drive-by route from Bolgheri to Montalcino. That’s why I jumped at the chance to taste dozens of wines from this area.

The tasting was organized by the Maremma Toscana consortium and held March 15 at Gattopardo restaurant in New York. (Yes, this was my first in-person tasting since the pandemic started. Hallelujah!) It’s a newish consortium, established in 2014 after the Maremma Toscana DOC was born three years earlier, based on the former IGT of the same name. The appellation is vast, covering an area the size of New Jersey. It comprises the whole of Grosseto province, which stretches from sea level to 6,000 feet on Mt. Amiata, an extinct volcano. With 8770 hectares of vineyards over an area of 4500 km2, it’s now the third largest DOC behind Chianti Classico and Chianti. Needless to say, there’s a wide range of soil types and microclimates. And that’s reflected in the variety of grapes grown.

Among the white wines, our tasting featured vermentino, vermentino, and vermentino. And that’s fair, since this grape makes up roughly a quarter of total grape production in the DOC. It is, after all, a grape that likes to see the sea, and there’s 250 miles of coastline here. Most examples were in pure form, but a few had a splash of viognier for richness, like the excellent Le Gessaie Vermentino from Le Sode di Sant’Angelo in Massa Maritima (pictured at top).

My favorite vermentino came from Castelprile-Prelius, an organic winery that takes its name from an ancient coastal lake. Their vermentino vines are planted on sandy soil just two miles from the sea. You can taste it. There’s a freshness and salinity that marks this wine, the result of constantly fanning sea breezes.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but Prelius belongs to the same family as Castello di Volpaia in Chianti Classico — an excellent pedigree. It seems that Carlo and Giovannella Mascheroni Stianti, who painstaking restored the enchanting medieval borgo of Volpaia when they created that winery, bought the Prelius estate for their daughter, Federica Mascheroni Stianti, in 2007. She’s one after my heart, having worked as a painting and fresco restorer (I’m a former Renaissance art historian). How she manages to do that along with supervising this estate, I’ll never know. But the proof is in the pudding. And the pudding is very good indeed.

I also loved the one lone sauvignon blanc, from the organic Tenuta Montauto winery. Called Enos I Vigne Vecchie, after the grandfather Enos who planted these now-old vines in the 1980s, it’s got fantastic aromatics and a refreshing pink-grapefruit character. Following in Enos’s footsteps, grandson Riccardo Lepri also produces pasta and olive oil. They have an agriturismo too, steps from the thermal baths of Saturnia. Sounds pretty ideal to me, a glass of this sauvignon in hand with feet dangling in a thermal river.

Despite the fact that sangiovese is the dominate red grape in the Maremma DOC, making up roughly a quarter of grape production in 2020, it was relatively scarce in this tasting. Maybe they figured we already know this grape and wanted to highlight others, like ciliegiolo (featured in the seminar), alicante, cabernet, merlot, and the other French grapes, which entered the picture here in the 1990s.

Most were easy-drinking reds, ready to charm. The ones that impressed me most were all blends. San Felo’s Balla la Vecchia (from the local expression “look how the old lady dances”) was a 50/50 blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot, done without oak. Rich with chocolate-cherry flavors and fine tannins, I wouldn’t mind this as my everyday house wine. Two other favorites were Poggio Cagnano’s Selvoso, a 60/40 ciliegiolo/merlot blend, which showed soft, plummy fruit of the woods; and Villa Pinciana’s Terraria, a 45/45/10 blend of sangiovese/cabernet sauvignon/petit verdot. Velvety smooth, it showed red-berry fruit with a touch of earthiness.

Many of these are young wineries, established in the last 20 years. More than a few were looking for U.S. importers. I hope they find them. Meanwhile, the rest of us should keep our eye on this up-and-coming region.

Ron, a friend from high school, thought me crazy when I posted on Facebook about a virtual wine tasting coming up. “Watching someone taste fine wine through Zoom? What kind of masochist are you?” he wrote.

What Ron didn’t know was the happy fact that I’d been shipped six bottles from the importer, which I’d be tasting along with some 40 other journalists, all while listening to commentary by three powerhouse winemakers. Not crazy at all. 

It was quite a line-up, brought together by our friends at Taub Family Selections:

• Piero Mastroberardino, owner of Mastroberardino in Campania, presented a classic Greco di Tufo 2019 ($24), plus the winery’s flagship wine, Radici Taurasi 2016 ($60).

• Andrea Lonardi, technical director for Bertani in the Veneto’s Valpolicella region, showed their traditional Secco-Bertani 2015 ($31), as well as their iconic Amarone Classico 2009 ($137).

• Fabrizio Marinconz, winemaker for Cavit in Trentino, introduced us to a relatively new project, Infiné 1939, spotlighting their Pinot Grigio 2017 ($30) and cuvée At Last 2017 ($51).

What these three have in common, said Taub’s Bethany Burke, is the fact that “each adhere to winemaking practices firmly rooted in the traditions of their respective regions, while simultaneously embracing progressive techniques and resources to strive even higher.”

They’re all local boys, born and bred in their regions, so tradition flows in their blood —  but none are hidebound by tradition.

Infiné 39

The backstory

Taub Family Selections’ founder, David Taub, played a major role in the popularization of pinot grigio when he imported the first bottles of Cavit Pinot Grigio into the U.S. in the 1970s. Cavit is a leading cooperative in Trentino, comprising 4500 small growers scattered across the foothills of the Alps. After Taub’s death in 2012, his son, Marc Taub, wanted to come up with a wine that would celebrate this heritage. Thus was born Infiné 1939. (The 1939 refers to David Taub’s birth year.) His son asked the Cavit team to identify superior vineyard plots for pinot grigio. But not just any. “We wanted to think out of the box for this project, looking for pinot grigio in uncommon positions and high altitude,” says Fabrizio Marinconz, winemaker at Cavit for the past 15 years. They ultimately zeroed in on two vineyards that push the limits for pinot grigio’s ripening, both at over 1900 feet. After four years of trials and in collaboration with star enologist Carlo Ferrini, the first bottling of Infiné 1939’s Pinot Grigio launched with the 2015 vintage.

The wines

You can sense this Pinot Grigio is from the Alps. It’s got a minerality and precision that’s characteristic of alpine wines. It smells like wet stone, it’s nervy and finely chiseled, with notes of pear and lemon beneath the dominant minerality. Personally, I prefer this to the fleshier style from Friuli. It’s all a matter of taste. But whatever your preference, there’s an iron-clad rule with pinot grigio: You get what you pay for. Avoid the cheap stuff.

I’ve always loved aromatic blends of the Alps, so I was particularly smitten with At Last. Trentino grows 20+ grape varieties thanks to the range of elevations. Wineries can have vineyards on the valley floor right next to the apple orchards, and plots going up 3000 feet on the rocky slopes. At Last blends four of Trentino’s typical white grapes: sauvignon blanc and chardonnay, plus a splash of Riesling and gewürztraminer. In cool climates, aromatic grape varieties become even more fragrant. With three of the four grapes in this blend classified as aromatic, it’s as heady as jasmine in June. Its rich too, thanks to a year spent on the fine lees. A beautiful wine, but a rare bird, at only 4000 bottles.

Factoid

The unique bottle shape is a hat-tip to David Taub’s glass collection, acquired during his 40 years of visits to Italy. They wanted something unusual for Infiné 39’s two wines, and they got it with this.

Mastroberardino

The backstory

This 10th generation winery has been working with Campania’s grapes since the early 1700s. Their fame rests not only on the quality of their wine, but on their unwavering dedication to historic grapes like aglianico, greco, and other varietals brought to southern Italy by the ancient Greeks. Many believe that without the elder Mastroberardino, Antonio, these varieties would have died out after World War II. They’re also working with archeologists to revive the vineyards of Pompeii. (See my article “The Vineyards of Pompeii: Back from the Ashes.”)

Before visiting this winery 20 years ago, I thought it odd that white wines could excel in Campania, which one associates with heat — sunny Naples, the Amalfi Coast, and all that. But after climbing switchbacks for an hour and arriving at cool chestnut woods that resembled Piedmont more than Portofino, I got it. That elevation results in high acidity and a fresh character to the wines across the board. It also makes this area the last to harvest in Italy, as late as mid-November, according to Piero Mastroberardino. And that allows for a long, slow ripening, which is a definite plus for bringing out the best in a grape. What’s more, he said, “volcanic ashes are almost everywhere.” All three regional characteristics — elevation, a late harvest, and volcanic soils — can be felt in the wines Mastroberardino presented.

The wines

The ‘tufo’ in Greco di Tufo is both a type of volcanic rock and a town at the heart of this DOCG appellation. What that volcanic soil adds to greco’s characteristic peach/apricot flavors is this: “We look for the classical saltiness, which comes from the mineral compounds in the soil,” said Mastroberardino.  Some use the word sapidity. Mastroberardino described his Greco di Tufo as having an “oyster character,” which he said is “the link to terroir.” This wine definitely calls for a plate of piping hot fritto misto di mare, preferably on a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean sea.

As red wines go, Mastroberardino’s flagship Radici Taurasi is my cup of tea. Its bright acidity makes it a perfect food wine, refreshing your palate and encouraging you to forge ahead with another bite. That’s the cool climate speaking. And that same acidity enables long aging. For this very reason, aglianico has often been called “the Barolo of the South.” (Taurasi is a town and a DOCG wine made from the aglianico grape.) But unlike young Barolo, this one is delicious now, with snappy cherry, briary fruit, spice, and fine tannins. Its flavors will only deepen and gain complexity as the years roll by.

Factoid

Radici means roots. A version of this wine has been made by the Mastroberardino family since 1928. It acquired the name Radici in 1986, after a massive earthquake left 3,000 dead. This was the family’s attempt to assure locals that they weren’t abandoning ship and leaving town, but had deep roots here.

Bertani

The backstory

Founded in 1857, Bertani is one of Valpolicella’s oldest wineries. The brothers Giovan Battista and Gaetano Bertani were nobles from Verona. Gaetano had spent time in Burgundy, not only soaking up the viticultural innovations of his friend Jules Guyot (inventor of the guyot trellising system), but also developing a taste for dry wine at a time when sweet ruled the day — think Port, Marsala, or Valpolicella’s own recioto, made from dried grapes. Their first wine, 1860’s Secco Bertani, was dry (secco), oak-aged, and revolutionary, an early template for today’s Veneto reds. An even bigger milestone came in 1959, when Bertani’s Amarone Classico debuted.

The wines

The label on Secco-Bertani points to history, being the same design as in the 1930s. What’s inside the bottle is also historic: a blend of local corvina, sangiovese, and Gaetano’s beloved French grapes, in this case syrah and cabernet. Tradition also continues with its cask-aging in chestnut and cherry wood, so plentiful in the Veneto countryside. In all these respects, “this represents the soul of Bertani,” said Andrea Lonardi. It’s a silky wine with a savory fruit-of-the-woods character and an undercurrent of tea-leaf. Though not as acidic as Radici, it’s well balanced and quite drinkable, the hallmark of Bertani wines.

If Secco-Bertani is “the soul,” Bertani’s Amarone Classico is “the icon,” per Lonardi. True to form, it’s never over the top, avoiding over-extraction and sky-high alcohol, the bane of too many modern Amarones. Balance and drinkability are the goal. Vinified bone dry, any impression of sweetness comes from the glycerin, Lonardi explained. Note the vintage: 2009 is the second most recent vintage on the market today of this wine. Where’s it been all this time? Maturing in Slavonian oak cask for nine years, according to Lonardi. That long aging makes it supple and refined, so it can better showcase the lovely dried fruit character which results from the 120-day appassimento on traditional bamboo drying racks.

Factoid

When the Bertani family converted to dry wine in 1958, they couldn’t sell one bottle. It took 25 years for the market to come around. As a result, today Bertani holds the world’s largest library of old-vintage Amarone, with 58 vintages available for sale (20 of which are on the U.S. market).

Where to buy

To buy any of these wines, go to Vinporter.com and Wine.com. Alternately, you can find retail shops and restaurants using this locator: https://www.taubfamilyselections.com/where-to-buy

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Thanks to Sophia Loren, I knew about the Ciociaria hills long before I knew about its wine. In Two Women, Loren plays a WWII widow who flees Rome with her daughter before the German troops arrive. It’s a tale of privation and betrayal based on Alberto Moravia’s La Ciociara, and the novel seared in my brain a picture of the rugged Ciociaria mountains south of Rome and the refugees’ harrowing life there.

Those same Apennine foothills are now known for something completely different and much more positive: cesanese, the most exciting red grape in Lazio. It’s an antique varietal, first cultivated by the native Ernici people, then adopted by Roman epicures as their go-to red. Cesanese enjoyed another flush of fame during the Middle Ages, when Popes and Roman nobles purchased land in these parts to produce their supply of red wine. (Their white grapes and summer villas were in the Castelli Romani nearby. See my article “A Day Trip to Rome’s Wine Country”.)

Today’s cesanese is an immediately appealing wine. It announces itself with a pretty bouquet of red fruit, typically cherry and cassis, sometimes veering darker towards blackberry. That fruity nose combines with floral or earthy/spicy/savory overtones, depending on style and age. It’s medium-bodied with soft tannins, which makes it an excellent food wine for everyday.

Based on DNA, researchers think that cesanese is wholly unique, unrelated to any other wine grape in Italy or beyond. Its home turf is so isolated and far enough inland that grapes brought from Greece—widespread in Campania—wouldn’t have arrived here.

That isolation was prized by 19th century Romantic painters looking for “the picturesque”—pastoral landscapes with traces of antiquity, and perhaps a shepherd playing his flute. Today the landscape feels just as agrarian as it did in the paintings of Corot, Samuel Morse, Joseph Anton Koch, et al. Tracts of forest are interspersed with small vineyards and fields of grain. Medieval hilltop towns still have quarters where garbage is collected by mule. Compared to Tuscany and Piedmont, this part of Lazio feels like it hasn’t changed in decades—until it comes to the wine, that is, which has completely reinvented itself for modern times.

Cesanese then and now

“Cesanese was born here, but our grandfathers and preceding generations brought it all to Rome as a sweet wine, because in the 1950s and 1960s that’s how they liked their reds,” says Antonio di Cosimo, president of the Cesanese del Piglio DOCG consortium and owner of Corte dei Papi winery. “They waited to do a late harvest, then made wine with a little residual sugar. Fortunately, that method has been abandoned under the Cesanese DOCG.”

Old-style cesanese was not only sweet, it was fizzy, like a Lambrusco. That style lasted “from the Romans to the other day,” attests Piero Riccardi, co-owner of the boutique biodynamic winery Cantina Riccardi Reale. “The sweet wine was very appreciated in the Rome market,” he says, where unbottled cesanese was sucked up by the gallon in countless trattorias. “But that [sweet, foamy style] was difficult to age,” Riccardi continues, “so people said cesanese is impossible to age. But some producers started to make cesanese a different way: with longer time on the skins, not overly ripe, more acidity. The standard is now that you can age cesanese for years, like a Burgundy.”

Among the pioneers of this change from sweet to dry was Paolo Perinelli. His family had made wine for generations under the Perinelli name, but he started afresh in the early 1980s, replanting all their vineyards and changing the winery name to that of the old farmstead, Casale della Ioria. “When Paolo replanted, our choice was to plant international grapes or cesanese,” says his wife, Marina Perinelli. “Paolo was sure he wanted to make cesanese come alive again. But at the time, nobody [in Lazio] was interested in red native varietals. They wanted wine to be white, fresh, and very simple.”

After taking cuttings from their old vineyards and propagating the best, Perinelli bet on a dry style. It was a risk, both in the marketplace and in the vineyard. Cesanese is notoriously tricky at harvest time; it ripens suddenly with a rapid sugar spike, so there’s little margin of error in the pick date when attempting a dry, modern style. Plus, when you limit yields (as you must in order to concentrate flavors), cesanese can easily become a vinone—a big, fat wine, in Marina’s parlance. “It’s easy to have a wine with a lot of sugar. So a strong, strong wine is easier than to do than a clean wine that’s possible to drink at lunch or dinner,” she says.

Casale della Ioria aims for elegance, not power. They were among the first to dignify cesanese with maturation in wood barrels. Their first label, Tenuta della Ioria, was aged for six months in large, neutral casks of 2,000 liters. Eyebrows shot up in 1999 when they aged their second cesanese label, Torre del Piano, in small French barrique—becoming the first winery to do so. “It was really strange for some people here, putting cesanese in this expensive wood,” recalls daughter Silvia Perinelli. Her mother adds, “When we started with Torre del Piano, everybody thought Paolo was a foolish man because it was impossible to sell the wine at the price.” But the naysayers were wrong. It not only sold, the 2001 vintage was awarded a silver medal at Vinitaly, the country’s largest wine fair, in 2004. That was a turning point for the whole area, says Marina Perinelli. “Everything changed really, really quickly.”         

The new generation

Since then, a new generation has stepped into the void left by Lazio’s lost farmers. “An entire generation, from the end of the 1960s to the 1980s, went to Rome and abandoned agriculture,” says Pietro Riccardi. Now they’re returning to start or rekindle small wineries, taking a markedly different tack from their fathers and grandfathers, who prized quantity over quality and sold everything to wine cooperatives (which are now mostly out of business). Riccardi ticks off some of the new wineries—Marco Antonelli, Vineria Neri, Le Cerquette—one started by a former computer technician, another by an economist who gave up their city jobs to return to family land near the town of Olevano Romano.

Riccardi himself is a case in point. For 35 years, he’d been a video producer at RAI Television in Rome, where he met his partner, Lorella Reale, a camera operator from Sicily. The two made a number of programs on sustainable agriculture and climate change, and that lit the fire. “We wanted to experience what we were thinking about,” Riccardi says, “to explore natural farming and demonstrate that there are alternative ways.” He recites an alarming fact: “Just two percent of the farmland in Europe is for vineyards. But 70 percent of all pesticides used are for vineyards—for fungicides, for disease, for herbicides, for fertilizer. It’s incredible.”

In 2010, the couple begat Cantina Riccardi Reale, planting six hectares of vines on inherited and purchased land. They set their ideas in motion regarding organic and biodynamic viticulture, despite skepticism from colleagues. “We began the second change of cesanese” following its 1980s makeover from sweet to dry, says Riccardi. “We introduced natural wine.” A number of new producers have followed suit.

One of cesanese’s characteristics is its hypersensitivity to terroir, “similar to nebbiolo, nerello mascalese, and pinot noir,” Lorella Reale observes. Seeing that their vineyards had clear striations of red volcanic soil and white sandstone, they decided to play up these distinctions with separate labels: Neccio comes from volcanic soil, while Càlitro comes from sandstone and is thus slower to mature in bottle. Both wines are vinified exactly the same way: spontaneous fermentation on native yeast, unfined and unfiltered, and aged a year or more in chestnut cask. (As the grandson of a chestnut barrel-maker, Riccardi finds chestnut more neutral than oak and feels it better highlights cesanese’s inherent flavors and texture.) A third label, Colle Pazzo (“crazy hills”), mixes the two soil types. It also macerates on the skins for half the time and ages in cement rather than wood. The result is a fruitier, less tannic expression of cesanese, ready to drink now. A fourth label is a cesanese rosé called Tucucu.

While Riccardi Reale and Casale della Ioria are the only wineries to make a rosé, most offer a range of cesanese styles. All start with a easy-going version done in stainless steel or concrete that showcases the juicy fruit (like Casale delle Iorio’s Campo Novo, redolent of cherry pie; Corte dei Papi’s bright-toned Colle Ticchio; or Damiano Ciolli’s earthier Silene). Then there’s an upper tier with more structured, age-worthy wines. These might come from historic vineyards, and they usually mature in wood (like Corte dei Papi’s barrique-aged San Magno or its mixed barrique/cask OttavoCielo Superiore; or Damiano Ciolli’s Cirsium Riserva, matured in French oak cask).

Cesanese appellations

When drilling down into cesanese, there are three appellations and two varieties to know. Most important is the grape, of which there are two types: Cesanese commune is a big-berried grape, prized in the past by farmers seeking high-volume production. The smaller-berried cesanese di affile is the favorite today among quality producers, especially in the three appellations in the Ciociaria hills. Two are DOCs (denominazione di origine controllata): Cesanese di Olevano Romano and Cesanese di Affile. A third DOC was elevated to DOCG status (G for garantita) in 2008: Cesanese del Piglio. All permit either cesanese variety to be used, with a minimum of 90% in the DOCG and Affile DOC, and 85% in the Olevano DOC. There are no requirements for wood aging.

These distinctions are largely academic to the American consumer, who’d be lucky to find a choice in the average wine shop. Though exports are on the rise, cesanese production on the whole is quite limited. The average size of a winery in Frosinone province is just 7 acres, according to Marina Perinelli. All three appellations combined make less than 1 million bottles. That number is sure to grow, given the rise in consumer interest, but it’ll take time. “They’re replanting vineyards, but those are still young,” says Piero Perinelli, who served two terms as DOCG president.

For now, cesanese remains a tiny island in Lazio’s vast sea of white wine. But it’s worth seeking out. Who wouldn’t want to try a distinctive indigenous grape over the millionth merlot? If you’re in that camp, cesanese is calling your name.

First published in the Winter 2021 issue of Tastes of Italia.

Let’s talk about my favorite sparkling wine of 2020: Mirabella’s Rosé Franciacorta ($25).

Things to note at the top: Franciacorta is the crème de la crème when it comes to Italian sparkling wine. Second, I happen to adore sparkling rosé. Third, the critics love this particular wine too. Mirabella’s Rosé was the first Franciacorta ever to make Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list.

Also worth noting: Its beguiling wild berry aromas, coming from the pinot noir in the blend. Seductive biscuity notes from three years on the lees. A pretty blush-pink color, reminiscent of the sunset I once saw while boating on Lake Iseo, the great glacial lake in Lombardy bordering the Franciacorta region. 

But I must say, come next year, this favorite will be displaced by two others from Mirabella: DØM Rosé Franciacorta Dosaggio Zero Riserva and Pinot Bianco Brut Nature, as both will be newly imported by Baccanal Wine Imports in 2021.

I had the opportunity to preview these two wines in February 2020 BC (Before Covid). Mirabella export manager Marta Poli led journalists through a line-up of five sparklers, which also included the Franciacorta Rosé, along with their flagship Brut, called Edea, and their Satèn, by definition a 100 percent chardonnay.

Who is Mirabella?

Founded by Teresio Schiavi and partner Giacomo Cavalli in 1979, Mirabella remains a family winery. Teresio is still the enologist at the helm, but he’s now flanked by his sons Alessandro and Alberto, cellar master and marketing director respectively.

Mirabella was part of the first wave of wineries in Franciacorta, alongside Ca’ del Bosco, Bellavista, and Il Mosnel, among others. As an appellation, Franciacorta is quite new. The first sparklers from this lake region were released in 1961 by a small group of gentlemen farmers. Led by Giudo Berlucchi, they wanted to put the region on the map as a land of serious metodo classico wine (equivalent to méthode champenoise in France). By 1967, Franciacorta had become a DOC, then in 1987 it graduated to DOCG status. Riding in the slipstream of that top denomination, a second wave of wineries emerged in the 1990s. [For more on Franciacorta’s history and wine styles, see my article “Franciacorta: Bubbles alla Moda.”]

In terms of size, Mirabella belongs in the top 10 Franciacorta wineries, their annual production being around 450,000 bottles. The Franciacorta region as a whole makes only 18 million bottles; that’s quite boutique compared to Champagne’s 300 million and Prosecco’s 600 million.

Pinot Bianco, a stylistic signature

In the early years, Franciacorta was a blend of pinot noir (pinot nero in Italian) and pinot blanc (pinot bianco). Gradually chardonnay muscled pinot bianco aside, becoming the region’s dominate grape; chardonnay now accounts for 60 percent of all plantings. That dwarfs pinot bianco, now down to 4 percent and grown by only 10 producers, according to Mirabella export manager Marta Poli.

“This is a real pity,” she says, “because, in Mirabella’s opinion, pinot bianco is representative of Franciacorta and gives us something completely different in terms of style.”

Of the 10 wineries still growing pinot bianco, Mirabella has the most of all: 14% of total vines. So it makes sense that they’ve made it the hallmark of their style. Pinot bianco appears in their flagship Franciacorta Brut, an 80/20 chardonnay/pinot bianco blend. It’s 10 percent of the Franciacorta Rosé and is part of other cuvées that aren’t exported.

“Pinot Bianco, for us, means two things,” Poli says. “First, acidity,” an essential ingredient for sparkling wines the world over. “Second, a completely different bouquet. Pinot bianco is more floral than fruity. It’s not a full-bodied grape, but, in our opinion, is a really elegant grape and able to refresh.”

So it was a no-brainer for the winery to decide to make a pure pinot bianco sparkler. By DOCG law, their Pinot Bianco Brut Nature can’t be labeled Franciacorta, because the rules permit a maximum of 50 percent pinot bianco in the Franciacorta blend. No matter. A rose by any other name still smells as sweet.

I call this a bikini wine, where nothing is hidden. There’s no oak to cloak the flavors, being fermented in concrete vats. It’s zero dosage, meaning no sugar is added before the second fermentation in bottle; that allows the grape’s racy acidity to be on full display. It’s got minerality and a delicate white flower bouquet. Everything that makes for a refreshing and elegant aperitif. I’m not surprised that Japan ranks first among Mirabella’s export markets, since this would be the perfect pairing for sushi and tempura (as well as frito misto along Italy’s shores).

Mirabella’s rosés

“This is one of the oldest roses in Franciacorta,” says Poli of Mirabella’s bottling. “Along with Ca’ del Bosco, Bellavista, and Monte Rossa, we are one of the first seven Franciacorta Rosé producers.” They’ve been making this wine since 1982 — before rosé became trendy — and it remains one of Mirabella’s best-known labels in Italy and Germany. 

Making Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list in 2019 “was an important homage to those people who believed in rosé from the very beginning,” says Irene Graziotto of Studio Cru, a communications firm that represents Mirabella. “There’s this crazy thing in Italy, where right now we are the third producer in the world when it comes to rosé, but Italians don’t drink it that much. Men consider it more female.”

But even macho Italian guys might reconsider after tasting DØM Rosé. Created last year to celebrate Mirabella’s 40th anniversary, the winery pulled out the stops for this Reserve, aging it for 100 months (over eight years) on the lees. It’s also a millesimato, meaning the grapes come from just one vintage — in this case 2009.

Plus, it’s another zero dosage wine, the better to showcase the pretty red fruit from an old-vine blend of 60/25/15 pinot noir/pinot bianco/chardonnay, the latter fermented in French oak. This Reserve is complex, with layers of fruit, spice, minerality, and brioche, and very fine bubbles. It’s a rare bird indeed, with only 3000 bottles made. The next bottling — vintage 2011 — will be double that. But that’s the maximum they’ll ever produce, given that the vineyard it comes from is only two hectares (five acres) in size. Call it a unicorn wine.

If you can’t snare this charmed beast, their Franciacorta Rosé is a great alternative. Whatever the case, if you’d like a sparkling wine with elegance and class this holiday season, look no further than Mirabella.

It’s hard to imagine belonging to a family that can trace its roots back a millennium. The Mazzeis can. I suppose they give new meaning to the label millennials.

The Mazzei family has always been linked with wine. They started out in the 11th century as coopers in Tuscany (their surname comes from mazza, meaning mallet or hammer). In 1398, Ser Lapo Mazzei penned the first extant document mentioning Chianti wine. A few centuries later, his descedent Philip Mazzei was pals with Thomas Jefferson and shipped vines to Monticello. He even came up with a rough draft for the phrase “all men are created equal” that Jefferson used in the Declaration of Independence. [For more about Philip and his eponymous cabernet, see my article “Meet Philip Mazzei.”] 

That’s all well and good. But what we most love about the Mazzeis is their Chianti Classico.

Since a fortuitous marriage in 1435, the family enterprise has been based in Fonterutoli, a tiny hamlet in the heart of the Chianti Classico zone. It’s a picture-book borgo, with medieval stone houses and heavy wooden doors, climbing wisteria and cobblestone streets. Their winery there, called Castello di Fonterutoli, is headquarters for what’s now a mini wine empire, as the family also own wineries in Prosecco country (Villa Marcello), on Tuscany’s Maremma coast (Belguardo), and on the southeastern tip of Sicily (Zisolo).

Sitting before me on a Zoom screen is Giovanni Mazzei, the 25th generation in Fonterutoli. Now export director of Marchesi Mazzei, Giovanni is here to present four wines to journalists: three Chianti Classico Gran Selezione and one Super Tuscan.

What is a Gran Selezione?

The advantage of being among the oldest families in Tuscany is that you own a lot of land. That’s why the Mazzeis are one of the only producers making not one Gran Selezione, but three. Having seven vineyards in three subregions of Chianti gives you that option. Dividing them into 120 plots and vinifying each separately gives you an idea of the precision behind their winemaking.

So, just what is a Gran Selezione? It’s a new premium tier of Chianti Classico created in 2014. Here’s what’s key: All the grapes must be estate grown — meaning no negociant go-betweens, no purchased grapes, just estate-grown grapes, period. Most Gran Selezione wines come from historic vineyards that have stood the test of time.

The category also has greater aging and alcohol requirement: 30 months and 13%. That’s compared to 24 months and 12.5% for Chianti Classico Riserva, and 12 months and 12% for basic Chianti Classico.

That might not sound like a big deal, but for producers, “it’s a game changer,” Giovanni Mazzei attests. He reports that only 5–6% of production in the Chianti Classico DOCG region is classified as Gran Selezione, even six years after the category’s introduction. “It shows it’s really strictly kept for the best.”

But, he adds sagely, “At the end of the day, the rules are not making the wines. It’s how we winemakers envision them.”

What Castello di Fonterutoli is envisioning these days is pure sangiovese that expresses its unique territory. In other words, terroir reflected in the glass — a pretty universal goal among quality producers nowadays. The differences between these three Gran Selezione show that the Mazzeis are on the right track.

3 Gran Selezione

Giovanni Mazzei brings out a map to show us the “beautiful diversity” of their vineyards. As a territory, Chianti Classico is quite large, stretching between the two old rival city states, Florence and Siena. As anyone who’s ever driven in Chianti knows, there’s nary a straight road due to the region’s many interlocking hills. Hills by their very nature mean varying altitudes, soils, and microclimates, and those mean a lot when growing sangiovese, a highly site-specific grape.

“In places like Radda, with more galestro [a friable rock common in Chianti] and higher altitude, your wines wind up being more nervous and more vertical,” Mazzei says. “While instead in Castlenuovo Berardenga, you’ve got wines that are wider and bigger. In Castellina in Chianti, you’ve got more dynamics; the tannins are very silky, with a lot of power.”

Mazzei walks us through the three Gran Selezione, going from highest to lowest altitude.

Badiòla Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2017

This is a brand new wine in the Mazzei portfolio, though Badiòla, the highest vineyard they own, has been around for some time. But over the past 25 years, they’ve noticed that the sangiovese harvested from this plot has an exceptional character, so they started bottling it separately with the 2017 vintage. 

Located in the commune of Radda in Chianti, Badiòla resides at 570 meters (1870 feet). For Chianti, that’s high. Surrounded by thick woods, the vineyard’s microclimate is fresh, windy, and cool. It also gets lots of sun and sees extreme differences between day and nighttime temperatures. “That helps give great aromatics to the wine,” notes Mazzei. So does the altitude. The soil here is quite rocky and full of galestra — like elsewhere in this township, where a common sight is massive boulders piled beside freshly dug vineyards. This rock results in a certain austerity. “I’m a big fan of this type of wine,” says Mazzei, “where you get complexity with this austere character, which is typical of Radda.”

Matured for 16 months in 500-liter tonneaux, 50 percent of which is lightly toasted new oak, this is a fresh, crispy style of Chianti Classico. Tart cherry and red cassis dominate and give it nerve, and the mouth-watering acidity and silky tannins makes it a perfect accompaniment for food.

But growing sangiovese up at this altitude is challenging. Yields tend to be very limited. “Sometimes it’s quite heartbreaking,” Mazzei admits. That was the case in 2017, a vintage where quantity was down throughout Tuscany. There were only enough grapes for 3,000 bottles of Badiòla’s debut.  

Castello Fonterutoli Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2017

This is the estate’s flagship wine. It comes from 11 parcels around the village of Fonterutoli in the commune of Castellina in Chianti. But it’s new in a way, since they changed the recipe with this 2017 vintage. Previously, they’d adhered to a tradional style of Chianti, where sangiovese gets blended with a splash of local grapes, in this case colorino and malvasia nera. Now it’s 100 percent sangiovese.

So are all their Gran Selezione. This puts them on equal footing, so you can truly feel the difference between the vineyards. It’s also the tendency among producers in recent years: making their Chianti Classico a monovarietal wine. They recognize that sangiovese showcases the terroir most transparently — and there’s nothing more unique to sell than a vineyard’s terroir. (Up until 1996, however, a pure sangiovese like this would not have been allowed to be called Chianti Classico, but that’s a story for a different day.)

The 11 Fonterutoli parcels sit at an average of 480 meters (1575 feet). That’s still high, but less so than Badiòla, which means it’s somewhat warmer, which in turn gives riper fruit. Not surprisingly, this Gran Selezione tends more towards bing cherry and black fruit of the woods. It’s richer, but still has the restrained elegance that’s in the Mazzei DNA. This one ages slightly longer in tonneaux (25 months) with a touch more new oak (65%). That wood is well integrated, leaving just a hint of spice and balsa. “Once we reach Fonterutoli,” Mazzei says, “you see this combination of elegance, power, tannins, with a lot of aromatics.”

Vicoregio 36 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 2017

This is an old wine with a new name. Until this vintage, it was called Mix 36. That’s in reference to the 36 biotypes of sangiovese that go into it; half are registered clones and half are massal selections propagated from Fonterutoli’s old vines. “We do 36 vinifications, so it’s a helluva job,” Mazzei says.

The Mazzeis have been at the forefront of clonal research on sangiovese, together with the Chianti Classico 2000 project, which spanned 16 years and studied 239 sangiovese clones.

“For the last 50 years, we’ve dedicated ourselves to research to better understand sangiovese. That was started when selecting from vines planted in 1911,” says Mazzei. “From there, we joined our research with Chianti Classico 2000. And we created a nursery project where we worked with 36 subvarietals of sangiovese.”

That nursery lies in the Vicoregio vineyard. As part of their shift towards emphasizing terroir, they’ve incorporated the vineyard name into the wine’s new moniker, Vicoregio 36, underscoring the fact that its grapes are tied to one location. 

That location happens to be in Castelnuovo Berardenga, the southernmost commune in the Chianti Classico zone. It’s just above Siena and shares some of the drier climate and warmer temperatures with Montalcino to the south, where sangiovese takes its most powerful form in Brunello di Montalcino. [For more on the differences between sangiovese in Montalcino and Chianti, see my article “Sangiovese Clones: Why Care?”]

All this adds up to a Gran Selezione that gives the biggest, fruitiest impression of the three. Though still young, it’s immediately inviting, offering ripe red fruit, spice, and an open-weave texture. I happen to love it.

And 1 Supertuscan

Siepi Toscana IGT 2018

I’m also partial to Siepi. This 50/50 blend of merlot and sangiovese comes from the lowest vineyard of today’s wines, called Siepi, which starts at 250 meters (820’) in Castellina in Chianti. The Mazzeis have owned this patch of land since 1435. But in doing research for an anniversary vintage, they discovered that there have been vineyards here since 1461.

“There’s something quite special about merlot in Tuscany,” Mazzei observes. It loves the mix of clay and albarese soil in Chianti, so starting in 1992, the family took advantage and created this velvety blend.

“That was a big fight in the family, because the younger generation wanted to go with 100 percent merlot, and the older generation wanted to go with a good level of sangiovese in the blend. Because no decision could be made, we went for 50/50 sangiovese and merlot,” Mazzei recalls with a laugh. “They’re so complementary. You have the elegance, the brightness, the electricity of the sangiovese with its silky tannins, together with the roundness, the power, the black fruit and black chocolate of the merlot.”

Despite this harmonious marriage, such a blend is uncommon in Tuscany. Mazzei counts on two fingers the other examples: Frescobaldi’s Luce, from its Luce della Vite estate in Montalcino. And 50&50, a collaboration between Avigonesi in Montepulciano and Capannelle in Chianti. 

Is the Super Tuscan category still going strong? “The best are,” Mazzei replies. “But I don’t think there’s space for new Super Tuscans.”

This wine is certainly among the best, with its combination of Tuscan restraint and New World appeal. But all four are worth a spluge. (The suggested retail price for these wines runs from $74 to $130.) Since the holidays are near, there’s no better time to treat yourself to something special.

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Sullivan presented 31 sakes, together with a helpful list of New York wine shops with good sake selections.

 Now, the key takeaways:

POURING SAKE

• The number one rule: Never pour your own sake.

• If you’re the person pouring, hold the bottle with two hands, much like the Japanese do when presenting a business card.

• Don’t clink the carafe on the cup.

• Fill the cup to 80% full. It’s impolite to fill it all the way, since that makes it awkward to drink.

RECEIVING SAKE

• When you’re on the receiving side, don’t leave your sake cup on the table. Pick it up and hold it with two hands: one cupping it and the other supporting it.

• Immediately take a small sip before setting the cup down. It’s a form of polite acknowledgement.

DRINKING SAKE 

• Kanpai, the equivalent to cheers, actually means “dry cup.” It’s the starting gun for any sake party.

• Never drink your glass in one gulp. It’s not a shot. Sake should be sipped and savored.

• Don’t shake or peer into the carafe to see if it’s empty. Judge by its weight.

 MOKKIRI, THE OVERFLOW STYLE

• Mokkiri, or the overflow serving style, is a demonstration of hospitality: It’s more bang for your buck!

• Don’t pick up the whole apparatus. Take the glass out of the square box, let it drip, then drink from the glass. Pour the remaining drips into the glass.

In less formal settings, the rules are more lax, especially as the evening progresses!

 HOT VS COLD

• In Japan, it’s equally acceptable to drink sake hot or cold.

• The choice is largely driven by the seasons. Second most important factor: personal preference. Third: food pairings. 

Tim Sullivan is hosting additional virtual events in throughout the summer. Check them out here.

The first time I visited Virginia wine country, I was a graduate student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. That was the late ’70s – long before I knew anything about wine; I was an aspiring Italian Renaissance art historian. It would be decades before I’d become a wine writer and write about the Italian trader Philip Mazzei, who sailed from Europe in 1773 with 10,000 vines —  America’s first vitis vinifera— destined for Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate nearby. In 1979, I didn’t yet know that Jefferson, George Washington, and other colonial leaders were investors in America’s very first commercial wine outfit, the Virginia Wine Company. 

Nor did I know that a century earlier, Jamestown settlers had arrived to find native vines “in great abundance…that climbe the toppes of the highest trees,” as Captain John Smith wrote when recounting his 1606 expedition up the Chesapeake. To avoid drinking the muddy tidal waters, those settlers made wine with such native grapes as scuppernong, muscadine, and catawba. In 1619, to encourage this more healthful form of drink, the colony’s first house of representatives, the Virginia House of Burgesses, passed one of its first bills, Acte 12, which required every male colonist to plant and tend at least 10 grape vines.

Back in 1979, all I knew was that a day visiting the half-dozen wineries around Charlottesville was a very pleasant diversion from my studies. The wine, however…let’s just say it was not as alluring as the rural scenery.  I remember some wineries bottling literally dozens of grape varieties, regardless of whether they were appropriate to Virginia’s humid, subtropical climate or not. (The state gets twice the rainfall of Bordeaux.) No matter how iffy, those wines would get snapped up during UVA’s Parents’ Weekend nonetheless.

Some of that indiscriminate planting was still going on when I returned for a visit in 2008, but much else had changed. The half-dozen Charlottesville wineries had grown to 16, organized along a Monticello Wine Trail. Serious quality wine was coming out of new properties like King Family Vineyards, Pollak Vineyards, and Veritas Winery, as well as old stalwarts like Barboursville Vineyards. As a region, they’d found their voice, above all in viognier and cabernet franc.

A recent tasting by the Wine Media Guild brought me up to speed on Virginia winemaking as a whole. I can safely say it’s come a long way, baby! Across the state, there are now 276 wineries, with 85% of vineyards planted to vitus vinifera. The sampling we tasted — 21 wines from 10 wineries — showed a new maturity of approach. The wineries had reaped knowledge from the school of hard knocks about what grows best where. In addition to viognier and cab franc, Virginia’s wineries have homed in on an obscure white grape from France’s Jurançon region, petit manseng, and have simultaneously taken their red blends to new heights. They’d also cast aside last decade’s obsession with extraction for a new, refined balance.  

The four petit mansengs presented to the Wine Media Guild were done in completely different styles — a testimony to the grape’s versatility. Glen Manor Vineyards’ was off-dry, in the typical Jurançon style. Michael Shaps Wineworks’ was golden-hued and nutty, with a strong impression of oak. Williamsburg Winery — whose property includes land once owned by colonist John Johnson, who planted a vineyard there after Acte 12’s passage — took a dry, lean approach. My personal favorite came from Paradise Springs Vineyard. It too was on the dry side, but at the same time effectively underscored petit manseng’s lovely peach and tropical fruit.

The consensus among this group of wine writers was that the red blends were more successful than the pure varietals. I’d agree, though I found Veritas’ flagship petit verdot absolutely scrumptious: smooth in texture and bursting with blueberry, blackberry, and chocolate flavors. (I remember liking it in 2008, too.)

But yes, the red blends were the standouts. All tended to stick with the classic Bordeaux varieties, though ringers could also be found, such as Paradise Springs’ PVT, a juicy petit verdot/tannat 50/50 blend. Boxwood Estate Winery, from the new Middleburgh AVA (one of seven in the state), brought two blends that I starred in my tasting notes — Topiary and Trellis — and my old friend King Family Vineyards brought two other favorites, called Meritage and Mountain Plains. All possessed elegance, polish, and an appealing balance of ripe fruit with velvety tannins. 

Something tells me I’m overdue for a return visit. 

For more about Virginia wines, see the Virginia Wine website. 

The invitation said “Elegant attire.” That’s definitely not the norm for a wine tasting, not even a Brunello vintage preview. 

Perhaps it was because the 2015 vintage is so special that the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino decided to pull out all the stops. That and the fact that we North Americans are darn good customers, consuming a whopping 40% of Brunello exports. 

It was quite an affair. Held in the posh Park Hyatt New York, the walk-around tasting of 45 Brunellos was followed by a four-course dinner prepared by a two Michelin–star chef flown in specially from Milan: Andrea Parea of VUN. He was roundly applauded after we’d supped on dishes that included an unusual milky potato-cheese soup showered with black truffles; a saffron risotto alla Milanese topped with tender veal; and a melt-in-your-mouth manzo (young beef) with mushrooms. Gilding the lily was a decadent dessert of gianduja (chocolate-hazelnut) in various forms.

Back to the wine: Out of all Italy’s appellations, Brunello has the longest aging requirements. It cannot be released until February five years after harvest, so 2015 will show up in wine shops starting this spring. 

The 2015 vintage enjoyed “perfect weather,” according to Brunello consortium president Fabrizio Bindocci of Il Poggione. It was pretty ideal all over Italy, in fact. A wet winter was followed by a cool rainy spring, which prepared the vines to withstand stretches of extreme heat that arrived with summer. Rainstorms in August freshened things up in time for harvest, which was conducted without haste, allowing each producer to pick when he felt the grapes to be of optimal ripeness. 

The result is a deeply colored and beautifully balanced vintage. The 2015 Brunellos show vivid, juicy fruit; fine tannins that are already nicely integrated; and a fresh acidity that’ll give the wines long staying power.

At least for now, Brunello is enjoying a golden age with climate change. Look at the 5-star vintages declared by the consortium: Since World War II, only two 5-star vintages were declared each decade from the 1950s through the 1980s, followed by three in the 1990s and 2000s. This decade we have had four: 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2016.

Granted, not all of Montalcino benefits from warmer temps. On the lower stretches of this hill—which is effectively a 1480’ layer-cake in terms of soil and climate—the grapes can cook, so it pays to know a winery’s location. (For more on that, see my article “Brunello Basics: The lowdown on Tuscany’s most prestigious wine.”) 

With 208 bottlers in Montalcino, it’s impossible to know them all. Tastings like this offer the chance to make new acquaintances. I was delighted to discover La Fiorita, which has a stand-out but oddly named cru, NO. I knew Canalicchio di Sopra by name only, which is now in the hands of the founder’s 32-year-old grandson, and I was seriously smitten by its savory, dimensional Brunello. Another new name (to me) was Ridolfi, a Tuscan family that goes back to 1290. Their special selection Brunello, Donna Rebecca, is one to look for.

Other stand-outs were from names that need no introduction: Fanti, Il Poggione, Pian delle Vigne, Poggio Antico, and Talenti.

Bottom line: Once 2020 rolls around, get in line for these wines. Just make sure you’re flush with cash, because these beauties won’t go cheaply.

File this under "Who knew?" There’s such a thing as a white tempranillo grape, as I discovered this week at two trade tastings spotlighting Spain. As the winemakers tell it, a grower spotted a few white grapes on a red tempranillo vine some 25 to 30 years ago. He did what any curious grape-grower would do and grafted it. Today there are thousands such vines, though it’s still a rare breed.

But word is getting out Stateside. The first one was I tried was at a tasting launching the 2020 edition of Guía Peñín, the preeminent guide to Spain wine. This was a pure tempranillo blanco from Bodegas D. Mateos (f. 1886) southeast of Logroño. Categorized as a DOCa Rioja, it’s quite complex, with stone fruit and white flower aromas and a creamy texture from seven months on the lees in French barrique. There’s a touch of tannin, too. It’s much more than a simple summer quaffer.

My next encounter was the following day at the Rioja Railway Wine Experience, which cleverly spotlighted the wineries surrounding Haro’s train station—a logical position during the 19thcentury, when the first leg of transport was by rail. That line-up included Gómez Cruzado (f. 1886), La Rioja Alta (f. 1890), Viña Pomal (f. 1901), Muga (f. 1932), and Roda (f. 1987), the latter two being wineries that we visit on our RIOJA ROUNDUP tour.

Gómez Cruzado presented a 75/25 viura/white tempranillo blend called Montes Obarenes. There’s an enticing wiff of hazelnut and vanilla from fermentation in new barrique, and a plush, full-bodied texture from aging on the fine lees in concrete tank. It’s luscious and immediately appealing. I could imagine just how well it would go with white asparagus or roasted red peppers—two perennials on the Spanish table.

Other special treats from the week’s Spanish tastings: 

Aged Albariño

The luxury of attending such industry tastings is that you get to encounter wines of a rare breed. Aged albariño falls squarely into that camp. Albariño is a wine from the coastal inlets of Rias Baixas that everyone drinks young and fresh. (One sommelier in attendance noted, “Albariño sells itself on by-the-glass lists. It doesn’t make anybody mad.”) So we were flabbergasted to see a vintage 2010 from Bodegas Fillaboa and a 2012 from Paco & Lola. The first had six years on the lees, the latter five. That adds up to an albariño that’s rich and refreshing at the same time—a very neat trick. The flavors of tart green apple have somewhat subsided, leaving a nice minerality and nutty nose.

Old-vine garnacha

In my book, there’s nothing better than garnacha from gnarly old bush-trained vines. Bodegas D. Mateos once again excels with their Garnacha Cepas Viejas, as does the exceptional Garnacha de la Finca La Pederiza from La Rioja Alta, juice that normally goes into their Viña Ardanza Rioja. 

To the east of Rioja, garnacha goes gangbusters in the Cariñena appellation. Hacienda Molleda, a medium-sized family winery (65 ha) now in its 5th generation, offers convincing proof. I’d gladly make their young, strawberry-scented garnacha (above left) my house wine this summer. But the grand dame was their upper tier GHM Garnacha, from vines age 75 years and up. It’s a hedonistic cornucopia of berry fruit and spice.

Cariñena

Obviously the appellation of Cariñena is better known for its cariñena varietal wines. I developed an affection—no, a passion—for this grape when travelling in Sardinia, which was once under Aragon rule, hence the import of this Spanish grape. And Hacienda Molleda continued their winning streak with the appellation’s namesake grape as well. Cariñena has more tannic grip than garnacha, but is equally loaded with ripe, succulent fruit, though it skews a bit darker, more towards blackberry and plum.  Their stainless steel Cariñena was quite lovely, but the premier line GHM Cariñena was truly worth its salt—and that rack of 90-point scores.

The first time I ever tasted Moscato d’Asti, it was after a long bike ride in the Asti hills during the heat of July. My fellow bikers and I were cooling off in a swimming pool, and my husband-to-be came around offering flutes of this frizzante wine. It smelled of fresh apricots and orange blossom, tasted of honeysuckle, and was light as a feather. So, despite the Piedmont tradition of serving moscato at winter holidays with panettone, that summertime scenario remains my Platonic Ideal for the best pairing with Moscato d’Asti: a swimming pool.

Last week, five Moscato d’Asti winemakers arrived in New York for a master class on this most delicious of Piedmont dessert wines: Luigi Coppo from Coppo, Marco Dogliotti from La Caudrina, Stefano Chiarlo from Michele Chiarlo, Gianpiero Scavino from Ceretto, and Andrea Costa from Marenco. As happens with these things, they drilled down into technical aspects—soils, harvest dates, vinification techniques, yada yada. But the takeaway for me was how appealing each and every Moscato d’Asti was. For those who think they don’t like dessert wine, think again.

Moscato d’Asti isn’t just for Christmas and Easter. Italians will mix it with ripe peaches or strawberries for a fruit cocktail. They’ll have it mid-afternoon with cookies instead of Orangina. They introduce their youngsters to wine with a few drops of this nectar. Andrea Costa of Marcenco showed me a video of his two-year-old daughter dipping her finger in a chalice, then hording the glass and insisting “mio!”—mine! “Though she’s smelled all the wines we make, she was never that interested—before this,” he said.

So when summer arrives, pick up a bottle from any of those five wineries for your picnic, for an aperitif when outside grilling, or for an unbeatable poolside pleasure.

Just remember that not all moscatos are created equal. You want the real deal from its birthplace in Piedmont, and that's Moscato d’Asti.

Want to know more? See my article in Tastes of Italia, “Sparkling Traditions: Asti Spumante and Moscato d’Asti”

Want to visit Piedmont with La Dolce Vita Wine Tours? Click here to see our 7 tour options in Piedmont.

Zabaglione with Moscato d’Asti, blackberries and currants

(Serves 4)

4 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup Moscato d’Asti 
1/4 cup blackberries
1/4 cup fresh currants (or red raspberries)

There are many recipe variations on zabaglione. The traditional proportions are this: For each yolk, use half an eggshell full of sugar and half an eggshell full of wine. 

In a round copper or glass bowl, whisk the yolks with the sugar until obtaining a white and fluffy mixture. Add the Moscato d’Asti, and continue to whisk and cook over low heat in a bain-marie or double boiler without reaching the boiling point. Whisk until custard is warm, tripled in volume, and dragging the whisk across it leaves a ribbon on the surface, 8 to 9 minutes. Remove from heat. Serve immediately, or whisk over an ice bath until cooled. Serve in a glass with whole blackberries and currants and garnish with mint leaves.

Dogman opens with a close-up of a snarling pit bull. He’s on a short chain and seems feral and crazed. But in fact, he’s someone’s pet getting a bath in a dingy dog-grooming shop in an equally dingy seaside town. The man scrubbing his back with a janitor’s broom is Marcello, who knows a thing or two about how to handle a savage canine, the kind his rough clientele like to keep.

We’re in low-level mafia country here, full of petty criminals and forgotten people living on the economic fringes of Italy. The dynamic that plays out between Marcello and this dog is an apt metaphor for the film’s central story. Marcello can manage the wildest of beasts, but his tricks only go so far when savagery takes human form.

Marcello is a mild-mannered dweeb and devoted, divorced father who enhances his dog-grooming earnings with small-time coke dealing. His biggest client is Simoncino, a former boxer who terrorizes the town with rampant bullying and violent outbursts. While some in Marcello’s circle talk about ways to permanently eliminate this brut, Marcello considers him a friend—but one he fears. He lets himself be coerced into aiding Simoncino in his petty criminal schemes, like the night he’s an unwitting getaway driver for a villa burglary. When Simoncino’s accomplice boasts that he dealt with a yapping dog by putting him in the freezer, Marcello’s face twists with disgust. (Spoiler alert: He returns to rescue the pooch.)

The demands Simoncino places on Marcello escalate. Eventually, the dogman takes the fall for his thick-necked friend and serves time, but afterwards he learns that his pact with the devil—a bought silence—is meaningless, and his friends have turned against him to boot. Marcello takes shocking action in a bid for both redemption and revenge.

Dogman is the latest feature by Matteo Garrone, one of Italy’s most accomplished directors. His scripts always spring from real-life stories ripped from the headlines, or in the case of his best-known project, Gomorrah (2008), from the pages of Roberto Saviano’s eponymous exposé of the Neapolitan mafia, the camorra. That international best-seller not only named names within the crime syndicate (earning the author death threats), it showed from the inside how the camorra enters the woof and weave of semi-legitimate industries, from haute-fashion sweatshops to hazardous waste disposal.

Dogman’s point of departure was a horrific case of torture and homicide committed by a dog groomer in the 1980s outside of Rome. Like Gomorrah, the film’s naturalism is grounded in real places and real faces. Garrone’s films are shot on wholly on location, and the director has a talent for picking places that embody economic desperation and neglect—forgotten derelict towns that breed a dog-eat-dog mentality. Likewise, his cast mixes local non-actors with professionals. Those weathered faces, body language, and manner of speaking are the real deal. (After Gomorrah’s release, two of the nonprofessional supporting players were arrested for camorra-related crimes. Like I said: the real deal.) 

Dogman’s leading duo excel. With his sunken cheeks and slight frame, Marcello Fonte is the physical embodiment of hangdog acquiescence. This theater actor and musician previously had just bit parts in a half-dozen Italian films, plus Scorsese’s The Gangs of New York. This was his first time carrying a film, and his performance as Marcello is haunting. The judges at Cannes clearly thought so, awarding him Best Actor. (They also gave the canine cast a special Palm Dog award.) Edoardo Pesce, who came to the part of Simoncino with a longer filmography, is electrifying in his unpredictableness, like a feral dog who might either ignore you or sink his teeth into your flesh.

For Garrone, Dogman is not simply a story about the loss of innocent and vengeance. It’s about something that concerns us all: “the consequences of the daily choices we make in order to survive,” he says, “of the yesses that we say which bring us to no longer being able to say no, to the difference between who we are and who we believe we are.”

Dogman opens in New York and Los Angeles this Friday, April 12, then rolls out nationally via Magnolia Pictures. See playdates here.

Being passionate about wines at the light end of the spectrum, I was happy to attend them all. Happier still to discover some new wines I can get jazzed about. 

Herewith, my finds of the week. If I could round them up on a desert island—along with a beach umbrella and wifi—I’d be happy as a clam all summer long.

SCALA was new to me. When I think of the Ciró DOC—probably Calabria’s only wine that’s penetrated the US market—I think of the Librandi brand. Scala is a fraction of that size, thus its unfamiliarity. Family-run since Luigi Scala opened its doors in 1949, when southern Italy was crawling out from the rubble of WWII, this winery is now run by son Francesco, who has turned the winery organic.

Most people would have trouble coughing up the name of any native Calabrian grape. (Gaglioppo, Mantonico, or Magliocco, anyone?) But Greco Bianco belongs in that huge family brought to southern Italy by the ancient Greeks. Scala’s Cirò Bianco 2018, a pure Greco, really wowed me with its concentration. It’s reminiscent of a tropical cocktail, showing mango and pineapple, coupled with a lei of white flowers and a spritz of sea waves. It’s the furthest thing from an insipid Italian white (and there are plenty of those)—and just right for a desert isle. (Imported by VOS Selections)

I confess to a weakness for whites at the aromatic end of the spectrum, and here are two beauties.

Alto Adige reigns as one of Itlay’s best regions for whites, and the PACHERHOF Private Cuvée 2016, in the Eisack Valley of Südtirol, is a great example of how delectable these mineral-laden alpine wines can be. Cellar master Andrea Huber, whose family has owned the winery since 1142, frames this cuvée around a big dose of Riesling (38%), which provides the floral aromatics and racy acidity, while Kerner (22%) and Sylvaner (40%, refined for six months in large oak casks) provide body, sapidity, and an enticing third dimension. (Vias Imports)

Jumping south, there’s CANTINA COLOSSI, one of Sicily’s stars since its beginnings in the 1980s. I’ve yet to visit, since they’re on a small island, Salina, off the northeastern coast. Their Colossi Salina Bianco 2018 is a 50/50 blend of cataratto and inzolia, white grapes that one also finds in western Sicily. But these grow on volcanic soil, which makes all the difference. This wine really stands out, offering a heady mix of tropical and savory notes. Tasty indeed! (Vias Imports)

Also in Italy’s northeast is LIS NERIS, a fourth-generation winery in Friuli, near the border of Slovenia. I suppose they’re best know for their pinot grigio. But by my book, their Sauvignon Blanc Picol 2016 takes the cake. It hits all the right notes: aromatic, but not too much, with a gooseberry nose that’s varietal-perfect. The slightly fleshy body makes this a more serious wine than a simple sauvignon quaffer. Old vines (30+ years) rooted in gravel mountain soil help explain its power, as does the 11 months of batonnage in a mix of 500 liter barrels. If you love sauvignon, this belongs on your Must Try list. (VOS Selections)

As for pink wines, my enthusiasm for Lambrusco was renewed. “But that’s red!” you say. Most are. But one of the Lambrusco varieties, called Sorbara, is naturally low in pigments, so it creates a wine that’s pink—even when maceration lasts one month, rather than hours, as is the case with ANERI’s Rosé Lambruco di Corbara (NV). This Sorbara is much fruitier than most, in a very appealing way. Perhaps the RS (residual sugar) is a bit higher than normal in Sorbara, but it’s certain no higher than your average red Lambrusco.

Speaking of which: Vias threw in a ringer at this white & rosé tasting, which I highly recommend: PEDERZANA Lambrusco di Castelvetro, a bone-dry, dark-cherry-packed red Lambrusco from the Castelvetro subzone, considered the Gold Coast of Lambrusco’s hills. Try either with a plate of salumi and hard cheese on a picnic blanket. (Both Vias Imports)

When I was a college student in Florence, I learned to love the habitual summer cocktail of Tuscany: equal parts sweet vermouth and sparkling water on the rocks, garnished with a fat slice of orange. So refreshing! Experimenting later, I found that white vermouth could also play nicely in summer highballs.  

Now I have a new vermouth to play with, thanks to a discovery at Lauber Imports’ portfolio tasting. Surprisingly, it comes from sherry country in Spain. GONZALEZ BYASS, a historic house in Jerez de la Frontera that I know and love, has revived a recipe from 1896 for making vermouth from sherry. They’ve done a red vermouth from Olorso and PX soleras, but what they were pouring at the tasting was a newly imported white version, launching in the U.S. on April 1.  La Copa Extra Seco Vermouth is made from dry Fino sherry infused with botanicals that include clove, cinnamon, and red berry peppercorns. With spices like that, I’m tempted to try it with a slice of pineapple for a liquid upside-down cake. In any case, come April 1, I’ll be on the prowl for this totally weird and wonderful vermouth. (Gonzales Byass USA)

In September 1991, a German couple hiking off-trail in the Ötztal Alps, bordering Italy and Austria, came across a body. That in itself wasn’t so strange. Alpine mountaineers who meet their death often turn up after the summer thaw. But what was extraordinary is what authorities gradually realized: This wasn’t a recently deceased climber, but a mummified corpse dating back 5,000 years, preserved under a glacier that was now melting away. His Copper Age accoutrements were found nearby, including leather clothing, bearskin cap, birch-bark containers, dagger, wooden quiver, and copper axe.

In the years since, scientists have had a field day poking and probing the oldest mummy in Europe, whom they named Ötzi and constructed an entire museum around in Bolzano. They’ve analyzed his DNA and cell structure, done 3D reconstructions of his cranium and CAT scans of his body. They’ve sent probes into his stomach to determine his last meal.  The herbs found there come from one particular valley, so they can retrace his steps that final day, which mysteriously took him up to 9,000 feet, on an icy glacier. A cut in his hand indicates hand-to-hand combat a few days earlier. X-rays revealed a flint arrowhead buried in his back. That wound, they believe, was fatal, which suggests he was pursued and murdered.

For storytellers, an ice-age criminal case is hard to resist. Documentary filmmakers were first in line with projects about Ötzi, including Iceman Autopsy (2011), part of PBS’s Nova series.

But no one has turned Ötzi’s cold case into a dramatic feature—until Iceman, which opens this Friday. German writer/director Felix Randau offers a narrative about Ötzi’s backstory and what he was doing up on that glacier. And how he might have been both the hunter and the hunted.

For mise-en-scène, Randau relies on the science that grew out of Ötzi’s find and what archeologists know about Copper Age culture. Ötzi’s clothes, the nature of his house and village, how he’d hunt and make fire from live embers carried in a satchel—all this was fact-based. Additionally, the director worked with a linguist to come up with an early form of the Rhaetian language (the Raeti were a confederation of tribes in the eastern Alps) for the spare, unsubtitled dialog.

For the drama, however, Randau’s imagination was free to roam, and he penned a rousing adventure and revenge story. The film begins in Ötzi’s village, where he is leader of a small clan. One day while Ötzi is out hunting, a rival tribe raids the village, killing man, woman, and child and burning it to the ground. Alerted by the smoke, Ötzi returns to discover the travesty—and spot the marauders exiting on a distant trail. From there, the story becomes a classic chase and revenge story, though the hazards are older than Old World: glacial crevices that can trap a man alive; trails that along mountain gorges where one false step can prove fatal; subzero temperatures and relentless winds on ice shelfs; and the deadly spears and arrows of foes. 

“This is the great strength of fiction,” says the director. “Gaps can be filled in and painted over, something documentary cannot do.” Still, the story is plausible, he notes: “After the shooting had begun, a profiler reconstructed the murder case and came to a version of events that was similar to the one we tell in the film.” 

When shooting in the Alps, Randau didn’t seek out picture-postcard vistas. Rather, he believed that Ötzi’s people would have had a different, more adversarial relationship to nature, seeing the mountains as harsh, hostile environments, indifferent to human needs.  

However, if you’re a modern-day hiker in Südtirol, you’ll recognize the kind of boulder-strewn trails and deep pine forests that Ötzi inhabits. Certainly, anyone who comes on our ALPS & DOLOMITES wine + hiking tour will. (But you’ll find no ice crevices on our summertime treks, we promise!)  

What’s more, you can see Ötzi in person, preserved under a glaze of ice inside a refrigerated cell in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, the four-floor museum devoted to Ötzi and his civilization. It’s well worth an afternoon’s stay.

If you ever intend to visit Südtirol, go see this film. It’s a good yarn and not as hokey as you’d think. Iceman opens this Friday, March 15, in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle and is available on demand through iTunes, Vudu, Amazon, and other streaming services.

My mission this year: Sample sparklers for an upcoming article. Scout wineries in Valle d’Aosta, where we’re taking a hiking group this June. Check out Etna wines for our new tour in eastern Sicily, The Volcanic Wines of Etna. And lay the groundwork for a future article on the new Barbera Superiore Nizza DOCG.

SPARKLERS

Ferrari, Perlé Zero 2011

Ferrari has been at 3 Bicchieri with one wine or another ever since the awards first started. But this zero dosage cuveé was new. “This is our second year of making it, but we’ve been experimenting with this style for 40 years,” said brand ambassador Jamie Alexander Stewart. With seven years on the lees, this sparkler has the nutty, brioche-like character I adore, combined with a bone-dry finish. In sum: Supreme elegance and complexity, from the Trento DOC. (Psst: We visit Ferrari on our Alps & Dolomites hiking tour, in case you want to taste in situ.)

Ricci Curbastro, Franciacorta Brut

Franciacorta lies to the west of Trento, and its proximity to Lake Iseo gives a warmer microclimate than Trento’s alpine hills. I visited this family-run winery on a press trip several years ago and have loved their wines ever since. It was great to meet the son, Gualberto Ricci Curbastro, who was there pouring. Their Franciacorta Satèn got the 3 Glasses award, but I prefer the classic Franciacorta Brut. Perhaps it’s due to 35% pinot bianco in the blend, which in my opinion always up the complexity, or maybe it’s because of its 7 grams of residual sugar (vs. 5 in the Satèn, which is by definition 100% chardonnay). Whatever the case, this is a nicely aromatic and fruity Franciacorta. Scrumptious!

Villa Sandi, Cartizze Brut, Vigna La Rivetta

The top Proseccos can be deceptively classy—like the one that comes from this gorgeous Palladian estate. Villa Sandi is one of 35 or so wineries making Prosecco from grapes on the prized Cartizze hill. This 106-hectare subzone is considered the tenderloin of the Valdobbiadene area, a U-shaped hill that catches the sun just right. It’s really steep. I know because I’ve hiked up its near-vertical slope, calf muscles screaming towards the top. Hail to the vineyard workers for helping made this elegant Prosecco possible! I also liked their Prosecco di Treviso, Il Fresco Brut, which had a few more grams of residual sugar (14 vs 10 gm), giving a fruitier impression.

VALLE D’AOSTA

Rosset Terroir, Sopraquota 900

I’m not sure what grapes are in this white, but they’re grown at 920 meters (3018 feet) and are 27 years old. I just know that the wine blew my mind. As did the dry and aromatic moscato, called Chambave Muscat. And so too the syrah/petite rouge, Trasor—as luscious as anything coming from southern France. Rosset Terroir, run by Rosset family, is just outside the town of Aosta, so this is a must on our Valle d’Aosta hiking tour this June. (Rebecca, are you listening?) 

Les Cretes, Nebbiolo Sommet 2016

I’m a sucker for alpine nebbiolos. I like their leanness, their floral aromatics, their silky tannins. The nebbiolo of Les Cretes epitomizes that style, which one also finds in Valtellina, a valley immediately south of Switzerland. Valle d’Aosta, in turn, borders France—and is the smallest of Italy’s 20 regions. Les Cretes is Valle d’Aosta’s biggest winery, despite being only 20 hectares, a sign of the difficulty of growing vines in this mountain landscape. Like Rosset Terroir, Les Cretes is a consistent 3 Bicchieri winner. The honors this time went to their Chardonnay Cuvée Bois, modeled on Montrachet, where the winemaker spent time learning his craft. They also poured an interesting Petite Arvine Fleur, one of the obscure local varietals that I look forward to exploring this June.

OTHER FAVORITES

Roberto Anselmi, Capitel Croce 2017

This was the last wine I tasted, and it ranked at the top. Given its explosive aromatics, I’d assumed it was a blend, perhaps with a splash of malvasia or gewürztraminer. But I discovered later that this is a single-vineyard garganega. Probably the magic comes from eight months of battonage in Allier barriques. Or from Anselmi’s perfectionism. (The maverick removed himself from the Soave DOC in protest of their industrialization.) Whatever, the key word here is magic.

Li Veli, Askos Verdeca 2017

Alfredo Falvo—formerly of Avigonesi—was pouring this bracingly good white from Puglia. The Falvo family sold their famed Vino Nobile di Montepulciano estate more than a decade ago (“We had an offer we couldn’t refuse,” was the gist of what Falvo said), and they took a family property in Puglia and built a state-of-the-art winery there. When Claudio and I visited Puglia in 2016, this native white grape was a pleasant discovery to me. Sauvignon-like in its bright acidity, with an equally aromatic character, it’s just the ticket for Puglia’s fish dishes and herbed pastas.

Coppo, Barbera d’Asti L’Avvocata 2017 

With an average retail price of $16, this had to be one of the best price/value wines at the tasting. The historic Coppo winery, along with Michele Chiarlo and Braida, were the movers and shakers behind the new DOCG for Barbera from the Nizza region. Coppo normally gets a 3 Bicchieri for his single-vineyard Pomorosso, a Barbera Superiore Nizza DOCG ($59). But this time the award went to their entry-level, oakless version, coming from youngish 18–20 year old vines. But 2017 being a dry and concentrated vintage, it was just right for showcasing barbera’s intense dark fruit. 

“You just haven’t met the right one.” That’s what I used to tell myself every time I tried a white port. I was eager, willing, and always disappointed.

Until I tasted a Kopke White Colheita 2007.

Boy, what a revelation. I had become habituated to bland, characterless white ports, the kind routinely served to the thousands of tourists who flock to the quayside port lodges in Vila Nova da Gaia, across the river from Porto, Portugal. 

(Granted, the rubies and tawnies served at the conclusion of these mass-tourism tours are pretty insipid as well, being the Port houses’ entry-level products. You have to make private appointments to get the good stuff, which we routinely do on our DOURO VALLEY tour.)

Instead, Kopke’s amber-hued version is layered and seductive, an aromatic bundle of brown sugar, crème brulee, hazelnut, and lemon peel, with just the right balance of sweetness and acidic lift. Nothing cloying here. Nor is this a white port you’d ever want to mix with tonic water, the way the Brits do with lesser versions. 

Funny enough, this revelation happened not in Portugal, but in New York City, at a tasting of Portuguese wine organized by food & wine writer David Ransom for the Wine Media Guild.

I was happy to see some old friends there, like Quinta do Passadouro, Wine & Soul, and Quinta de Chocapalha, all linked in one way or another to the Douro power couple Sandra Tavares da Silva and Jorge Borges, superb winemakers both. I also made some new acquaintances, like the Alentejo winery Alexandre Relvas, whose amphora-aged Art.Terre Amphora Red jumped out with its unique flavor profile, an explosion of blueberry fruit. 

Among the handful of Ports, I fawned over Quinta do Vallado’s 20-Year Tawny—as good as it gets—and nearly fainted when I spotted the 1986 Vintage Port from Taylor Fladgate’s Quinta de Vargellas, which was aged to perfection.

But the revelation was Kopke’s White Colheita. (The term colheita—pronounced col-YAY-ta—simply means ‘harvest’ and is used when a type of Port that’s normally a blend of years is instead a single vintage, and—with tawnies at least—is aged for at least seven years in wooden barrels.)

Kopke, established in 1638 by a German entrepreneur, is one of Port’s oldest firms. It’s known for its tawnies and colheitas (with stocks going back to 1938). And it’s always such a treat to visit their tasting room in Vila Nova da Gaia, where you can sample a deep library of older vintages by the glass. So I shouldn’t have been surprised that they also work their wood-aging magic on white port. 

Most white ports sit in cement or stainless steel vats for 18 months before release. Instead Kopke’s white colheita stays seven years in wood, just like a tawny colheita. Inside the barrel it takes on a nutty, oxidized character that give it a kinship to tawnies, but with a base of white grapes rather than red.

According to Richard Mayson’s Port and the Douro—essential reading for any Port lover—there aren’t too many firms that bother to make a wood-aged white port, in part because most believe the Douro’s native white grapes don’t have as much personality as the reds. In addition to Kopke, the echelon who make this rare category include Churchill’s (aging it 10 years in barrel), Niepoort (also 10 years), Quinta de la Rosa (2–3 years), and C. da Silva, a firm known for its coheitas, offering a family of age-designated white ports ranging from 7 years to 40 years in oak. 

Bottom line: I have yet another good incentive to return to the Douro.

But you can find the Kopke 2007 stateside as well. It retails for about $65 and is distributed by Wine in Motion [contact customer.service@wineinmotionusa.com; their new website will be live in January].

Like many small villages in the Ligurian Apennines, Varinella was once relatively self-sufficient, boasting a grocer, a butcher, an elementary school, and an osteria (run by Claudio’s uncle). Today they’re all gone.

Nevertheless, Varinella has avoided the fate of more remote mountain villages, which nowadays can be little more than ghost towns occupied by a few elderly residents. The scourge of depopulation bypassed Varinella thanks to its proximity to Arquata Scrivia (pop. 7,000) right across the river, and to Genoa 25 miles to the south, whose residents have been moving to towns like Arquata in pursuit of cheaper rents, more spacious apartments, easier parking, and a quick 30-minute train ride to work.

What’s more, in the past decade Varinella got a significant facelift thanks to European Union (EU) funds. Today one could even call the village cute.

When I met Claudio back in 1997, he had just started restoring the house of his maternal grandmother (below), a major undertaking that involved replacing the timber-and-terracotta roof and building new walls, staircases, and entryways.

It’s now 21 years later, and he’s almost done.

Here’s Claudio in 2014, after he’d restored the facade with help from the EU.

To slow the rate of rural depopulation, the EU has invested in certain European villages—repaving the streets, replacing street lights and streets signs, partially underwriting restoration work on home exteriors—but the selection process is very competitive. Municipalities must apply for funds, and in order to do so, residents must first submit their own renovation plans, complete with detailed bids.

Claudio jumped through those hoops and ultimately got some funding to replaster our facade and install new windows and doors.

Below left is the result as Claudio and his architect, Piero, intended it. But town authorities didn’t approve, saying the amount of exposed stone and brick wasn’t “authentic” to the region’s architecture, historically speaking. That pissed Claudio off, so he and Piero drove around the neighborhood photographing old buildings that proved them wrong. But the authorities wouldn’t budge; ultimately they had to re-do the plasterwork.

Looking at it now, I must say I prefer the cleaner, simpler lines of the revision.

Those brick arches, by the way—found in several buildings and haylofts along our block—date back to the 1700s, while the oldest building is probably from the 1200s.

Those wavy, organic shapes make another appearance in our living room (below). It’s a very trendy thing to do in Piedmont restoration: leave an old chestnut beam, a patch of stone, or other interesting architectural elements exposed in that way. Unlike Tuscany and warmer points south, plastering the rest of the underlying stone is absolutely necessary to keep out the awful cold and damp during Piedmont’s winter months, when it can feel more like Dickens’ England than sunny Italy.

Below, our kitchen, where we manage to have groups of up to eight people making risotto, bagna cauda, and tiramisu during our LAND OF BAROLO tour every October.

On occasion, I use the kitchen’s weathered wooden fireplace mantle to take bottle shots for my wine articles:

And I recently discovered that the old garage door (below) serves as an equally nice backdrop, especially in the indirect afternoon light. Claudio wanted to paint that door, but I wouldn’t let him. “Do you know how much they charge in the U.S. for rusticated finishes like this?” I said.

Below is where Claudio attended elementary school. It’s not the proverbial one-room schoolhouse, but close; they did mix together kids of different grades. The village no longer has enough children to populate the school, so they go to Arquata. The building has since been restored by one of Claudio’s best friends, Marco, who turned it into a very comfy home fit for a family of four.

Next door is the former osteria run by Claudio’s uncle. It too is now a private house, its terrace looking rather forlorn with a lone ficus tree occupying the space once filled with diners. It was this uncle who took the school-aged Claudio on wine-buying excursions to the cantina sociale, where they’d stock up on vino sfuso to serve in carafes. That was the beginning of Claudio’s passion for wine. (It certainly wasn’t weeding his father’s small vineyard, a chore he detested.)

A few steps beyond is the village church. Claudio gave up on Catholicism long ago, but we willingly attend the confirmation of friends’ kids. And I love the bells, which trigger fits of howling from the town dogs.

I know every dog in town, but these guys are new. Strangely, Italians don’t like it when you pet their pets. So I walk a fine line.

In a village of 200 people, the community center is, yes, the center of community activities: chestnut roasts, farinata nights, recitals by the local guitar school, outdoor amateur theater, baci court competitions, and just your run-of-the-mill meeting of friends and watching soccer while the kids entertain themselves. All the village dynamics play out in Il Circolo, for better or worse. If I wrote novels, I’d set one here.

Further down the street, one arrives at Claudio’s childhood home (below), recently spruced up with a coat of peach paint. This was where he was raised; as he grew to be a young adult, he took the ground floor space as his own. Uncharacteristically independent—unlike the mamone or mamma’s boys among his peers—he chose to move out long before he was married and do his own cooking and laundry. His new place, however, was just a block away. (To be fair, Varinella has only two streets.)

As recently as 1997, when I first met Claudio, one room of the building below was still a grocery store. It was poorly stocked and open just two mornings a week, but it saved a trip to Arquata (a mile on foot) during emergencies, like when we lacked milk for breakfast. But you had to be careful. I made the mistake of taking the only carton of 1% milk. “That’s reserved for someone else,” the shopkeeper told me sharply and made me put it back.

At the far end of main street, on the hill leading out of the village, sits this house, which held the butcher shop. But that closed long before my arrival.

Above, a random door. Below, some of the semi-feral cats collected by one family; an EU-funded sign for the street where we live; a Madonna on the gate to the village’s oldest structure, built to house the bishops (vescovi) who first developed Varinella a thousand years ago.

More freshly painted facades and renewed stone streets, courtesy of the EU; wild roses near our house.

A few doors down from us is the home of Claudio’s closest childhood friend, Paco. Or rather, his parents’s house, though Paco lived there for a number of years post-divorce, letting his mother take care of him (true to the stereotype). The trellis is laden with Concord grapes, which are very popular in these parts.

The far end of Via Vescovi leads back to the main street through this arch. Only compact cars can pass.

La Dolce Vita Wine Tours cofounder Claudio Bisio welcomes guests to Tenimenti d’Alessandro, the first stop of this 6-day tour. Okay, we fudged a little on geography, since we’re actually in Cortona, Tuscany. But that’s close enough for us to lose sleep if don’t let clients taste their award-winning syrah and viognier. They were the pioneers, after all, who figured out just how well these Rhone varietals grow in Cortona’s clay soils. Plus, it’s a really lovely place, complete with 17th C. villa and the prettiest greenhouse-turned-tasting room.

October tour dates mean we arrive during harvest. On the blackboard, the instructions read EAT? SLEEP? HARVEST. REPEAT.

Lunch takes us to Lake Trasimeno, Umbria’s largest lake. We wash down a seafood pasta with a white blend from the nearby hills. Now, that’s zero-kilometer dining!

Next up, wine awaits at Castello di Magione, a castle of the Knights Templar. Once a hostel for 13th century pilgrims on the Via Francigena heading to Rome and Jerusalem, it’s been associated with wine since its beginnings. During the Renaissance, it became a fortress for the Order of Malta and was cited in Machiavelli’s The Prince as the place where the plot to assassinate Cesare Borgia was hatched.

Since the knights of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta were nowhere in sight, we had this frescoed castle to ourselves, and were intrigued to try an Umbrian pinot noir among their offerings.

Spello, the charming hill town where we’re based during the first half of this tour.

Day 2 begins with Assisi, birthplace of St. Francis (b. 1181). We visit the Basilica of San Francesco and—just like the pilgrims of old—learn about the saint’s life from a fresco cycle by Giotto, who also painted scenes from the New Testament. As a former art historian, I’m able to give guests a Cliff’s Notes version of how Giotto fits in with the Humanist overhaul of medieval thought, and the parallels between his innovations and those of Dante, his contemporary. Providing context in context! (We’re not just about wine.)

All that art stimulation works up an appetite. So we head to the plain for lunch in Bevagna. Settled by the Romans on the Via Flaminia, the walled town still has traces of their handiwork, such as this floor mosaic with wriggling creatures from the sea.

Umbria prides itself on its vast variety of beans and legumes. Some ancient varieties grow only there, such as roveja, believed to be the predecessor of the pea. This particular soup was made extra-delicious by the addition of chestnuts, then in season.

Let Umbrian tastings commence! That means sagrantino takes center stage, one of the most tannic—and resveratrol-rich—wines on the planet. It’s a beast that one wrangles with TLC (on the winemaker’s part), food (on the consumer’s part; we were happy to oblige!), and bottle age (“Every year you give to Sagrantino is a gift to yourself,” said Eleonora, our host at Caprai).

Our introduction to Umbria’s star grape was at Fongoli, one of the oldest wineries in Montefalco, which is still in family hands. They practice biodynamic farming and are experimenting with amphora both to macerate the sagrantino and to age the trebbiano, making an orange wine.

Note the odd-shaped door, which enabled large barrels to pass.

Claudio and me (and a semi-feral kitty seduced by this cat whisperer)

Sagrantino’s tannins make it a unique dessert wine when done as a passito, and Fongoli’s is a delicious example. One can see how it could be served with savory dishes—as it was through the 1960s, when passito was the only version made.

Below: Day 3 was devoted entirely to Montefalco—the town and the wine.

Fittingly, we start at Arnaldo Caprai, whose importance cannot be overstated. Owner Marco Caprai rescued the sagrantino grape from oblivion, introduced the dry style, and remains a leader in viticultural research and green practices.

Capri has also created special wines to help fund the restoration of Montefalco’s prized jewel: the Church of San Francesco and its frescoes by Renaissance artist Benozzo Gozzoli. Their first project was restoring the tondos that picture our friends Dante, Petrarch, and Giotto (above).

It’s really special to see these frescoes at this point in the tour, because Gozzoli set St. Francis’s exploits in contemporary settings, recognizable to the locals—and now to us. St. Francis talks to the birds, for instance, in front of a landscape that pictures Montefalco as it looked in 1450, with Mt. Subasio looming behind, Assisi on its hilltop perch, and Bevagna on the plain.

New in the church museum is a place for selfies, with that same landscape emptied of saints. Call us worshippers at the shrine of sagrantino.

Below, Montefalco’s main city gate—and a modern rendering, done automatically by an iPhone app called Waterlogged. Get it; it’s fun! (A commenter on Facebook actually asked me where he could buy this watercolor.)

Next, it’s on to the Antonelli winery, a property built by the Bishop of Spoleto several centuries ago. Happily, we arrive in time to see the grape crush.

Day 4 begins with another pioneer, Lungarotti, whose founder put Umbria on the map as a serious wine region, steering away from widespread bulk-wine practices. Though he made his mark with red blends like Rubesco and San Giorgio, our group was jazzed by their two sparklers. Here, too, Giorgio Lungarotti was a maverick, making the very first Umbria Bruts. In the cellar we see evidence: a 1960s conveyor, designed to transport bottles from the riddling room.

Flip over virtually any piece of majolica pottery and you’ll find “Deruta” written on the bottom. This town, entirely dedicated to carrying on the majolica tradition, was our destination for lunch and a wee bit of shopping. But just walking around and seeing ceramics ornamenting every door jamb, architrave, and facade made it worth the trip.

Orvieto is home base for part two of Utterly Umbria, and our first stop here is its magnificent cathedral, visible for miles around.

Inside, we find Luca Signorelli’s heaven (boring!) and the damned going to hell (riveting, as it always is in art through the ages).

There’s our old friend again, Dante, no doubt reading the Inferno part of his Divine Comedy—also much juicier.

Though their home is Tuscany, the Antinori family—now on their 27th generation as winemakers—set down stakes in Umbria in order to make a first-class white. And boy, did they ever! Their Cervaro della Sala, a blend of chardonnay and grechetto, has been a Tre Bicchieri prize-winner from the moment it launched in 1986. Burgundian in style, it’s sure to coax you out of the ABC club. It did me.

And the digs ain’t bad, either: Castello di Sala, where they make seven wines altogether, including a To. Die. For. botrytis-inflected passito called Muffato della Sala, with sauvignon, semillon, riesling, traminer, and grechetto.

Me and Claudio signing off. Hope you’ll join our Umbria tour next time!

Thanks to Claudio’s purchase of a Vespa last year (above), we finally have wheels. That means we can take off when opportunity hits, like it did last Sunday with TIMORASSO DAY (Quatar Pass Per Timurass in dialect) in the Colli Tortonesi, the hills around Tortona.

Timorasso has long lived in the shadow of cortese—of Gavi di Gavi fame—despite the fact that they were born in the same hills around Tortona and Novi Ligure, in the province of Alessandria in southeast Piedmont. While Gavi rose to prominence in the 1960s thanks to La Scolca, timorasso remained a farmhouse wine, then it virtually disappeared. Now it’s the darling of the Slow Food movement, which loves to champion quasi-extinct grape varieties. 

Claudio has long championed it as well. “Trust me, this’ll be the Next Big Grape in Piedmont,” he asserted as we buzzed along on our scooter.

Thirty euros got us a glass and a map showing three color-coded itineraries. Despite the fact that Claudio had spent 35 years of his life just 20 miles south, he’d never explored these hills. It’s a lovely area, with gently rolling hills that the Italians call dolce, meaning sweet hills. 

Altogether, 26 wineries participated in this Open Cellar day. Just a handful—most notably, Walter Massa, who essentially saved the grape variety—make it into the U.S. More should. (Here's a list of the area's wineries.)

LA COLOMBERA

La Colombera, our first stop, is one of the zone's larger wineries at 22 hectares, so nothing is very big in these parts. I wasn’t taking notes, since I just wanted to enjoy the day and not work!, so I can’t tell you how many bottles they produce. But I can say it's a third-generation family operation; when we had some technical questions, they sent the winemaker over, who turned out to be the owner’s daughter. (Brava to her!)

One thing became clear as we popped in and out of nine wineries: Timorasso is a blank slate on which everyone is writing their own script. There are no appellation rules (yet), no governing style, though a clean, straightforward, stainless-steel-fermented approach dominates. But at the same time, there’s lots of experimentation going on: Winemakers are trying how Timorasso works as a sparkler or a gently frizzante wine; they’re making orange versions, with extended skin contact; they’re even trying it as a passito wine. The Colli Tortonesi are a big viticultural lab right now, and it’s exciting to see.

La Colombera’s were mostly straight-ahead versions, though they’d left some residual sugar (confirmed by the daughter-enologist). Too much, I thought when tasting at the winery. But the following night, when we had one of their cru at dinner, it seemed just right, a rich complement to our vitello tonnato. But best was the magnum of a 2008 cru, which showed that Timorasso has the stuff to age. 

N.B: Local winemakers have adopted the name Derthona, the old dialect name of Tortona, to signify Timorasso grown within the original territory.

Side note: The day contained another happy discovery: local cheesemaker Luca Montaldo. "Pure genius," said the winemakers, and I’d heartily agree. I missed the chance to get a photo of him, since I was busy taking this shot; I wanted to remember his name and address forever and ever. The little balls were filled with fresh goat cheese and sold in egg cartons. If I hadn’t been leaving the country on Tuesday, I’d have stocked up.

CLAUDIO MARIOTTO

In the Langhe, you’d never see one of these old fiberglass tanks, here spotted at Claudio Mariotto winery. But they're ubiquitous in these parts (a budgetary thing?), along with the stainless steel you’d expect for a fresh white wine.

This guy was a real character. Once he learned I was American, all he wanted to do was talk about Donald Trump. (That occurred all spring, all over Italy.) He was steaming mad about tariffs, but he loves Melania. “Poverina,” I quipped, and a little grey-haired lady—presumably the winemaker’s mother—immediately echoed “poverina,” poor dear, shaking her head sadly.

I'd asked the winemaker to stand in front of the amphora where he ferments his new wine, which he calls “L’imbevibile,” or Undrinkable. I thought it was anything but. This was the first of many Timorassos we tried that had extended skin contact—a couple of weeks in this case, as I recall, and Mariotto promised to go further with the next batch.

Though not as acidic as Friuli’s ribolla gialla (the Ur orange wine in Italy), timorasso has significant tannins for a white grape, so it makes sense that Tortona’s winemakers are playing around with orange styles. 

ANDREA TIRELLI

Andrea Tirelli was undoubtedly the smallest producer we visited, making only 8,000 bottles from 4 hectares. The winery logo is a Celtic symbol for Earth, Water, and Air, chosen to encapsulate his ideas about biodynamic agriculture and winemaking.

There’s his pink house (and our little Vespa), where his tasting was simply on the pint-sized terrace. These guys don't stand on ceremony.

Biodynamic. Unfiltered. Native yeasts. And so much more: Daring to mix cortese with timorasso in a frizzante blend, for instance. (No one does this.) Playing with extended skin contact. Going out on a limb with a dry, oxidized, passito timorasso, which was somewhat like a dry sherry. 

I told Andrea that he seemed more like a brewer than a winemaker in his sense of experimentation. Beer is where the adventure is at in Italy right now. Wine has its thick rulebooks, its DOC and DOCG regulations and commands that hem winemakers in. But Timorasso has no rulebook (yet), and guys like Tirelli are taking full advantage.

You gotta love the Italians: They bring their kids to Open Cellar days. The ‘evils of alcohol’ aren’t part of their vocabulary. And the wineries provide things for them to do, games for them to play.

“Wine is like bread and olive oil: it’s got to be on the dinner table,” Claudio always says. It's not the forbidden apple—never has been and never will be.

VALLI UNITE

Valli Unite is an interesting place: a cooperative of artisan farmers who come together in a rustic agriturismo, supplying its restaurant. They include a winemaking team, cheesemakers, salumi makers; and outside there was a barn with cows, a shed with horses, presumably some pigs somewhere, and a friendly painted silo.

Here’s where things got interesting with the timorasso: They had a vertical of their San Vito cru (2007–2015), which showed how their philosophy has evolved. On the older wines, they took a ‘normal’ approach to whites that highlights minerality and freshness: commercial yeast, fermentation in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks, filtration. But at a certain point, they switched to natural yeast, and more recently, they started fermenting in acacia-wood vats (“There’s lots of acacia around here, and we wanted to work with local ingredients,” the winemaker explained). The result is a Timorasso that’s more lush and built for aging.

2015 was an incredibly hot year in Italy and the white grapes suffered. Valli Unite created a special bottle for this vintage, calling it Cambiamento Climatico, or Climate Change. No ducking of science on these shores!

DANIELE RICCI

My favorite Timorassos were made by this guy: Carlo Daniele Ricci, of the Daniele Ricci winery, another small (8 ha) organic winery with a philosophy of minimal intervention.

I would drink his zero-dosage metodo classico sparkler, Donna Clem, every day. With 3 years on the lees, the aromatics of Timorasso really sing, and the grape’s aging potential makes this a promising path. 

But the sparkler wasn’t the only exceptional wine. Ricci’s old-vine San Leto is brimming with flavor—and a labor of love, with 3 days of maceration on the skins, 12 months on the lees, and 2 years in bottle before release.  (A decanted 10-year-old pour spoke to its terrific aging potential.) He matures another Timorasso for 12 months in acacia casks. Another still spends 90 days on the skins. Ricci isn’t afraid to experiment, and the results are superb. And, per fortuna!, available in the U.S

VIGNE MARINA COPPI

If the hills of Timorasso are famous for anything, it’s for being the territory of Fausto Coppi, one of Italy’s most famous cyclists. In 2003, his grandson, Francesco Bellocchio, founded Vigne Marina Coppi (named after his mother) in the town of the cyclist’s birthplace, Castellania. There were various cru, done in a traditional modern style. But this being our ninth winery on a hot June day, we were burnt out; it was time to call it quits. 

But this outing lit my fire about Timorasso, especially seeing it as a cauldron of experimentation. I’ll be back—next time with my notebook in hand.

Blending is an art form, and the Bordelaise are masters of the craft. So what better way to gain an understanding of dry white Bordeaux than a blending workshop?

On a sunny February morning, a dozen attendees gathered for “The Art of Bordeaux Blanc,” presented by the Bordeaux Wine Council. An airy penthouse overlooking Manhattan’s East Village had been transformed into something looking like a science lab class. Cylindrical measuring beakers, lab pipettes, and four wine bottles sheathed in silver sacks sat on each table. Inside each bottle was a tank sample:

Sauvignon Blanc on gravel
Sauvignon Blanc on clay and limestone soils
Sémillon on gravel
Sémillon on clay and limestone soils

Our mission, should we decide to accept it, was to create our own Bordeaux Blanc blend.

Overseeing this exercise were three potent powerhouses of Bordeaux: Dr. Valérie Lavigne, a consulting enologist and researcher at the University of Bordeaux; winemaker Valérie Vialard, of Château Latour Martillac; and biodynamic viticulturist Corinne Comme, of Château du Champ des Treilles.

Both Valéries had professional ties with the legendary winemaker and professor Denis Dubourdieu during his lifetime. It was Dubourdieu who’d discovered four hitherto unknown molecules in sauvignon blanc, all volatile thiols which impact its aromas.  Present in the grapes in the form of odorless precursors, they’re released only under the action of yeasts during alcoholic fermentation, and yield aromas like broom, boxwood, lemon zest, grapefruit, and passion fruit—all the scents we know and love in sauvignon blanc. Dubourdieu also discovered farming techniques related to water uptake and nitrogen nutrition that would increase these compounds—and thus the varietal’s heady scent. His science was a great leap forward for sauvignon blanc, the most widely planted white grape in Bordeaux.

Most of us forget that Bordeaux was predominantly a white wine region until relatively recently. As late as 1969, it was 59% white. It was only in 1970 that the balance tipped towards reds. Today white wines make up just 10%, or 42.3 million bottles.

What else has changed is the types of grapes. There’s been a narrowing of varietals—as we’ve seen in all corners of agriculture compared to times past. Up until phylloxera hit in the 1860s, Bordeaux had a wide, diverse assortment of white grapes. Today just three dominant: Crisp, aromatic sauvignon blanc rules the roost at 54% of vineyard plantings. Its blending partner, lush sémillon, comes next at 32%. Floral muscadelle trails at 7%. All the rest—sauvignon gris, colombard, ugni blanc, et al—amount to 7%.  Surely their presence was greater pre-phylloxera. But that sea of white wine didn’t necessarily remain as such; in the 17th century, much of it was exported to Holland for the production of brandy.

If you hear “Bordeaux Blanc” today, you expect a sauvignon blanc/sémillon blend (though increasingly winemakers are trying their hand at pure varietal bottlings of sauvignon blanc and sauvignon gris). Bordeaux Blanc falls into two stylistic categories. There’s the summer set: refreshing and fruit-forward, with notes of lemon, grapefruit, and acacia, made in stainless and meant for immediate quaffing. These prevail in bottles labeled Bordeaux Blanc (68% of AOC production), Entre-Deux-Mer (20%), and Cotes Blaye, Bourg, and Francs AOCs (3%). Then there’s the age-worthy set: weightier, fermented &/or raised in wood, with scents of boxwood, citrus, and tropical fruit. This style is favored in Graves (5%) and Pessac-Léognan (3%).

In making our own blend, we set our sights on the universal goal of all blenders: create a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Easier said than done.

First we sampled the samples, then worked in teams to perform our magic. I partnered up with Linda Lawry, director of the International Wine Center.

It began like a scene from the Three Stooges. Though we both know our way around a wine tasting, the science accouterments were befuddling. How does the pipette work? Do you siphon from the bottle like a gas tank? Mouth or thumb? And why do the numbers run backwards up the pipette? (Only later did we turn it around and discover another set running in the opposite direction.)

We fumbled our way to a 60/40 blend of our two favorite tank samples: The sauvignon in gravel was zippy and bright, with an endless finish. We paired that with the clay/limestone sémillon, whose round opulence we imagined would tame the sauvignon’s aggressive streak. But nope, not enough. Our first effort was all sharp elbows, like a gangly adolescent screaming sauvignon. Hoping for more body and complexity, we tried throwing in all four samples, keeping the 60/40 ratio while attempting a 70/30 blend within each varietal (it was a guestimate, not having tackled that pipette). We liked the result. “I’d buy it!” Linda and I both said, like kids proudly managing a lemonade stand. I presented my glass to Valérie Lavigne, who sniffed, then tasted. “Lots of sauvignon,” she said, handing it back with a sympathetic smile.

Okay, so we didn’t hit the ball out of the park. But I’m sure I improved my tasting skills a notch, especially discerning that extra dimension that sémillon gives: the roundness, the supple texture, the peach and acacia notes. Immediately after, we had the chance to test our new powers of discernment right next door on a few dozen bottles, arranged by AOC.

Coincidentally, another tasting opportunity came two weeks later, when Bordeaux Blanc was the focus of the Wine Media Guild’s luncheon, organized by our very own Mary Gorman-McAdams MW, the North American market advisor to the Bordeaux Wine Council (who also MC’ed the blending workshop).

Between the two tastings, the breath of styles was on full display, ranging from a pure Sauvignon Gris from Château de Bellevue, offering delicate pink grapefruit and lemon aromas, to a 50/50 blend from biodynamic Château Peybonhomme-Les-Tours, a luxurious barrel-fermented wine with a seamless touch of vanilla oak.

These tastings reminded me how I’ve always enjoyed Bordeaux Blanc—ever since a college professor introduced me to an aged, honey-hued Grave many years ago (probably Château Carbonnieux, the only one imported in the 1970s.) Today America is the top export market for Bordeaux Blanc in retail sales (number three in volume), so there’s plenty of options available. Coming out of these two tastings, I’ve made my short list for the summer:

Château Les Charmes-Godard Blanc 2015 (sémillon/sauvignon blanc/sauvignon gris 50/25/25) – “The beauty is in the blend,” said Gorman of this vibrant wine from Cotes de Francs, the smallest of the appellations, and I couldn’t agree more. Showing green apple, citrus, and stone, it’s got old-vine intensity at a great price ($21) and finds that perfect sweet spot between richness and acidic zip.

Château Brown Blanc 2014 (70/30 sauvignon blanc/sémillon) This is an age-worthy beauty from Pessac-Leognan, with the floral notes of ripe sémillon, the grapefruit spritz of sauvignon, and richness from eight months on the lees in barrique. Beautifully balanced, with tremendous length. ($32)

Château La Rame Blanc Sec 2016 – From 25-year-old vines on an historic property overlooking the Garonne river, this 100 percent sauvignon blanc gains body and stature from cask fermentation and six months on the lees. It’s fuller bodied and more textured than Loire sauvignons—not to mention the alpine versions from Alto Adige that I’m used to, which are as lean and nervy as a racehorse. “This is more like a mare out in the field,” WMG member John Foy said. A steal at $16.

Le Sec de Château Doisy Daëne 2015 – A dry, barrel-fermented sauvignon blanc from Barsac—Bordeaux’s sweet-wine territory—this shows pretty floral aromas and a lively citric acidity. “You’re bringing shame to our region,” a neighboring winemaker told Denis Dubourdieu when he first produced this iconoclastic wine at his historic estate. But next year, that same neighbor followed suit. Little wonder. ($25)

Two years ago, I donned my hiking boots for a “Down & Dirty” session at the Trefethen Family Vineyards during the Professional Wine Writers Symposium at Meadowood in Napa. In truth, there wasn’t much dirty work involved, other than a pruning session (unless you count my rummaging through the bone pile under an owl nesting box where I’d spotted a well-preserved vole skull, which I carried home to my country-boy husband like a cat with a prize).

Mostly I toured and tasted—no work gloves required. I trailed agronomist Brendan Brambila through the vineyards, getting an earful about everything from Napa history to vineyard management. I drank Napa Riesling by an antique gazebo together with the founder’s dynamic granddaughter, Hailey Trefethen, then sampled the rest of the portfolio while winemaker Bryan Kays detailed the backstory of each wine.

The Trefethen wines are much to my taste, showing an elegance and restraint that reflects both the cooler Oak Knoll District climate (touched by San Francisco fog) and the winery’s philosophy, which aims for balance.

So naturally, when the opportunity arose to attend a tasting of their library wines, I jumped at the chance. It’s not often that you get to taste 40-year old Napa chardonnay. Not many exist; in the 1970s, the industry was still so new that it never occurred to anyone to set aside bottles. But the Trefethens held back a few, and they’re sharing these with journalists and industry this year in celebration of the winery’s 50th anniversary.

In 1968, Eugene Trefethen bought a crumbling old winery on Highway 29 called Eshcol, designed by a Scottish sea caption in 1896. The retired Kaiser executive was looking for a place to farm that had strict environmental regulations, and he’d set his sights on six other farms as well. But he told the land owners that his purchase was contingent on the passage of the Agricultural Preserve bill, then under debate. So the farmers lobbied for it. “I think that had an impact,” Eugene’s personable daughter-in-law, Janet Trefethen, said at the tasting. The bill passed, and Eugene had his 600 acres of farm land.

“We’re the only winery in Napa over 45 years old that has grown every single grape that has gone into every single bottle,” Janet noted with pride.

Eugene had planned to sell the grapes, but his son, John, had other ideas. John and Janet produced the family’s first wine in 1973—at a time when there just were a mere two dozen wineries in Napa. “We’d read that the French put their wine in oak, so we thought we’d try that too,” Janet recollected. But there was no place to buy wine barrels in California, “so we went to Bardstown, Kentucky, and bought five bourbon barrels.” It was a disaster. The chardonnay came out pink and smelling of bourbon. The wine was tossed.

But by their third vintage, John and Janet were off and running. Cementing their status as serious winemakers, they won “Best Chardonnay in the World” at the 1979 Gault Millau World Wine Olympics in Paris, a rematch of the famous 1976 “Judgment of Paris” that put Napa on the map.

Their prize-winning 1976 vintage wasn’t served at last week’s tasting, but the 1977 was. “So many people don’t think Napa Chardonnay ages—and some don’t,” said Janet. “But my favorite is here in its ball gown.” Honey-gold in color, with the scent of pineapple and honey, this 41-year-old wine was amazingly fresh and lively, bursting with flavors of pineapple, ripe juicy pear, and toasted hazelnuts. It was bright, complex, and lip-smackingly good.

The chardonnay flight also included the 1985, 1991, 2005, 2011, and 2016; a refreshing acidity marked them all. The latest vintage was my other favorite: a bright potpourri of mango, pineapple, and lemon curd with a dab of biscuit. It was lively and gorgeous. (Janet also confessed her preference for this and the 1977.)

Another wonderful library wine was the 1988 Riesling. Going against the trend for sweet Rieslings in 1980s Napa, theirs was dry from the start. And this 30-year-old bottle showed it ages with the best of them. It was still zesty and alive, even as it displayed the oxidized honey-nut notes of a mature white. (If wishes could be granted, I’d be drinking this every day.)

The cabernets were vintage 1979, 1986, 1999, 2006, 2011, and 2015. One could taste when malbec and petit verdot joined merlot in the blend. (By law, the wine must contain at least 75 percent Napa cabernet to be labeled as such; this flight ranged from 79 to 91 percent.) The classic, dusty side of Napa cab was seen in the 1986 and 1999, while the 2006+ wines were more fruit-driven. (This, of course, also reflected differences in maturity.) “There were two inflection points,” explained Lorenzo, brother of Hailey. “1999 was about replanting the vineyard for optimal light exposure. And in 2006 we introduced the new varietals,” planted in 2000. Unlike many areas of Napa, “malbec grows well at Trefethen,” Lorenzo noted. “It brings an up-front jamminess.”

“In the 1990s, we went nuts with experimenting,” Janet observed, referring to Napa as a whole. “We tried everything. You captured flavor, but you got high alcohol. Now there’s a definite effort to level off.”

“We were increasing ripeness without getting more flavor,” Lorenzo added. He pointed to their use of oak as well, which ramped up, then ramped back down over the past 40 years. “We’re getting smarter and better. It goes back to the idea of balance.”

Amen to that. And Happy Anniversary, Trefethen!

A wine expert dons the mantle of beer judge at the 12th Homebrew Alley beer competition.

Today I jumped in with both feet as a judge for the 12th annual Homebrew Alley, an event put on by the NYC Homebrewers Guild. It was my first time as an official beer judge, ever. Talk about an exercise in humility! I was surrounded by people at the upper echelons of certification, including two Master Cicerones and various local brewers.

But like they say in tennis, if you don’t play with people better than you, you’ll never improve. So in that spirit, I threw myself in over my head. 

A whopping 593 entries were divided amongst us. During my two exceedingly well-organized sessions, I was assigned European sours (Berliner Weisse, Flanders Red Ale, Oud Bruin, Lambic, Gueuze, Fruit Lambic) and Amber and Brown American Beer (American Amber, California Common, and American Brown Ale). 

Like a dog show, there are strict standards for each category. A beer might be good, but if it doesn't fall within the parameters of the category, it loses points. You can’t have a poodle with a corkscrew tail. That was the sticky part for me, a neophyte judge: knowing those descriptors in detail. (Fortunately, a copy of the 93-page Beer Judge Certification Program’s Beer Style Guidelines was on each table. It never left my side.) We had many mutts—no surprise, since some submissions were presumably by first-timers. But as a judge, you can learn from those too.

Unlike any wine competition I’ve attended, the set-up here was to pair up judges in teams of two. We’d each taste and score, then discuss our judgments. We had to be within 7 points of each other, so there was some horsetrading going on. 

I was teamed with two guys (typical for a beer event, the room was 95 percent white dudes, though the master of ceremonies was Mary Izett, secretary of the NYC Brewers Guild, a super competent lady with a big voice, who kept the train running on time). Both of my partners were at the high end of the certification spectrum, as their plastic name tags showed. They patiently walked me through the process—which involved lots of QR code stickers, name stickers, and numeric category codes—and didn’t condescend when we discussed our impressions. (Happily, I wasn’t paired with the guy at my table who kept talking about types of vomit—baby vomit, day-after vomit—when conjuring up acetic descriptors for our sour ales. He said he majored in vomit in college.)

Leaving that aside, I came away humbled and enthused. Once home, I immediately downloaded the Beer Style Guidelines and made a pledge never to buy another 6-pack again (my go-to is Brooklyn's own Sixpoint Bengali IPA), but to explore, explore, explore with every single bottle…with that guide open on my desktop. We’ll see where I am this time next year.

And for posterity’s sake, here is the Best of Show and the Winning Entries in each category. Congrats, all.

UPDATE: Due to an outpouring of reader support, the print magazine was saved! The publisher negotiated a deal with a different printer, and reduced frequency from six issues a year to quarterly. But what matters is that the print edition of Tastes of Italia will live on.

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It came without warning: an email from the managing editor of Tastes of Italia saying the current issue would be its last in print. The magazine—my regular outlet since 2002—was being transformed into “a digital product that’s composed mostly of recipes,” she said.

So, goodbye to 8-page spreads with the byline “text and photos by Patricia Thomson.” The revised “product” has no place for feature stories about Italian wine, nor photographs of wine country and winemakers.

All writers know how precarious print publishing is these days. But still, it stings when you’re the one pushed out into the cold.

It’s true that 15 years was a good, long run. Being a wine journalist gave me privileges and access that resulted in encounters and adventures that are indelibly fixed in my mind.

Like my very first article for the magazine, which was then called Pasta. I wrote about the day that my husband and I bottled our own wine the way folks in Piedmont used to do: We drove to Barolo with a demijohn in the back seat and came home with it full of wine siphoned directly from the barrel. I remember laughing when Claudio consulted a lunar calendar to pick a day to bottle (this was years before ‘biodynamics’ was a buzzword), and then cleaning the bottles with newspaper and slicking the corks with olive oil so they’d slip in more easily using our antique one-at-a-time bottling machine.

In those early years, I went to a Tuscan cooking school run by four grandmothers. I had a bang-up time going behind the scenes during the preparations for Alba’s medieval festival and donkey palio. Today when I’m with our wine-tour clients in Alba, I still recite some of the things the teenaged parade queen told me as we walked around town, she pointing out a 700-year-old door of chestnut wood here, a Roman ruin there, a frescoed ceiling vault inside a clothing boutique.

In the years since, I’ve travelled to Sardinia, Puglia, Soave, Modena, and the Collio to interview winemakers, as well as the regions we regularly visit on tour. I spent time at an Amarone boot camp, trekked up the slopes of Mt. Etna to see the volcanic soils up close and climbed Mt. Sabotino on paths bloodied by WWI to better understand Friulian wine, and delved ever deeper into my adopted home of Piedmont to write about Barolo and Barolo Chinato, Gavi, Barbera, and Roero. 

At the risk of sounding like a Oscar winner rattling off a list of thanks, I am pleased to have had the chance to talk at length with some of Italy’s (and California’s) finest winemakers. Among those interviewed:

Steve Matthiasson
Francesco Mazzei
Andrea Pieropan
Alessio Planeta
Saša Radikon
Giacomo Bologna’s Norbert Reinisch
Giacomo Russo
Antinori’s Napa estate manager Glenn Salva
Paolo Saracco
Pete Seghesio
Pierangelo Tommasi
Carpineto’s Antonio Zaccheo

Valentina Argiolas
Santadi’s Raffaele Cani
Marco Caprai
Augusto Cappellano
Marco DeGrazia
Gianfranco Fino
Diana Frescobaldi
Matteo Inama
Ann Kraemer
Bertani’s Andrea Lonardi
Ferrari’s Matteo Lunelli
Chiara Lungarotti
Nino Negri’s Casimiro Maule

That’s why I do journalism; the job allows me to get right to the heart of the matter and ask people within minutes of meeting them about the passion that drives them and the work they do.

There’s nothing better. Or more gratifying afterwards, when you read your piece in print. As Dorothy Park once said, “I hate writing, but I love having written.”

Here's my last piece in print for this magazine, an atypical (for me) round-up: "Winter Wines: 8 wines to go with your seasonal stews, ragus, and comfort foods."

Now I reenter the freelance jungle without a home camp. I’ll do my best to keep the articles coming, but I’ll never have the same liberty to choose my own topics, to write 1700-word color pieces illustrated by my own photographs, and to be free of freelance angst knowing I'll be in every issue. It’s a tough loss.

So, back to the trenches.

Tis the time of giving. So I have a suggestion for a win–win gift: an order of beer from Birra Nursia, a monastic brewery in Umbria. Someone special will get some fabulous beer. At the same time, you’re helping the monks rebuild their monastery, destroyed by last year's earthquake. (If you don't like beer but want to offer some support, donations are welcome!)

I first learned about Birra Nursia at a Slow Food/Salone del Gusto seminar on monastic beers in September 2016. Birra Nursia’s blonde ale was quite good indeed, but their backstory was even better: The brewers were young American monks who'd somehow made their way to this remote monastery in Umbria’s Sibylline mountains. Their town, Norcia, had been rattled the preceding month by an earthquake, but the historic monastery—birthplace of St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Order—had cracked but not toppled.

I decided then and there that this was a story worth pursuing and vowed to visit the next time I was in Italy.

But one month later, in October 2016, aftershocks shook Norcia to its foundations. The monastery crumbled. The historic basilica too, except for its façade.

Nonetheless, the monks’ website said they’d rebuild and carry on—and beer would be part of their efforts to finance the reconstruction.

Eight months later, I paid a visit. The resulting feature story was published in Tastes of Italia, which you can read below.

What follows are some of my photos that didn’t make it into print. Read the pieces together to get a better understanding of the devastation—and the heroic rebirth. 

On the drive from Perugia to Norcia, I started to see signs of the earthquake a good 20 miles from my destination—farmhouses with crumbled walls, wood struts supporting facades, swaths of road with recent repairs. 

Arriving in Norcia, I drove around the medieval city walls. Whole sections had collapsed and were simply piles of stone. The main city gate (above) suffered damage too, but repairs were well underway—a considerable task.

Inside the main city gate, buildings were in various states of distress. The carabinieri (police) office was still barricaded, plaster fallen from its facade.

Scaffolding in wood and metal propped up numerous buildings that were still in a questionable state. 

While I saw some tourists, numbers were well below the norm. According to one restaurant owner, even if tourists came, there was no place for them to stay, since most hotels were closed. For a city like Norcia, so dependent on tourism, this compounds the damage.

It's just a short walk to the main piazza. It was here that St. Benedict was born in 480 AD, and a basilica and monastery in his name grew in the years hence, drawing a steady stream of pilgrims.

Behind that facade, nothing remains of the basilica—a heartbreaking sight. And while surrounding buildings look intact, they're not. Cracks in the foundation make them unsafe to enter until significant repairs are done.

I attempted to explore the town, entering by another city gate, but was thwarted by one Zona Rossa (Red Zone) after another, which prohibited access to entire blocks.

The basilica bell tower shows the types of cracks that affect much of the centro. Unfortunately, it's not like pottery that you can simply glue together.

By some miracle, the basilica's rose window survived the earthquake and aftershocks. It's this window that's pictured on every label of Birra Nursia—and has been since the monks started brewing in 2012.

Across the street from the basilica, this butcher shop looked like the earthquake happened yesterday. In fact, much of the town's center was evacuated after the initial quake in August 2016, which is why more deaths didn't happen during the severe aftershocks.

Many shops had relocated to temporary structures outside the city walls.

I noticed armed policemen posted at various points around town. Near another butcher (Norcia is renowned for its salumi), a young officer was trying to pet a couple of stray dogs. One had a collar, but was dirty and clearly homeless. Another was an adolescent pup, still in its eager goofy stage.

"You should adopt them," I said in Italian.

"Magari," he said. If only. "This one has a collar, but we don't know who the owner is."

More collateral damage that grips your heart.

My appointment was outside of town. The monks had essentially been booted out of the monastery ruins in Norcia's centro; they'd never owned that property and the parish wanted it back post-earthquake. So they're rebuilding up the hill.

My interview was delayed by a special service the monks were performing for a local couple celebrating their 25th anniversary. It was held in their new chapel, a simple wooden structure that was the first thing to be erected on the grounds. It was partially subsidized by the Leffe, a monastic brewery in Belgium that has been their biggest reconstruction donor to date.

Afterwards, a monk wearing industrial noise protectors rang a large bronze bell rescued from the basilica, which hung from a wooden armature next to the chapel door. 

On either side of the new chapel were signs of the monks' uprooted life. To the right were two prefab, disaster-relief housing units, where the 14 monks live and eat. To the left was an old, abandoned Franciscan church and convent. It too was partly felled during the earthquake. But the monks have gotten permission to clear the rubble and hope to turn what remains into a new monastery and church, "bigger than the one in town," says Father Martin.

Finally it was time to talk. Brother Martin escorted me to their new sales point, a base-bones trailer. It's open on weekends for local beer lovers and restaurants to pick-up orders. While the monks haven't resumed brewing yet, they're selling the beer that was safely stored in their warehouse and in the brewery's fermentation tanks.

It was fascinating to get the story of how this native of Fredricksburg, Texas, wound up at the Monastero di San Benedetto. (You'll have to read my article for that.)

I would love to have talked to every one of the monks, as each had followed his own, unique path to monastery life in these hills. Alas, all were eating lunch with the anniversary couple and friends. After Fr. Martin patiently answered my questions, he too zipped off to join the festivities.

I have to finish with the most optimistic shot of all, which comes courtesy of the monks. It documents the blessing on the land where the new brewery will be constructed, next to the sales trailer. A blessed day indeed.

I hope to return someday and find it all shiny and new, churning out enough beer to keep this monastery going.

In the meantime, I put in my order, a little holiday present to myself—and to the monks.

What three weeks in Japan taught me about sake.

When setting out for a Road Scholar tour in Japan, one of my goals was to drink sake every day. Make that premium sake. Which meant drinking it cold.

I knew I’d have to brace myself for that switch. Like all New Yorkers, I’d burned my fingers on many a scorching bottle at Japanese restaurants and had come to think of hot sake as comfort food. But I knew its quality was rock bottom, having tasted some premium versions on rare occasions, such as one eye-opening event at the Japan Society, where dozens of delicately perfumed sakes were poured. That showed how various this drink is and how heating does it no favors.

But fulfilling my goal was harder than I'd thought. Here’s what I learned.

There are no sake bars…except outdoors.

At the first opportunity in Tokyo, my buddy Cecelia and I headed out to sample sake. Our idea was to find someplace along the lines of a wine bar in the U.S., with a good dozen choices by the glass. No such luck. Prowling the side streets around Tokyo Station, which were buzzing with young office workers ducking into bars with paper lanterns and glowing HDTV screens, we struck out. The spot that the hotel concierge had recommended served only beer and hard liquor. Its tattooed waitress directed us down the street, but this standing-only bar was far too trendy for sake, their parents’ drink.

As I've learned since, sake consumption—like wine consumption in Europe—is on a downward slide. Today there are 1100 sake brewers in the country—less than half the number of 30 years ago, and one-tenth that in the 1920s. The good news is there’s a mini-boom in sake start-ups run by millennials who want to own the brewery and be the brewmaster, unlike the divided system of today.

We gradually realized the only place to drink sake was a place that served food. But again, no dice. The eateries we tried—even the hotel's—wouldn’t let you just drink; you had to eat too (and we’d just consumed a big welcome dinner with the tour group). So much for the sake-bar idea. Or my preconceived notion of it.

Instead, in the days that followed we stumbled across any number of storefronts selling glasses of sake right there on the street. These offered six to ten choices, and 500 yen ($4.60) could get you a plastic cup poured to the brim. A roadside sake & beer bar on the main drag of Tokyo’s cat town, Yanaka Ginza, was an open-air extension of a liquor store, flanked by a half-dozen wooden benches; all were packed with afternoon imbibers. (Curiously, many had fluffy lapdogs in tow—oblivious interlopers in this cat-crazy quarter).

Smaller towns followed suit. I suppose this practice is akin to having enomatic dispensers in wine shops, offering bait for a bottle purchase. But it felt more convivial and social—which in my book is always a good thing.

Don't confuse sake with shōchū.

I thought I was pretty clever, watching the company men drink. We were at a tiny Korean restaurant near Toyko’s Ueno Park, pre-tour. Eight middle-aged men with ties loosened were making a night of it. Amidst the stacks of plates and bottles was a pitcher of ice and highball glasses.

‘Huh, sake on the rocks,’ I thought, making a mental note. I’d never seen sake served that way.

“Oh, I have lots of friends in San Francisco who do that,” countered Lisa knowingly a few nights later.

It was dinner-on-your-own night, and four of us had settled into a restaurant specializing in seafood and sake. A fellow wine nerd and I poured over the drinks menu—pages and page of sakes, with photos of labels and sakes ranked according the sake sweetness meter, a –15 to +15 scale. But not a word in English.      

Our waiter didn’t speak any either. To order dinner, we pointed at the plastic food items—ubiquitous in Japan—but sake was a different matter. We wanted a bottle, being more economic for four, but there was no way to ask any questions about our options. We indicated one, but the waiter managed to signal that this bottle only came in magnums. In fact, it seemed that all their bottles were extra large.

Going back to the drawing board, we found a section listing 720ml bottles. Perfect. But strangely, these lacked the sweetness indicator, so we chose the one with the prettiest label.

The waiter tried to ask us something. I detected the word “ice”, so I immediately said ‘Yes!’, remembering those company men. Monkey see, monkey do.

A matronly woman arrived carrying a tray of highball glasses, ice, and two small bottles of sparking water. The water had me perplexed—we didn’t order it—but I'm always happy to hydrate.

I filled my glass with ice and poured it to the brim, like I’d seen done. The waitress rushed in, wagging her finger. She poured an inch into Cecelia’s glass, then filled the rest with water.

We didn’t like it either way. “No flavor,” said Cecelia. “No perfume,” said I.

The next day I showed a photo to Shima Enomoto, our Road Scholar guide and a sake expert. She laughed. “You ordered shochu, not sake!”—a whole different kettle of fish, this being a distilled liquor made from sweet potatoes, rice, barley, or brown sugar rather than a brewed rice wine. (What's more, its alcohol typically runs 25–35% versus sake’s 15–17­%.)

That explained a lot—the highball glasses, the ice (sorry, Lisa), the absence of the sweetness meter. But I still regret blowing this opportunity. An array of smaller 180ml carafes would have been the way to go. 

The best way to taste sake

We finally hit pay dirt in Takayama, a beautifully preserved town in the mountainous Hida prefecture. A sake brewer in the historic center was offering tastings in his shop. Inside, we spotted a deli-style refrigerator with a dozen sake bottles. For 200¥ ($1.80), you could pour yourself samples of all 12—and keep the sake cup! 

We dug in. Each bottle had a shelf card, mostly in Japanese except for one-word descriptors like “Dry” or “Perfumed.” Little icons indicated best serving temperatures: ice cold, chilled, room temperature, warm, or hot.

I found myself gravitating towards the “Perfumed” sakes. No surprise there, as I’ve always had a preference for aromatic wines—pinot noir, sauvignon blanc, gewürztraminer, and the like. I was surprised to learn the ones I liked were lower—i.e., sweeter—on the meter. They certainly didn’t taste sweet.

Later, I got Shima to clarify what that meter actually measures. “It’s just the weight of the liquid,” she said. “The meter floats, and originally it was used by the brewers, so it was [measuring density] relative to other sakes made by that company. That’s why it’s misleading for consumers.” There are so many other variables affecting the impression of sweetness, she explained: how polished the rice is, the acidity, the brewery’s particular mold, or koji-kin, used to break down the rice’s starch into fermentable sugars.

“You expect +6 to be drier than +2,” she continues. “But if that +6 doesn’t have enough acidity, your taste buds tell you it's almost the same as the +2. So, look at the sweetness meter, the acidity, the animo acid level—that’s the umami flavor, which means more depth, more body. Those three numbers give you an idea what the taste will be.”

Gulp. At this stage of the game, I’ll stick to the one-word descriptors.

At a sake brewery

The Nakasen Shuzo Sake Brewery sits beside the Kiso River, whose fast-rushing, crystalline waters could be central casting’s idea of ‘clear mountain stream.’ We’ve come to see how sake is made.

It’s a small, traditional brewery in Kiso-Fukushima, founded in 1865 and known for its award-winning Nakanorisan sake brand. After we’d shed our shoes and donned ill-fitting plastic slippers, chief brewer Yamaguchi led us around, showing off the hulking machines: one that soaks the polished rice (timing is measured to the second), one that steams the rice. We walked past a row of blue enamel cast-iron fermentation tanks to the culturing room, where rice sprinkled with koji-kin mold spores (aspergillus oryzae) rests on horizontal racks.

The brewmaster passed around a sample of the lumpy olive-green powder, which they cultivate. This kind of mold is common to the production of sake, soy sauce, and miso, meaning that Japan would be lost without it. When used in sake, it breaks down the starch molecules into simple sugars for the yeast to digest. (Yum.) After 40 to 50 hours, the end product, called koji, smells like chestnuts, looks like frosted rice, and makes the rice taste sweet. This is the ‘mother’ starter, which gets thrown into the fermentation tanks along with more rice and water.

I won’t pretend to be able to explain the full process of making sake. The Nakanorisan website has a walk-through with pictures, and the English-language guru of sake, John Gaunter, tells all on his website, Sake World.

Suffice it to say that it occupies an interesting space between beer and wine. Like beer, sake is a fermented grain. That entails an extra step: breaking the starch down into sugars. (Ripe grapes already have plenty of sugar at the ready.) It also means that sake, like beer, could be made anywhere there’s good water, since its raw materials can be shipped in sacks. But it’s not carbonated and its alcohol levels and flavors are closer to wine.

Like both, sake is now part of a worldwide trend towards localism in ingredients. Sake brewers have bragged about their water for eons, but now they’re also highlighting the use of local rice varieties. (There are 75 types of sake rice—25% bigger than table rice—and three account for 70 percent of all sake production: the cabernet and chardonnay of the sake world, if you will.) Going local and indigenous makes a brewer stand out.

Taking that one step further, many sake brewers are now starting to buy their own rice paddies and cultivate rice rather than contract this part out. Nakasen is among them. “So there’s lots of discussion about ‘what’s sake terroir?,’ Shima told me, using a buzzword from the wine world. Another recent trend, she says: “Some are experimenting with whiskey barrels for aging.”

Speaking of barrels...

The last item on my list of questions for Shima: Why do all the Shinto shrines have sake barrels outside?

“Sake is a very important part of Shinto,” she explained. Sake was poured at rites and festivals, particularly during harvest season. Drinking it was a prayerful act, bringing one closer to the gods (who are everywhere, according to Shintoism, Japan's indigenous religion). Meanwhile, brewers wanted shrines to do rites on their behalf, requesting a lucky and prosperous brewing season; naturally, they donate the sake for this act. It’s a symbiotic back-scratching relationship if there ever was one. And those decorative barrels are great advertising.

Japan has two shrines that all of the country's 1800 sake brewers donate barrels to. Otherwise, there's usually a local connection. “What you saw yesterday on Miyajima island is a Who’s Who of sake making in Hiroshima,” Shima notes, for instance.

And those cedar barrels? Turns out, they’re just vessels for transport. Sake is never aged in wood (my next question), because brewers want to avoid those toasty aromas. And wood is too risky to be used for fermentation.

Splashed with colorful logos, the barrels are festive. “There’s a ceremony when a new shop opens, or at weddings or New Year’s parties,” Shima adds. “They crack open one of these barrels with a wooden mallet, then use a ladle to serve sake from the cedar barrel.”

New Year’s Eve is coming up. Sounds like a plan.

###

During our Land of Barolo tour last week, we got the news this week straight from Albino Rocca’s granddaughter, standing on the patio of the Barbaresco winery he’d founded overlooking the Ronchi cru the Rocca family had made famous. I’d asked about the family patriarch, since the last time I saw Albino Rocca, he was old and tired, though keenly interested in hearing what our group had to say about the wines we were tasting. “He died four days ago” at age 93, said Monico Rocca with visible sorrow. “He’d been suffering for the past six months,” so it wasn’t entirely unexpected, nor necessarily for the worst, as these things go.

Still, what a loss for the three sisters: Paolo, the winemaker; and Daniela and Monica, who handle sales, exports, and administration. They’d been working at the winery for decades now, but for the past five years they’ve been doing it only with Albino’s counsel. Their father, Angelo, had tragically died in a plane crash at age 64 while piloting an ultralight aircraft over his beloved Langhe hills on a foggy day in 2012. The proverbial nice guy, Angelo was the one who’d increased their vineyards holdings, thus adding a few more Barbaresco cru (including the acclaimed Ovello Vigna Loreto), who took the farm organic, who expanded to an international market, and who steered the ship stylistically. He was among the Piedmont pioneers of barrique aging in the 1970s, then in 2004 he was among the first to shift back to large 20hl casks, believing these allowed each nebbiolo vineyard to better express itself.

All of this was laid on the foundation created by Albino Rocca. He founded the Albino Rocca winery in the 1960s, taking the bulk-wine facility he’d inherited from his father, Giacomo, and transforming it into a proper winery—one of the early private labels in Barbaresco. That inheritance included the Ronchi vineyard, just below the present-day cantina. Skeptics pooh-pooed it at first, but that the single-vineyard cru has since achieved superstar status, as has the winery. That’s thanks in part to those original nebbiolo vines, now 50 to 70 years old and giving their best, which the family has kept going with meticulous care.

During this year’s harvest, Albino asked to be brought some grapes. He was bed-ridden by then and frustrated that he couldn’t walk through the vineyards to do his own sampling. “Was he happy with the grapes?” I asked. Italy has had a brutally hot, dry year, and the Langhe also suffered from a spring frost that damaged the flowering vines. The end result is that 2017 yields are way down, by 20 to 50 percent. But lower quantity doesn’t necessarily mean lesser quality. According to Albino, who'd experienced 80-plus harvests, “the grapes were good,” Monica reports. “He was happy.”

Poor Soave, it's the Rodney Dangerfield of Italian wine whites. A whole generation has passed since the bad ol' days of the 1970s and ’80s, when Soave hit its nadir. Yet it's still got no respect. Baby boomers turn their backs, remembering the old bulk versions with a shudder. Hipsters pass it over for more esoteric discoveries from the Canary Islands, Tasmania, or other exotic lands.

Soave deserves better. Or rather, Soave Classico. Or to be precise, certain leading producers within the Soave Classico zone. But really they do.

So in March I went to the historic walled village of Soave and up into the surrounding hills to visit three of my favorite wineries: Pieropan, Suavia, and Inama—the pioneer, the purist, and the perfectionist, as I dubbed them. Each takes Soave Classico very seriously, each makes a wholly different style, and each is worth trying. Just wait, you'll thank me.

(Oh, and if you're a hipster in pursuit of the esoteric, or a sister wine nerd, know that Soave Classico belongs to that rare breed of volcanic wines. Volcanic soils impart a shimmering minerality to white wines. Very awesome. Very worth discovering.)

Here's the resulting article, published in the August issue of Tastes of Italia (on newsstands now). 

Claudio always promised to take me to Puglia. Outside of Piedmont it’s his favorite place to eat. And that was plain to see. He’d return from his Ciclismo Classico bike tours with an inflated pancia, which made it hard to reach the drop handlebars without his belly getting in the way.

But for me, the lure of Puglia was its wines: Primitivo, Zin’s genetic twin; Salice Salentino, the go-to wine of my youth; and all those splendid rosés.

We finally made it there last fall. The idea was to take an honest-to-god vacation: Drive down the Salento coast and hit the Baroque port towns— Oltranto, Gallipoli, Lecce—as we circled the tip of the peninsula.

But I couldn’t help myself; I wanted an article to come out of this trip. So we struck a deal: We’d devote two and a half days to winery visits.  I drew up a short list:

• Leone de Castris, the most historic of Salento’s wineries

• Gianfranco Fino, master of old-vine Primitivo

• Castello Monaci, a favorite in my wine club’s Primitivo tasting

• Ognissole, another favorite, owned by Feudi San Gregorio

• Cantele, a great price/value winery

Those visits wound up being the best part of the trip. Fall is an odd time to visit Puglia, a region that’s all about the seashore. By October, everyone had rolled up their beach towels and gone home. The seaside communities were ghost towns, and country inns and restaurants had closed for the season. It was pretty desolate on the shore.

Nonetheless, certain images and experiences from Puglia remain indelibly printed on my brain: The gnarly centenarian olive trees. The russet color of Primitivo vines in the fall. The beautiful Baroque architecture. The fantastic oil-packed tuna served at lunch with Ognissole’s Matteo Santoiemma. (He presented us with a gift jar after our raves.)

And most of all, the long conversations with winemakers and winery staff. They were so generous with their time, driving us to various vineyards near and far, and offering insights into the history, challenges, and goals of Puglia’s wine world.

My feature story, which appeared in the April 2017 issue of Tastes of Italia, barely scratched the surface. (Download a PDF here.) But I did my best in 1700 words.

And we didn’t even get to the Castel del Monte region, where they make Nero di Troia—my newest infatuation. I promise myself here and now, that’ll be the next trip.

At last, my article on Sardinia has come out in the May/June issue of Tastes of Italia.

My critique: I much prefer my title: Sardinia in 7 Bottles: Drink your way through the history of Sardinian wine. That’s a pretty intriguing hook, in my humble opinion. But it’s the editors who decide the headline and dek, for better or worse; that’s the nature of the beast in the publishing world.

I also don’t get to pick which photographs run, or have any input on layout. The writer’s job is simply to supply the selection. Most times, it’s my own photos—which I spend a lot of time and energy shooting. I like to photograph and believe it’s an essential part of a writer’s toolkit. But for whatever reason, the editors saw fit to occupy a whole lot of page space with two stock photographs. Since I happen to prefer my own, I’m presenting a few here, along with a PDF of the article. You can download it here, or else go to page 29 of the magazine's digital edition.

Venice. So nice to be back, without an agenda. No “need” to see St. Marks or fight the crowds, which are fewer, in any case, this being a rainy stretch in March, a few weeks after the Carnevale revelers have packed up and gone home.

Ah, Venice. What a spell it casts.

“ ‘I envy you writing about Venice,’ says the newcomer. ‘I pity you,’ says the old hand.’ ” Mary McCarthy had it right, in fact. As the famed essayist adds (writing for the New Yorker in 1956, collected in Venice Observed), “Nothing can be said here that has not been said before.”

True, but her observations about Venetian history and character are definitely worth a read. If you come, bring the book. (Did you know, for instance, that easel painting—designed purely for pleasure; not glorification of God, the State, or a wealthy individual—was invented in Venice? Or that the blondes who populate the canvases of Titian, Giorgione, et al., weren’t a fabrication? Venetian ladies would steep their hair in a chemical solution, pull it through an open-crowned hat, and spread it on the brim to bleach in the sun as they sat on their balconies.)

My previous visits to Venice were during summer madness—months to be avoided. But academics are sounding the alarm that Venice may be too late for saving, no matter what the month, crushed beneath the weight of too many tourists, who now outnumber locals by a ratio of 140 to 1. That's largely due to the cruise ships, which pay the city hefty fees. Venice's inhabitants have plummeted from 174,808 in 1951 to 56,311 in 2014, writes author Salvatore Settis (If Venice Dies) in the New York Times. “Just along the Grand Canal, Venice’s main waterway, the last 15 years have seen the closure of state institutions, judicial offices, banks, the German Consulate, medical practices and stores to make way for 16 new hotels.”

This is alarming, to be sure. But McCarthy noted in 1956 that people have always complained about Venice’s crowds. Take Henry James: “The Venice of today is a vast museum where the little wicket that admits you is perpetually turning and creaking, and you march through the institution with a herd of fellow-gazers. This is nothing left to discover or describe, and originality of attitude is utterly impossible.”

McCarthy’s counsel is simply to give in and relish the charms of this watery city, despite the lack of novelty. And I’ve found that Venice continues to offer heart-stopping moments of sheer beauty.

Like the bobbing silhouette of gondoliers at dusk, straight out of a Whistler painting.

Or night-time glimpses into opulent palazzi on the Grand Canal, where one spies Rococo ceiling frescoes, two-tiered Venetian-glass chandeliers, and portraits of ancestors in weighty gilt frames.

Or a chance encounter with an old master like Giovanni Bellini, whose talent hits you like a lightning bolt. Seeing his Madonna with Saints in the Frari basilica immediately after a ham-fisted altarpiece by Bartolomeo Vivarini, one gets what the hoopla was all about. ‘Masters’ are masters for a reason. Bellini’s gossamer beauty and grace take your breath away.

A few more takeaways for fellow travelers to Venice:

• A number of museums are free the first Sunday of the month, including the Ca d’Oro and the Accademia, where I’m headed today. (See #Domenicaalmuseo and the local newspaper listings in VeneziaToday.it)

• La Cantina, a wine bar I wrote about in Decanter, remains a great, convivial spot for a light bite and a glass of wine. On the blackboard, a dozen or so wines-by-the-glass are in constant rotation. Interesting stuff, not just tourist quaffers. I had a couple of glasses of garganega (‘research’ for my upcoming Soave trip), which were nutty and intense and utterly pleasing.

• I love to hear classical music in Italy, for it’s always in special settings. And the Chiesa San Vidal’s concert series filled the bill. It’s a small jewel of a church—the most antique in Venice, according to legend. Last night, the string ensemble Interpreti Veneziani played a program of Vivaldi, Corelli, and Geminiani. It’s a pleasure to hear even an old chestnut like The Four Seasons played live; this lets you see the violins’ voices intertwine and know who’s saying what, the better to grasp the polyphony. The group was great. Long live Vivaldi, another native of Venice!

If there's one tasting I absolutely, positively go to every year, it's TRE BICCHIERI, organized by Gambero Rosso. It's invaluable to me both as a journalist and as a tour guide. We use it to scout wineries when we're developing a new tour, and to stay abreast of what's new and interesting. As a writer, it's invaluable to me when researching wine stories. 

This year, for instance, my target was Sicilian whites, Soave, and Amarone. (Faced with 198 tables presenting one, two, or maybe three wines, one must have a battle plan. And spit.)

Here's a few quick notes from this year's event—the wines that got a super-big star in my tasting notes.

SOAVE
I'm heading to Soave in a few weeks to research an article. Suavia will definitely be on my list of stops. Their Soave cru from the volcanic turf of Monte Carbonare is an exemplar of just how intense and alluring this much-overlooked wine can be. (Black volcanic rock —> black bottle.) This extremely small third-generation winery  is now run by three sisters. Can't wait to meet them and learn more.

GRILLO
Delighted to finally taste this wine, a Grillo from Tasca d'Almerita. We hike by their vineyard on the isle of Mozia—a tiny island that was a Phoenician settlement and later purchased whole cloth by marsala pioneer Joseph Whitaker, an amateur archaeologist who also created the Phoenician museum there.

Grillo thrives in this flat corner of SW Sicily, and the sea breeze on Mozia no doubt adds to the sapidity in this wine, which nicely backs up its zippy freshness. This is an excellent example of a grape on the rise.

VALTELLINA
In 2012—my first trip to Valtellina—I spent an entire afternoon and dinner with Nino Negri enologist Casimiro Maule. Such a courtly gentleman! And a tireless supporter of this overlooked region.

5 Stelle Sfursat remains my favorite of their nebbiolo wines. Sfursat takes a lot of work: on top of the demands of extreme viticulture on mountain terraces, it requires just the right conditions to dry the grapes for several months, like an Amarone. The result is sublime.

AMARONE
There were a good number of Amarones present at TreBicchieriNY, but this Begali Amarone Monte Ca' Bianca was one that really hit the mark. Not too sweet, not too dry. Perfectly balanced between richness and drinkability. 

Lorenzo Begali's estate is small (36K bottles) and perhaps not so well known, but they're on my Favorites list now. (Masi's Amarone Reserve Costasera 2011 was another winner in the room.)

Note to self: Stock up on those 2011s when you go to the Amarone region in March!

See the complete list of 2017 Tre Bicchieri wines.

#VINO2017 rolled into New York with a bang—and all the fanfare of the Superbowl, which played live during the opening reception. This year, a huge number of out-of-towners were flown in and put up at hotels. A few expressed surprise that, as wine journalists, they received such luxe treatment. Writers are used to nibbling at crumbs.

It was great to catch up with old friends (that means you, WineHarlots!), meet social-media friends in person (Meg Houston Maker and WineOh.TV’s Monique Soltani), and just be in the same room with a Who’s Who of wine writers and bloggers, especially those leading lights of Italian wine: Alfonso Cevola, Jeremy Parzen, Alan Tardi, and Ian d’Agata. (I still get shy around them.)

PRIMETIME FOR ROSATO

Now that the annual event has been compressed to one day, it’s harder to get into seminars. (Also I suspect that we local New Yorkers were the last to receive invites.) I managed to get into the rosé seminar, “A Passion for Pink,” which is just what I was hoping for, since I’m gathering names for a story on Italian rosé, or rosato, as it’s called there.

It seems that rosé is indeed the passion these days. According to panelist Jeff Porter of the Bastianich hospitality group, “We’re now doing flights of rosé at our restaurants. Customers like it and expect it.” Eric Guido, marketing director at the Morrell Wine Group, concurs: “Now rosé is sold all year, not just in summer. When it comes to retail, we’re moving forward in leaps and bounds.”

That’s good news for me, a rosé lover. I was also smugly pleased when they recited stats showing that Italy trumps France in the number of grape varieties used for rosé. (That’s true across the board. As VinItaly’s Stevie Kim pointed out earlier in the day, 15 varieties make up 80% of all wine in France, while Italy has 550 native grapes in commercial production, and 450 denominations.)

The rosé seminar presented some old favorites, like Guado al Tasso’s Scalabrone, the first Antinori wine to gain fame in Bolgheri, advertised on billboards up and down the old Roman road in the post-war years. But I was smitten with two newcomers—or new to me. Both were from Puglia, the Italy’s only region that has a deep history with rosato. I went to Puglia last fall, but didn’t make it all the way up to the Castel del Monte DOCG zone. That’s where Torrevento’s Veritas originates, made from the obscure Bombino Nero grape. A pretty ballerina-pink color, it’s loaded with tutti-frutti fruit and has a pleasing freshness that’s essential for rosé. My other favorite was Cantine Le Grotte’s Selva della Rocca (above), made from Nero di Troia. Watermelon-candy colored, it offers nice herbal notes after the initial fruit kick.

Without realizing it, I again put a star next to this wine at the rosé table in the grand tasting. (It’s nice to be consistent.) Here I learned there’s a new organization promoting Puglia rosato, Puglia in Rosé. The association was born informally eight years ago, but incorporated in 2015 with 52 winery associates. “We plan to open an office in 2017, probably in New York,” says managing director Lucia Nettis. I hope so. Pugliese rosato could be a strong contender if more people knew about it, and a bonus for the region, now mostly known for its primitivo.

So what were my other takeaways?

PUGLIA’S UP & COMER - I discovered that I really, really like Nero di Troia. Le Grotte’s rosato was just the start. This native grape of northern Puglia is normally vinified as a red, and the various samples here—including, again, Torrevento’s and Le Grotte’s—were terrific, much more balanced than the too ripe, overly alcoholic primitivos I encountered on my travels last fall further south in the Salento zone. I’d heard that Nero di Troia is an up-and-coming grape, and I can see why.

A SURPRISINGLY CLASSIC BAROLO - L’Astemia Pentitamakes pretty good Barolo. I'd had my doubts when writing about them in The World of Fine Wine. That story was about the uproar caused by the cantina’s Pop-style architecture—considered blasphemy in Barolo’s historic Cannubi cru. The two Barolos I tasted at Vino 2017 hewed to tradition and were sourced from vines with some age. The new winery also abandoned the goofy people-shaped bottles seen at their debut in VinItaly and came with an acceptably stylish bottle made from lovely purple glass. I’ll be watching their progress.

INTERLOPER BEER - I made a beeline to the one winery presenting a beer. Frank & Serafico makes a very good Belgian-style blonde ale, one of five brews coming out of this estate, founded in 2009 by two consulting enologists who decided to do their own thing. “Frank” (Fabrizio Testa), formerly a winemaker at Brancaia, now works with his partner on land in the Uccellina National Park, south of Grosseto. Because that part of the Maremma attracts its share of tourists (mostly Italian beach-goers), they set up a farm pub. And that called for beer! Frank told me they’re not the only winery that’s making beer these days, but the others are “just in it for the money.” They certainly don’t grow their own hops, nor source their grain from a national park, like these guys do. Oh, and their wine is quite good, too—from the easy-drinking Morellino di Scansano to the big cab franc/merlot/sangiovese blend, also named Frank. Another winery to watch.

ALPINE PINOT BIANCO - Finally, I was happy to find Castel Sallegg here. This old property (1851) once belonged to an Archduke of Austria, and its extensive vineyard sits smack in the middle of Caldaro, ground zero for Alto Adige wine country. I hike by that vineyard coming back from the funicular on our Alps and Dolomites hiking tour, and I’ve always wondering about this walled clos that the town has grown around . The winery has 30 labels, I learned, and their pinot bianco really soared. It’s hard to make a good pinot bianco (Marco Felluga’s remains my benchmark), but this had such intensity and character it made you sit up and take notice. We’re heading back to Alto Adige on tour this summer, so I’m making a mental note to stop in.

There’s always a moment of trepidation when my issue of Tastes of Italia arrives in the mail. I open it up to see what they’ve done to my article. Sometimes they take a great photo and crop it in the most ridiculous way, cutting out all the context (like a favorite shot I took of Steve Mathiasson in front of his old barn and vineyards; they eliminated both), or else they might take something meant to be a quarter-page detail and blow it up into a fuzzy two-page spread. Sometimes they add their own photo which might be completely inappropriate, like the opening spread for a recent Chianti article that had a white wine on the table. White! For Chianti! Don’t they know? It’s humiliating.

But this time they got it right. For the 2016 winter issue, I wrote a story on BAROLO CHINATO, one of the classiest digestives you’ll find in Italy, and a perennial favorite of mine. I interviewed Augusto Cappellano and Roberto Bava, whose CAPPELLANO and COCCHI wineries originated this spice-, herb- and quinine-infused wine back in the 1800s. I also talked to Aldo Vaira (G.D. VAJRA) and Vittore Alessandria (FRATELLI ALESSANDRIA), who make miniscule quantities and represent the new breed of Barolo Chinato producer.

The issue is now on newsstands and at Barnes & Noble. Or you can download the PDF or read the text here.

I like my article, but I’m particularly pleased that they used the photos I'm most fond of. The bottle shot (above) was one I’d risked life and limb for, parking my car on a hairpin turn on the road from La Morra to Barolo and putting the bottles on the roof of the car, then trying to dodge the trollies whizzing down the hill as I angled to frame it properly.

And I particularly love my portrait of Augusto Cappellano. I told him he looked like the Coen brothers, which pleased him enormously. For this shot, I asked him to take the sepia photo of his great uncle (and Barolo Chinato inventor) off the office wall and bring it into the fermentation room. That must have been the first time it was removed since, well, forever, because the frame fell apart in his hands. But we managed to get this great shot.

Oh, and the wine: Barolo Chinato is the perfect wine for the holiday season, being loaded with baking spices like clove, cinnamon, and cardamom. Give it a try with your fruitcake, plum pudding, or Christmas cookies. You’ll be glad you did.

“I’d like to drop in and say hello to the Boy of Mozia,” says Christopher Richards, a charming, elderly Brit with floppy canvas hat who happens to be one of the last remaining relatives of Joseph Whitaker.

Any Marsala lover will recognize that name. Joseph Whitaker Jr.andhis uncle Benjamin Ingham were among the first wave of British merchants to produce Marsala wine and the very first to export it beyond Europe’s shores.

On this day, we’re standing on the dock of Mozia, an island the Whitaker family once owned that is their other claim to fame. Located in a large, protected lagoon not far from their villa overlooking Marsala and the saline where sea salt is made, Mozia was a bustling Phoenician trading hub. This merchant civilization, active here from the 6th to 4th C. BC, were master sailors. The idea of the curved hull is credited to them. They also invented the alphabet, were famed for their purple dye culled from mollusks, and developed the art of mass production.

It was Joseph Whitaker who first noticed some archaeological remains poking out from the dirt. Having a passion for archaeology (as well as ornithology), he led a systematic excavation on Mozia that continued from 1906 to 1927 and unearthed a Punic necropolis, mosaic floors, part of the belt wall surrounding the island, and many fine Phoenician artifacts that form the core of the collection in the Mozia museum, housed in the villa that was once the family getaway.

That’s where I’m headed today, along with Elaine and Roger Hamm, here for our Discover Sicily wine tour. Elaine’s niece is related by marriage of Richards, and this assignation was set after they discovered they’d be on Mozia the same day. Richards wanted to hand-deliver some olive oil from the family’s property, and Elaine—meeting him for the first time—wanted to quiz him about the family tree.

Enchantingly, Richards always refers to Joseph Whitaker by his family nickname: Pip. Whitaker had two daughters: Norina, who married, and Delia, who did not. Richards is a cousin of Norina “two or three times removed” on his father’s side. “My grandmother was Pip’s niece,” he says.

“There are still Whitakers, but they’re not in that line,” he continues. “The last of that line was Hubert, and he was killed at Gallipoli in 1915. So that was the last of that lot. Otherwise, they were all daughters. Along that line, we’re the only surviving lot.” (Pip was one of 12 children, so there were Whitaker cousins aplenty.)

As Elaine and Richards chat, he throws out casual recollections that tickle the mind: Playing on the island as a lad when it was still privately owned. Grapes from Mozia being transported across the lagoon on the submerged road built by the Phoenicians—a prosaic use of a priceless archaeological artifact that continued until 1965. There was also an interesting conversation about his relatives’ comfort during WWII thanks to Norina’s marriage to a general who became War Minister during the Fascist regime.

Richards also remembers when the Boy of Mozia was unearthed here in 1979. The white marble sculpture came from Greece, one of the Phoenicians’ trading partners, and dates from the 5th C. BC—the height of Greek classicism. It’s an exquisite example. The life-size statue depicts a charioteer, one truncated arm raised in victory. His muscular form is revealed by folds of drapery that cling like wet muslin, cinched by a high belt worn by charioteers. He’s gorgeous, and is rightfully given pride of place in a black-walled niche.

“The only reason it’s intact is because it was incorporated into a structural wall,” Richards reveals. That saved it from ruin over the 2500 years—a tidbit I never knew.

I would love to know so much more. But our groups split and we go our separate ways. Still, I feel I’ve brushed a bit of living history, so it's been a good day.

Between official tours, I took a quick trip to Turin for the final day of Slow Food’s biannual Salone del Gusto food fair.

Slow Food’s emblem, the snail, popped up throughout town. This is the first year that Salone del Gusto wasn’t held at Turin’s convention center in Lingotto, but outside on the streets, piazzas, and parks of Turin. Reportedly, the move was due to a dispute over the rental fee for the convention center; Slow Food held out...and lost their gamble. That meant they not only had to move the location, but the timing, shifting it to September, when the weather was more likely to cooperate.

And it did. The event managed to dodge a week of rain—not so common in Piedmont in September, but here nonetheless. Whether this is a good long-term strategy remains to be seen. The event is so spread out it's hard to manage. The big blister on my toe speaks to the great distances between locations, which means daytrippers like me will have to carefully pick and choose precisely what they want to see.

I chose beer. Despite the website showing their Monastic Beer workshop as sold out, there were still last-minute tickets available (in fact, half the room was empty; what was that about?). There I discovered a great story I’ll be covering sometime down the road for Tastes of Italia: A monastery in Norcia, Umbria, was repopulated in 1998 by Benedictine monks, all coming from New York City! They're a young set—the oldest is 48—and they see beer not only as a way to earn income for the monastery, but as a way to evangelize, to get people to visit the monastery and hear about their work.

They were displaced by the horrible earthquake in central Italy last month, but hope to return to their monastery soon. And I hope to pay a visit next spring, bringing you all the news about Birra Nursia.

I spent the rest of the day wandering the booths from all the regions of Italy. It was like being in a huge, outdoor Italian food market where vendors give away free samples while hawking their wares. (Everyone was selling something, so this aspect was about education and business.) I sampled endless cheeses, breads, tapenade, sardines, chocolates, hazelnuts. and more. I lunched at street-food stands on the Po river promenade, choosing lamb skewers from Abruzzo and pale ale from Puglia. I made a special trek to their gelato row, selecting coffee and chocolate gelato made from Slow Food Presidia ingredients from Guatemala and Equador. Beer, gelato, assorted nibbles—all in all, a fun day.

Whites

Brut, Rotari, $13

Why more people don’t drink sparklers is a mystery to me. Refreshing and low in alcohol, they go with everything: salad, grilled salmon, sushi, even potato chips. Maybe it’s their highfalutin image. If it’s their price, this Brut from the alpine region of Trentino should change some minds. A mere $13 gets you a méthode champenoise-style wine, meaning the bubbles are made through secondary fermentation inside the bottle, like champagne. It’s a more laborious process than the tank method used in Prosecco—which this blows out of the water. Likewise, when my neighbors and I did an informal blind tasting comparing the Rotari to a more famous Brut that costs three times as much (ahem, Ferrari), Rotari came out the surprise winner, exhibiting more of those delectable biscuity, yeasty notes. A superb value.

Soave Classico, Pieropan, $17

Have you tried Soave lately? A good one? Forget the cheap, nondescript Soave mass-produced in warehouses on the Veneto flatlands. You want the real deal: Soave Classico from the hills surrounding the Castle of Soave. This soil is special. It’s volcanic—black with basalt and pumice, with outcroppings of limestone. When you plant white grapes in soil like this, magic happens. Minerality comes to the fore and the wine carries a precise stamp of terroir. Personality, in a word. None do Soave better than Pieropan, the winery that captained the ship that saved Soave from itself when quantity threatened to overpower quality in the 1970s. Their best are age-worthy cru from old-vine garganega, but those run $27­–$36. For drinking tonight on the patio, grab their basic Soave Classico. It’ll inspire you to toast the end of Soave’s checkered-tablecloth purgatory.

Costamolino Vermentino, Argiolas, $14

There’s a saying: “What grows together, goes together.” That makes the coastal grape vermentino perfect for seafood. Vermentino’s territory encircles the Ligurian sea, going from the French to the Italian Riviera, down the Tuscan coast, and out to the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. Its ideal vineyards are baked by the sun and ventilated by a steady sea breeze. That can impart a touch of salinity on the finish, which is more appealing than it sounds. Up front, vermentino combines citrus and stone fruit with aromas of the macchia—the pine, broom, and herbal scrub that covers the rocky coastal hills. Match vermentino with the seafood of your choice: fried calamari, pasta with clams, baked seabass with olives. Vermentino from Sardinia is easiest to find, particularly Costamolino from Argiolas. Lovely and vibrant, it’ll be your house white in no time.

Sannio Falanghina, Feudi di San Gregorio, $14

I remember the night I fell in love with this wine: It was dinner at Gege’s apartment in Milan. The evening was casual, just three journalists hanging out. She served multiple courses (I recall an excellent pasta with artichokes) and poured the same wine for every dish: this falanghina. Sheer perfection. That’s when I discovered that falanghina is one of the most versatile, food-friendly grapes around. It’s an archeological variety found south of Naples; Pliny the Elder, who died under the ashes of Vesuvius, listed it in his Naturalis Historia. It’s the fruitiest of Campania’s whites, but it’s got a racy streak of acidity that makes it terrific with food. Sannio Falanghina comes from one of the region’s largest producers, Feudi di San Gregorio, a pioneer in the renaissance of Campania wines.

Grillo Parlante, Fondo Antico, $16

As any Italian child will tell you, Grillo Parlante means “talking cricket.” That’s Jiminy Cricket to you and me, raised on Disney’s Pinocchio rather than the original serialized novel by Carlo Collodi. This is a play on words, since grillo is also the name of a Sicilian grape. For eons, grillo labored anonymously as part of the trio used to make marsala. But recently it’s emerged from the backup singers to become an acclaimed star. That metamorphosis began in 1990 with Marco De Bartoli’s barrel-aged Grappoli del Grillo—still one of the best, but at $36 not a casual plaything. Fear not! Most modern grillos are made in stainless steel, which drops the price. A favorite of mine is Grillo Parlante from Fondo Antico, between Trapani and Marsala. Its lemon zest and grapefruit flavors just sing with Sicilian dishes like swordfish carpaccio, grilled tuna, and pasta with sardines, pine nuts, and raisins.

Reds

Verduno Pelaverga, Bel Colle, $20

This Piedmont wine falls under both the “rare grape variety” and “obscure region” categories. Not that Barolo is an obscure region, but its Verduno township is. Verduno is the only place on earth that grows the pelaverga grape. And what a grape it is! Packed with red raspberry and white pepper flavors, it’s aromatic, light bodied, and low on tannin, which makes it ideal for summer. Among the half-dozen wineries in the world that make pelaverga, Bel Colle is perhaps the easiest to find in the under-$20 range, and it’s a very nice example. Piedmont natives pair it with bagna cauda, a creamy, hot garlic/anchovy crudité dip, as well as salsa verde, a piquant parsley sauce for meats and appetizers. Stateside, it’s a wonderful aperitif on its own, or serve it with a cheese plate, farro salad, or pasta with ragú.

Valpolicella Classico, Allegrini, $16

Valpolicella, north of Verona, is famous for its opulent Amarone, but summer calls for something on the other end of the dial: Valpolicella Classico. This is the only wine in the region’s quartet of styles that does not use the appassimento drying technique on its grapes, so you’ll find none of those black fig and raisin notes that enrich Amarone, Ripasso, and sweet Recioto. Instead, Valpolicella Classico offers pure, unadulterated cherry, as lip-smacking and summery as mom’s cherry pie. Most Valpolicella goes straight from stainless steel tank to bottle without touching wood, preserving that bright fruit character. A great example comes from Allegrini, a regional leader since the 1600s. Theirs is a softer version, thanks to 30 percent rondinella blended with the corvina. A great wine for patio buffets and burgers.

Concerto Lambrusco Reggiano, Medici Ermete, $20

Some might recall a time when Lambrusco was America’s number one Italian wine import. That era has faded, along with the jingle “Riunite on ice. That’s nice!” What lingers is a certain snobbery about Lambrusco and a false impression that it’s always sweet. Not so! This gently sparkling, grapey wine from Modena comes in dry and off-dry styles. If you can’t wrap your head around the idea of a fizzy red, trust me. There’s no better wine for Emilia Romagna’s comfort foods: lasagna, tortellini, ragú, heaping trays of grilled meats. That spritz cuts through the fat and cleanses the palate, so you’re ready for more. Grilling out? Try Concerto from Medici Ermete, the first Lambrusco to get a Tre Bicchieri award. Made in a dry style from the fuller bodied salomino lambrusco grape, it’s a benchmark wine. The jingle was right: Serve it slightly chilled.

Cirò Rosso Classico, Librandi, $11

I admittedly don’t know much about Calabria, other than it’s the toe of Italy’s boot and is a rugged, empty landscape (having driven though there once on the way to Sicily). Plus this: My beloved Cirò Rosso comes from Calabria. Its leading producer is Librandi, continuing a local winemaking tradition that goes back to the Greek settlers. (Archeologists uncovered aqueducts that carried grape juice down from the mountain vineyards to the port and even to individual dwellings. Now, that’s a wine culture!) Made in the Cirò region from the native gaglioppo grape, Cirò Rosso is a full-bodied but easy-to-drink red, with gobs of red berry, pepper, and savory notes. Do as the Calabrians do and serve this with pepperoncino-spiced dishes, hot red pepper being one of their main crops. Pasta arrabbiata, anyone?

Etna Rosso, Tenuta delle Terre Nere, $20

Sommeliers are crazy for Etna Rosso, grown on Europe’s most active volcano. It’s no wonder. The nerello mascalese grape rivals pinot noir and nebbiolo in its suppleness, nuance, and site specificity (hello terroir!). The variations in soil on Mt. Etna are endless, since every lava flow has its own unique mix of minerals, pumice, and stone. That’s reflected in the wines, especially single-vineyard bottlings. But limited production on these cru means a $40–$60 price tag. Fortunately, the region’s largest producer, Terre Nere, makes an affordable option. Their entry-level Etna Rosso is a mix of young and old vines from multiple vineyards, aged one year in oak cask. It’s a wonderfully complex wine for this price, with layers of ripe fruit and sweet spice. Versatile, too. Go native and pair it with pasta alla Norma, pasta with pistachio pesto (Bronte pistachios grow on Etna), or grilled swordfish.

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ITALIA DOLCE VITAbelongs in the Hall of Shame. The Florida-based tour operator claims to offer “Unique Travel Experience,” but how unique can a tour be when it’s plagiarized?

I discovered this after there was some confusion over our appointment at PETRA, a winery on the Tuscan coast. As the winery manager explained, a company with a similar name—Italia Dolce Vita—happened to have booked a visit there that very same day, befuddling him momentarily.

He hadn’t heard of them before, but I had. A couple of years back, I’d noticed their ads starting to appear in Wine Spectator, where we’d run classifieds since our company started in 2000. I remember thinking, ‘How unfortunate, that name. People might get us confused: La Dolce Vita Wine Tours. Italia Dolce Vita.

But we didn’t look closely at their website until that day at Petra.

Only then did we discover that they’d created an entire tour, ULTIMATE TUSCANY, by plagiarizing our website, word for word, cherry-picking from our TUSCAN WINE TREASURESand XTREME TUSCANY tours.

A few examples:

I write: Listen to Benedictine monks sing plainchant in Sant’ Antimo Abbey

They write: Listen to Benedictine monks sing plainchant in Sant’ Antimo Abbey

I write: Roll up your sleeves for a cooking lesson at a Chianti farmhouse

They write: Roll up your sleeves for a cooking lesson at a Chianti farmhouse

Except for a few words, the general description is identical as well:

I write:

If you’ve never been in Italy, this tour is for you. When people dream of Italy, it’s Tuscany in their mind’s eye: rolling hills punctuated with slender cypresses, quaint stone farmhouses bordered by lavender and rosemary, tidy vineyards flanking dense forests that seem ready to burst with Renaissance falconers on horseback.

It’s not a fiction.

Tuscany’s wine country is situated in some of the most gorgeous, pastoral, and carefully preserved countryside on earth. Here you’ll find wines of equal splendor. Gone are the days of the straw fiasco. Tuscan winemakers are now among the most forward-thinking and iconoclastic of Italian enologists, and today’s Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, and Super Tuscans are powerful, modern expressions that will surprise and delight even the most discerning wine drinkers.

They write:

Whether you have already been to Tuscany or it is your first time, this tour is for you. When people dream of Italy, it’s Tuscany in their mind with rolling hills, slender cypresses, quaint stone farmhouses bordered by lavender and rosemary, tidy vineyards flanking dense forests that seem ready to burst with Renaissance falconers.

Tuscany’s wine country is situated in some of the most gorgeous, pastoral, and carefully preserved countryside on earth. Here you’ll find splendid wines. Gone are the days of the straw fiasco. Tuscan winemakers are now among the most forward-thinking and iconoclastic of Italian enologists, and today’s Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, and Super Tuscans are powerful, modern expressions that will surprise and delight even the most discerning wine drinkers.

The day-by-day itinerary is also directly plagiarized. (Not coincidentally, nine of their other tours don’t even provide a day-by-day description.)

Every time they mention a winery, the description is lifted directly from our Tuscan Wine Treasures orXtreme Tuscany itinerary pages.

As one example, an entire day in Chianti is plagiarized:

Ricasoli & The Birthplace of Chianti

America had Thomas Jefferson. Italy had multiple politicians with close ties to viticulture. In Tuscany, the most important was Bettino “Iron Baron” Ricasoli, Italy’s second Prime Minister and inventor of Chianti wine. We’ll visit Castello di Brolio, where the Ricasolis have been making wine since the 1100s. Walking through the magnificent gardens and on the castle’s crenulated walls, we’ll hear about the Iron Baron’s winemaking—and the legend of his ghost. Then we’ll taste their highly regarded Chiantis and Super Tuscan, and continue sampling over lunch at the winery’s Osteria del Castello.

The afternoon is devoted to the Baron’s cousin at Rocca di Montegrossi. Here Marco Ricasoli-Firidolfi diligently handcrafts some of the most elegant refined Chiantis you’ll ever find.

Dinner is in a tiny hamlet called Volpaia, meaning “place of foxes.” Here we’ll have family-style servings of homemade pasta, wild boar stew, and fabulous torta della nonna (cream tort with pinenuts).

Moreover, every winery on their tour just happens to be a winery that we visit. With 39 wineries in the Bolgheri DOC, 350 in Chianti Classico, over 200 in Montalcino, and 75 in Montepulciano, they have plenty of others to choose from. But they opted to copy our selections as well. This strikes me as lazy, unethical, and just as bad as plagiarizing my words.

I’m deeply offended on as a journalist. I’ve written professionally for 35 years, for everyone from the San Francisco Chronicle to Decanter to Columbia Journalism Review. By my book, plagiarism is a capital sin. And while writing copy for a tour website isn't high literature, they're still my words, for my tours. Not hers.

But I’m also wounded as a wine-tour operator.Susanna Wriston, president of Italia Dolce Vita, is making money on itineraries that my husband and I scouted, revised, improved, and fine-tuned over 16 years—ever since we started going to Chianti in 2000 and to the Maremma in 2003. She’s profiting from our labor.  That’s just not right.

I looked at the internet archive THE WAYBACK MACHINEand found that Ultimate Tuscany was a new tour for them this year. But I also found that in 2015 they offered a tour called Tuscany Wine Treasures. (Ours is called Tuscan Wine Treasures.)

The thing is, we would have been happy to collaborate and pay a commission. We do so with other travel agents and tour consolidators, like our friends at ACTIVE GOURMET HOLIDAYS.  But Susanna Wriston took without asking.

I twice asked Ms. Wriston to remove the plagiarized text. And to not steal again.

To no avail.

So I’m going public with my complaint, just to let people know what kind of unethical company Italia Dolce Vita is. Caveat emptor.

For shame, Susanna Wriston.

I'm guilty of living a cliche: I went to Florence as a student on a summer study program, and that changed my life. How many wine-industry people have I met in the past 20 years whose obsession with wine began the same way?

What did I drink as a young, broke student in Florence? Whatever the law students in my pensione were pouring. And that invariably was basic Chianti (not the more upscale Chianti Classico), poured from an unlabeled bottle. Now, that changed my life. It showed me that wine could be delicious. Till then, I'd been a gin-and-tonic drinker (if I wasn't enjoying something more illicit). In high school, I'd tried wine, such as it was at the time—god-awful zinfandel, tart and thin Valpolicella, Blue Nun, Lancers—and failed to see the appeal.

So, like millions of travelers before me, I owe a debt of gratitude to simple, unpretentious Chianti.

And that's the subject of my current feature story in Tastes of Italia magazine: "A Ticket to Chianti: Sweet Dreams Are Made of This." Learn about Chianti DOCG and all the other Chiantis outside of Chianti Classico. Pick up the issue at Barnes & Noble, or read the story here.

Recently I was invited to appear on “Wine Time,” a monthly wine show on Blab!

Till then, I'd never heard of Blab! It's a newish thing: a corner of the internet where you can do talk shows, interviews, workshops, or just shoot the breeze with up to four people, live-streaming while followers send comments via Twitter and Facebook.  As technology goes, it’s about where public access television was back in the early 1980s. Crude, but fun!

The host was Debbie Gioquindo, a former travel agent with whom La Dolce Vita Wine Tours had worked. We and guest Kristie Unsworth of Cruise Planners talked for an hour about wine travel, both DIY and through tour operators like us.

Click to watch the show.

I'd made a few notes to organize my thoughts before going on-air. It's good information, so I share it with you here:

5 Reasons to Use a Tour Operator When Traveling to Wine Country

Of course you can plan your vacation through the Internet.  It’s definitely the cheapest way to go. But when you’re old and grey, looking back at this trip, will you really remember the few dollars you saved? Or do you want to remember a great experience full of surprises—the good kind. If your objective is to have a fun, stress-free vacation with the best-possible experiences condensed in your allotted time, there are definite advantages to booking with a wine-tour operator:

1 You’re busy! Who has time to wade through the Internet’s information overload? It’s better to delegate to an expert.

Sure, you can troll through TripAdvisor's hotels and restaurants; you can Google car rentals and wineries. But do you really have the time?

Most vacations are planned by women. And many busy women do this over their 15-minute lunch break. The amount of information you can dig up this way in no way compares to the expertise of a tour operator. Remember, we’ve been doing on-the-ground scouting for 17 years. You might luck out with your choices, but then again, you might not.

2 Distances can be deceiving. You don’t want to spend your entire vacation on the autostrada or in trains getting from point A to point B

The most common mistake travelers make is being overly ambitious with their schedule and underestimating travel time. Yes, it is humanly possible to visit Venice, Rome, and Florence in one week, but 50% of your waking hours will be in transit.

Even within a region, what looks like a 10-minute drive on the map could in reality be 60 minutes on torturous, winding roads. (That’s Chianti by definition.)

We know how long is takes. We build that into our itinerary.

But those windy roads bring us to another point:

3 Don’t drink and drive

Enough said. Besides, who wants to be the dedicated driver while on vacation? Leave that to us.

4 European wine country isn’t Napa.

Many European wineries are owner-run, small family farms—and that’s part of their charm. But drop-in tasting rooms are rare as hens' teeth. A winery might have a tasting room, but that’s just a physical space, without a dedicated staffer ready to pour. It’s a bit rude to drive up and expect the family to drop everything just to pour for you. That's why appointments are essential.

5 Not all wineries are alike

Some wineries are commercial and anonymous. Some marquee names might be indifferent to your presence, or give lousy tours and stingy pours. Some might not let you in. Some might expect a 350Euro donation to a charity on their behalf.

We’re constantly updating where we go on our tours, cognizant of staff changes, personalities, and the quality of the visit. We skip the duds (even if they’re big names) and visit spots that are warm, welcoming, and offer great wine. That’s not something a 15-minute Google search will reveal, nor high ratings in Wine Spectator.

If you insist on going it alone, here are Seven Essential Tips for a DIY Wine Tour:

1 Make appointments

Get a good wine guide with contact info, such as Gambero Rosso or Slow Wine (both have English editions).

2 But leave time for the serendipitous discovery

Ask the winemakers you visit to suggest other wineries. We ourselves have found some hidden gems that way.

3 For a power tasting, visit the Enoteche Regionale

Places like the Castle of Barolo or the Enoteca in Greve in Chianti have enomatic dispensers with an array of bottles. No appointment necessary.

4 Read up

The more informed you are, the more stimulated your hosts will be and the more likely they’ll open some special bottles, perhaps older vintages. If Italy is your destination, one good place to start is Vino Italiano, by David Lynch and Joe Bastianich.

5 Winemakers don’t expect you to buy on the spot.

So don't feel obliged. But do ask for their importer &/or regional distributor, so you can find their wines once you’re Stateside.

6 Shipping

Most Italian wineries do NOT ship. In wine country, you'll find  Mailboxes Etc. that are experienced and reliable wine shippers. But caveat emptor: Shipping internationally adds between $10–15 per bottle.

7 Restaurants do not have a corkage-fee system and frown on bottles being brought in.

But if you buy a special bottle at a winery and want to drink it that night, ask the winemaker to call the restaurant on your behalf. They're very obliging.

If you drink from the wine list instead, you'll find the price of wine at restaurants in Italy is completely insane! The mark-up is only around 20%, rather than the blistering 200% you'll find Stateside.

That said, cin cin and buon viaggio!

Yesterday was the annual coming-out party in NYC for the new Brunello vintage: BENVENUTO BRUNELLO. This showcased the 2011 Brunellos and 2010 Brunello Riservas.

Universally, 2010 is considered an exception year, one you can bank on. These are classic Brunellos destined for long aging. It's a hard act to follow.

2011 is considered a good vintage for the medium-term. (Hint: These are wines you can enjoy now.) There was a hot spell in July and August, when a front came up from Africa and settled in. It's this that defines the vintage. But relief came in the form of a refreshing rain and normal temperatures in the weeks tha followed, in the critical time before harvest, which meant that acidity was retained. So overall, it's a pretty decent year. As one importer said, "The only problem is it comes after 2010."

But this is a year where location matters. Some of the Brunellos I tasted from the hotter southeastern subzone seemed a bit cooked, with high alcohol, some prune or port character on the nose, and a too-brown color. The higher elevations and cooler microclimates, however, were able to weather the heat wave without problem. These tended to be fruity and elegant, showing Brunello's characteristic dark cherry-dark chocolate flavors.

While I couldn't get to everyone, my favorites included both old friends (Collosorbo, Castello Romitorio, Capanna, Col d'Orcia), historic wineries I've long admired (Lisini), and newcomers I tasted for the first time (Castello Tricerchi).

Want to try Brunello on location? We have several tours to pick from:

• XTREME TUSCANY (June 6-11) - A wine-intensive tour in Montalcino & Bolgheri

• TUSCAN WINE TREASURES (May 23-28 / August 29-Sept 3) - The classic regions of Tuscany—Montalcino, Montepulciano, and Chianti Classico—plus a cooking class & sightseeing

• TUSCAN TREK (September 25–October 1) - Hiking & wineries in Montalcino & San Gimignano

Get onboard with Franciacorta, the favorite sparkler of Italian fashionistas, sommeliers, and Milan Expo

It’s magic hour in Lombardy’s lake country. Pink and violet reflections glance off the ripples of Lake Iseo as our motorboat lazily arcs around a tiny island that seems a veritable mirage in the fading light, its umbrella pines and spruce protectively encircling a turreted limestone mansion. “It once belonged to Sophia Loren,” a sommelier later tells me.

Before this trip, I’d never heard of Lake Iseo. Like its bigger, better-known neighbors Lake Como, Maggiore, and Garda, it was carved out by an alpine glacier. Like them, it’s flanked by craggy peaks and is spectacularly beautiful. It’s long been a summer playground for the wealthy—a Hamptons for the industrialists of Brescia and beyond. But this lake has something the others don’t: Italy’s famous metodoclassico wine, Franciacorta.

Never heard of that either? In Italy, it’s on every serious restaurant wine list and is very much alla moda—embraced by the fashion world as the official wine of Milan Fashion Week, and likewise by Milan Expo 2015. For the hoi polloi, it’s the bubbly of choice to dress up any occasion. But U.S. consumers have yet to catch on. Brands like Berlucchi, Bellavista, and Ca’ del Bosco are known to American sommeliers and cognoscenti, but not much beyond, and only now are smaller wineries and newer upstarts making a concerted effort to get on the radar here.

It pays to pay attention. Pricewise, Franciacorta competes with California sparklers and less-expensive Champagnes—around $25–$50. That’s a good price for a quality sparkler that uses exactly the same techniques and mostly the same grapes as Champagne.

Franciacorta winemakers hate being compared to Champagne, but that’s what people do. It’s their frame of reference, which isn’t surprising given the numbers: Champagne has 20,000 grower/producers and sells 300 million bottles annually, whereas Franciacorta has 109 wineries in its DOCG consortium and sells 15.5 million bottles. What’s more, Franciacorta is a relatively new invention as a wine—but we’ll get to that in a moment.

First, it’s helpful to understand where Champagne and Franciacorta are similar and where they’re different. The key grapes in Franciacorta—chardonnay and pinot noir—also play a leading role in Champagne, which permits five others. In Italy, pinot bianco is the only additional grape that can join the blend (up to 50 percent).

The process of making the bubbles is the same. Called méthodechampenoise in France and metodo classico in Italy, it’s when secondary fermentation happens in the bottle, rather than in pressurized tanks (as with Prosecco). Wine and yeast cohabitate in bottle for years, breeding character and complexity. At the end, the deposit is ‘disgorged’ (expelled like a rocket after being captured in a plug of frozen wine), the bottle is topped off with wine plus sugar (liqueur d’expédition), then it’s sealed with a mushroom-shaped cork and wire cage.

Where these sparklers part company can be boiled down to two (loaded) words: climate and soil. Even though it’s northern Italy, it’s still Italy, which makes Franciacorta a whole lot warmer than Champagne, which lies east of Paris, towards the northern brink of viability for grapes. Warmth spells fleshier, fruitier wines. As for terrain, those ice-age glaciers not only carved out Lake Iseo; they left a calling card of glacial deposits. Crescent-shaped slopes fan out from the lake’s base and undulate over Franciacorta’s 19 townships, each ridge having its own varied mix of morainic debris, calcareous gravel, and sandy soil over the limestone bedrock. That variety gives winemakers a lot to play with—and play they do, usually sourcing grapes from vineyards scattered throughout the region.

Turning 60

It feels so right to be drinking some bone-dry Pas Dosé Franciacorta in the garden of Il Mosnel (above), a winery that embodies the history and winemaking potential of the region.

“I used to play here as a child,” says Lucia Barzanò (below), scanning the towering pines, aged magnolias, and blossoming groundcover behind the stately villa that was once her summertime stomping ground and now headquarters the winery she runs with her brother, Giulio. For centuries, this 16th century farmstead had cultivated a mix of agriculture—a practice her Brescia-based ancestors had continued after inheriting the property in 1836. While her nonno worked in the city as an engineer, her great-grandmother tended the farm. “She passed a passion for agriculture on to my mother,” says Barzanò.

The big change happened in 1967. That’s when Franciacorta was recognized as a denominazione di origine controllata (DOC). And that was the push Barzanòs mother needed to shift the farm’s focus wholly to grapes—and to sparkling wine.

It’s not that the region had a long history with spumante. On the contrary, that began just a decade earlier. In 1955, Guido Berlucchi, descendent of a count, was having stabilization problems with his estate’s white table wine. He sought the advice of Franco Ziliani, a cocky young enology-school graduate who’d come highly recommended. Ziliani answered his questions, then, before leaving the palazzo’s grand salone, inquired, “And if we were to make a French-method sparkling wine too?”—his childhood dream. Berlucchi took the bait. He was soon joined by 10 other gentleman farmers who collectively wanted to up their standards and put Franciacorta on the map as a serious wine region, making serious bubbles. In 1961, they released 3,000 bottles of sparkling “Pinot di Franciacorta.” By 1967, Franciacorta had become a DOC, then in 1987 it graduated to DOCG status—Italy’s first metodo classico to earn that denomination.

Today, part of the charm of touring the Franciacorta Wine Trail is seeing these old grand manors and farmsteads. Il Mosnel still has the configuration of a villa with working farm, though stainless steel tanks now occupy the stables and manicured vineyards have replaced the fields of grain. Montenisa, a partnership with Antinori, occupies an elegant Renaissance palazzo, resplendent with frescoed salone and graceful porticos. Ricci Curbastro is headquartered in the family’s 18th century villa; outside is the most dignified chicken coop you’ll ever see—a double-decker pagoda—while an adjacent farm building cum museum is crowded with agricultural antiques. Contadi Castaldioccupies a converted brick factory, bought in the 1980s by Bellavista’s Vittorio Moretti for his wife, whose godmother had worked there.

Then there are the newer cantine, like Barone Pizzini, a state-of-the-art, environmentally green facility. This noble Austro-Hungarian family put down roots here in the 1840s (a portrait of Mozart testifies to their social connections), but the last heir sold the property in 1991 to a group of progressively minded entrepreneurs. They’ve since reshaped not only the winery architecture, but the grapes too; Barone Pizzini is the first winery in Franciacorta to work exclusively with organically grown grapes. (Now there’s so many it’s possible Franciacorta could become the first wine region to go entirely organic, says Barone Pizzini general manager Silvano Brescianini.)

The majority of Franciacorta wineries are small, places where the family both live and work; one might find a baby’s high chair tucked in the corner of the tasting room, like at Le Marchesine. Built in 1985 by Giovanni Biatta, descendent of an old Brescia winemaking family, Le Marchesine’s facilities seem workaday, but that belies their innovations. “My grandfather understood the need to invest,” says Andrea Biatta (below), ticking off their forward-thinking steps: They were among the first to abandon the over-productive pergola system, to have their own disgorgement machine, and to use mechanical pupitres (giropalle) in place of hand-riddling to coax the sediment into the bottle’s neck. A mechanical pupitre “avoids the inconsistency of handmade work,” he explains—consistency being essential to cracking the foreign market—and it dispenses with another downside of manual riddling: “No Saturdays, no holidays, no time off.”

Theme and variations

To indicate sweetness level, Franciacorta borrows its nomenclature from France. At the bottom of the scale is Non Dosage or Pas Dosé. With no added sugar, this is the driest and most pristine category; like the barest of sheath dresses, it showcases the wine in all its natural glory. Next comes the very dry Extra Brut (up to 6 grams per liter of sugar), followed by the smoother, more versatile Brut (up to 12 g/l)—the most common dosage and what you’re likely to find in U.S. wine shops. Above that is Extra Dry (12 to 17 g/l), Sec or Dry (17 to 32 g/l), and Demi-sec (33-50 g/l).

Another set of terms describes styles. The starting point is Franciacorta, plain and simple. That word tells you the wine has been in contact with the yeast (sur lie) for at least 18 months, has been held at the winery at least 25 months from the time of harvest, and has 5–6 atmospheres of pressure. Then there’s Rosé, with a minimum of 25 percent pinot noir; Millesimato, a single-vintage Brut held at least 37 months; and Reserva, a Millesimato held 67 months or more.

But there’s one style that’s wholly unique to Franciacorta: Satèn. The name echoes the French word satin (or satiné) and harkens back to the lake region’s history as silk producer, serving the fashion capital of Milan. Satèn is a Brut, usually from 100 percent chardonnay, but has only 4-5 atmospheres. In other words, it’s less bubbly. Those finer beads give a creamier sensation. Combine that with appealing lemon-drop and chamomile flavors, and you’ve got a perfect gateway for sparkling-wine skeptics—which is precisely its intent.

There’s no time like the holidays to crack open a sparkler. Try to track down an Il Mosnel Franciacorta Brut ($30), Ricci Curbastro Franciacorta Satén ($32), Bellavista Pas Operé Millesimato($55), or Ca’ del Bosco Franciacorta Cuvee Prestige Rosé Brut ($57). Any of these will dress up your festivities splendidly. Just don’t call it Champagne.

This article first appeared in Tastes of Italia.

Why’s Brunello such a big deal?

By universal acclaim, Brunello di Montalcino carries the title of Tuscany’s Greatest Wine. What sets it apart is that it’s 100 percent sangiovese—by definition. No other Tuscan wine is (except its little brother, Rosso di Montalcino). Moreover, it’s sangiovese at its best. A good Brunello offers sangiovese’s vibrancy and cherry-berry fruit, then transports you through veils of flavor, be these floral, mineral, earth, tea, or tobacco. Brunello’s got great bones, so it has longevity—more than any other sangiovese. And it’s got finesse; it shouldn’t feel heavy in the mouth or look opaque in the glass.

Sangiovese is finicky. It can be a thoroughbred racehorse, all sleek and powerful. Or it can be a simple, plodding field horse. Secretariat or Daisy. Though native to Tuscany, this prolific grape is the country’s most widely planted red, found in 88 denominations. But it’s usually blended with other grapes—historically the way farmers could guarantee a drinkable wine no matter what havoc Mother Nature wrought. That blending habit was carried over into today’s DOC and DOCG disciplines. Except here. Because in this 10-square-mile patch of southern Tuscany, sangiovese performs like nowhere else.

Why’s that? I thought sangiovese did just fine in Chianti and Montepulciano.

Look at a map and you’ll see those are further inland. By car it’s not so far, but there’s a big difference in climate. Montalcino is more Mediterranean than Continental. It’s only 25 miles from the sea, so it’s warmer, drier, and windier. Mild sea breezes flow up the Orcia river, one of three streams outlining the DOCG zone. Looming to the southwest is Mount Amiata, a 5700’ spent volcano that offers a shield from bad weather. Montalcino itself rises to 1860’. (One can see why Siena built a massive fortress here, the city-state’s final stronghold.) Towards the top, day/night temperature swings produce strong aromatics and enough acidity for age-worthy wines. Montalcino’s soil is different, too.

Yeah, I heard Castello Banfi found a whale skeleton on their property.

True enough. This whole area was under sea. But it’s complicated. The hill of Montalcino was created by the collision of European and African tectonic plates. Then the sea came inland, rising to the hill’s midway point. Uniquely, it did this multiple times, coming and going over the millennia. That left huge deposits of minerals and marine fossils, like that whale. Where water met land at about 1,000 feet, massive landslides occurred, mixing old hilltop with new marine soils.

To be totally simplistic, one can think of Montalcino as a three-layer cake: The top is geologically the oldest, a nonfertile soil of stone and lime. That’s where the original Brunello producers planted—and where the terrain is best at restraining sangiovese’s natural vigor. The middle layer is a marble-cake mixture of landslide rubble, clay, and calcareous marine deposits. The bottom—where Montalcino’s newest vineyards lie—is the most alluvial. It’s also the hottest, getting downright scorching. For a site-sensitive grape, these subzones make a world of difference in flavor, structure, and alcohol.

Why don’t they spell that out on the label?

Politics. Montalcino doesn’t have official subzones—and isn’t likely to. No one in the “lesser” locations wants to be stigmatized. And guess who’s there? The mega-sized wineries, like Banfi and Frescobaldi’s CastelGiocondo. Since voting on the Brunello Consortium is weighted by winery size, they hold the cards.

Didn’t Banfi do some kind of clonal research?

Bravo! They did, after throwing in the towel on their original idea: making an easy-drinking sparkler from moscadello, a white grape that was Montalcino’s claim to fame from the 16th to 18th centuries. When they jumped on the Brunello bandwagon in the 1980s, they teamed up with the University of Milan to study sangiovese, which is prone to natural mutations. Starting with 650 clones, they whittled down the “suitable” list to 45 (registered), then 15 (in their vineyards). That research was helpful to everyone.

But they weren’t the first to investigate sangiovese biotypes. In fact, the birth of Brunello began with that kind of research in the mid-1800s—what I consider Italy’s Age of Discovery for wine. It’s when Baron Ricasoli and Count Cavour were also laying the groundwork for Chianti and Barolo, respectively.

Tell me Brunello’s creation story.

Sangiovese has been in Tuscany since Etruscan times. But Brunello begins with Clemente Santi, a pharmacist and gentleman farmer. He was the first to isolate the Brunello clone and vinify it separately.

But honestly, he did so much more. Remember, agricultural practices were completely different then. Farmers were sharecroppers; they ate what they grew. So their fields were a mix of everything: vines grew up fruit trees, wheat grew in between, livestock got their timeshare. Santi was highly critical of those practices and planted Montalcino’s first proper vineyard. Having a chemistry background, he analyzed the soil and identified the best plots on his Il Greppo estate. He also let the grapes fully mature and tried longer fermentations and barrel aging—all pretty radical, upending how people thought about sangiovese.

Santi published papers and won awards at agricultural fairs, including two silver medals for his “vino rosso scelto (brunello) del 1865”—the first Brunello mentioned by name. By the 1870s, he’d linked arms with Galassi, Anghirelli, and Costanti, other gentlemen farmers who banded together into the Enological Society of Montalcino. Meanwhile, a Siena commission made a breakthrough: They proved that the grapes known as brunello, sangioveto, and prugnolo gentile were all sangiovese, despite appearances. Then Clementi Santi’s grandson, Ferruccio Biondi Santi, came along. He’s considered the true father of Brunello.

Biondi Santi…I’ve heard that name. They make really expensive Brunello, right?

Indeed. The current vintage, 2010, will set you back over $100. If you want to splurge, you can still buy their 1955 for 5,700 euros ($6,156). Biondi Santi is the family that showed the world Brunello can really age. Which takes us back to Ferruccio.

After fighting alongside Garibaldi, he rejoined his grandfather and homed in on sangiovese. Perhaps fearing the scourge of phylloxera, he identified the estate’s most disease-resistant vines and propagated those into a new generation of offspring. While Baron Ricasoli was garnering fame for his sangiovese-canaiolo-malvasia Chianti blend, Biondi Santi cast his die with the pure sangiovese. He aged it in oak casks, put it in glass bottles, sealed it with cork—all novelties in this isolated farm region.

His enologist son, Tancredi, took over in 1917 and kept the innovations going, always pushing towards excellence and age-worthiness. Miraculously, he managed to keep operations going through both World Wars—the only estate in Montalcino to do so. Between the wars, he created a cantina sociale in the center of town and offered use of his cellar and winemaking gear. But all that good work was undone when phylloxera finally hit Montalcino in 1930. By 1950, it was the poorest province in Tuscany. Now it’s the richest, after its turnaround starting in the 1970s. But Tancredi’s hand is still felt today in the DOCG rules, among Italy’s strictest.

What rules?

In particular, Tancredi and son Jacopo insisted on long aging at the winery. Brunello cannot be sold until January in the fifth year after harvest. (Add one more for Reserva.) That’s the longest mandated aging for any Italian wine. During that period, it must remain in oak for a minimum of two years and in bottle for four months.

Jeez, that’s a long time to tie up your capital.

Precisely why Rosso di Montalcino was invented. Released a year after harvest, it gives the winemaker cash flow and us something to drink while waiting for our Brunello. And it’s delicious: as young and lovely as the girl from Ipanema.

Hmm. But how long is that wait for Brunello?

It depends on the vintage and winery. But typically Brunello hits its sweet spot after 10 to 15 years. So try to hold it in your own cellar for another five to 10 years after release.

Bottom line, how do I know which Brunello to buy?

That’s the $64,000 question. There’s over 200 wineries. Most are small: 80 percent are under 15 hectares—in essence, boutique family farms. First you’ve got to figure out your taste: Do you prefer a classic style? Something opulent and spicy? Your sommelier or wine shop can point you to examples. On a budget? Explore Rosso di Montalcino first. This will show a winery’s style. Chances are, if you like their Rosso, you’ll like their Brunello. To dig deeper, learn the subzones. They’re not official, but they’re real. Read about them—and everything else Brunello—in Kerin O’Keefe’s excellent book Brunello di Montalcino.

Can’t you name names?

Okay. Just know that I tend to favor the classicists. High up near town, there’s Fattoria dei Barbi, one of Montalcino’s most historic estates. In the middle tier—the land of landslides—I go for Il Maronetto, Capanna, and Le Chiuse. They’re as true and honest as Brunello can be; no messing with barrique or over-extraction. Further down the north slope is Casato Prime Donne, owned by the formidable Donatella Cinelli Colombini (sister to Barbi’s Stefano Cinelli Colombini); here the fruit really sings. Going southeast towards Castelnuovo dell’ Abate, there’s Mastrojanni, Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona, and Collosorbo—purists all. For a more succulent, modernist style, try Fanti. Then in the Sant’ Angelo subzone, there’s ethereal Sesti, flavor-packed Talenti, and well-priced Col d’Orcia.

Any final tips?

Stock up on the 2010s, now out. The vintage is rated 5 stars. When drinking Brunello, let it breathe several hours, then serve with a nice juicy steak, winter pot roast, or earthy risotto with porcini. That’s when its true magic is revealed.

Visit some of these & other Brunello wineries with La Dolce Vita Wine Tours on these three tours: Tuscan Wine Treasures, Tuscan Trek, and Xtreme Tuscany.

This article first appeared in Tastes of Italia.

Walking along the stony path of the Cinque Terre on a warm September day, client Chuck Longo asked me, “How many times have you done this hike?” I did a quick mental calculation: We’d started our PIEDMONT & CINQUE TERRE TRAILS wine + hiking tour in 2003 and have run it twice a year, more or less. “About 20 times,” I replied, adding in the occasions I’ve brought visiting friends.

Everyone wants to go to the Cinque Terre.

Personally, I prefer the less-visited pathways between Portofino and Camogli, as well as the Sentiere del Barolo, the marked trails that cut through the famous cru vineyards of Barolo, like Brunate and Cerequio. But I’m always in awe of the bright, clear acquamarine waters below the Cinque Terre trail and the men who carved out these sheer mountain steps so many centuries ago.

I never grow tired of this tour. It ties together my favorite spots: the Langhe, a bucolic landscape of vineyards and villages and castle-crowned hills. And Liguria, with its umbrella pines, rocky sea cliffs, houses with trompe l’oile designs, and seaside-fresh vermentino wine.

Click here for the photo portfolio of our fall 2015 trip. (Suggestion: open to full screen for easier viewing.)

If this seems like your cup of tea (or glass of Barolo), our next outing is September 11–17, 2016.

After a jam-packed spring, Claudio and I finally had a weekend at home in Varinella. Not ready to face all the paperwork, filing, and photo organizing that lie in wait after eight weeks of wine touring, I went down to the cellar to procrastinate, er, tackle a different project: organizing our 300-400 bottles — and prep for a depletion party!

My earlier efforts had gotten messed up over time, so we had no idea what lurked there. How many over-the-hill bottles, how many forgotten gems.

As a consummate organizer, it felt good. I tidied up our Tuscan and our Piedmont walls, our Barbaresco nook (below), our Chianti & Sicily co-share (above), and created a new Rhone rack, necessary after a quick car trip this May. Plus, I labeled the bins – sure, with yellow stickies, but they’re labeled nonetheless.

Any of you coming on our fall LAND OF BAROLO tour will get a personal tour before the cooking lesson. You’ll see the well dug by British prisoners of war during WWII, the 1950s cement tub for crushing grapes, the ancient ceiling hooks for hanging prosciutto and sacks of cheese (we do actually store our cheese that way when out of town), and the various wine racks Claudio has devised — from terracotta roof tiles, cement squares, and staves of an oak cask.

Below is the core of the collection. The cement cubicles are rustic but practical, neatly holding nine bottles. I’m pleased to say we’ve got a fair share of Barolo from 1997 (the year we met), 1999 (the year we married), plus bins of 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, and every year thereafter.

Running a close second are our Brunellos, with 2 bins from the 1990s, plus bins of 04, 06, 07, 08, 09, and 2010. Then there's the Vino Nobile, the Amarone (my passion), the Alto Adige goodies, the precious Port.

I’ve tried to put a brake on our (cough, Claudio’s) buying, but that effort is hopeless. My new goal is to have depletion parties as often as we can. (The hurdle is we’re hardly ever home in Piedmont.)

Faced with all this potentially glorious wine, my takeaway is this: Don’t save the good stuff! Indulge now, with guiltless pleasure. As they say, you can’t take it with you.

But if only I could beam it to Brooklyn.

I just saw a great food exhibition. No, not the one you’re thinking of. The much ballyhooed Milan World’s Fair—Expo 2015: Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life—was pretty much a bust, as vaporous as the “alpine” mists spraying outside the Austrian pavilion.

This was Food: From Science to Plate at the Museo di Storia Naturale (Natural History Museum) in Milan. I was afraid it might be hokey, but the show was as informative for adult foodies as it was entertaining for the clusters of excited first-graders sitting cross-legged in every room.

BEER

I was won over in the very first room, which featured grain and cereals, for here a whole wall was devoted to the history and science of beer.

Barley was among the first cereals to be cultivated, beginning 12,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, the area extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq and Iran. It was the first grain to be cooked (for bread), but began being fermented for beer 7,000 years ago.

The first beer recipe is 4000 years old, found in a hymn to Ninkasi engraved on a Sumerian tablet:

You are the one who waters the malt set on the ground.

You are the one who holds with both hands the great sweet wort.

It is like the onrush of the Tigris and Euphrates.

(Isn’t that a nice metaphor for a tipsy state?)

But beer is far older, dating back 7,000 years. On display was the first depiction of beer (above), a Sumerian tablet from 6,000 years ago showing two men drinking beer through a straw. Brews at that time were unfiltered and cloudy, and the straw allowed imbibers to avoid the bitter residues at the bottom. (Try that on your next bottle of vintage Port.)

PASTA

You’ve heard of durum wheat, used for pasta. Now considered a “gourmet” wheat, it was first bred in 1915 by Nazareno Strampelli, an agricultural geneticist and father of many wheat varieties. This graduate from the agricultural university in Pisa wanted to improve wheat’s quality and yield, and starting making hybrids from wheats around the world—Dutch, Japanese, Italian and more.

Just like GMOs today, hybrids faced opposition. Advocates of “selectionism” preferred a slower Darwin-esque approach of picking the best-performing plants and propagating those. Hybrids eventually won the day.

Thanks to Strampelli’s new strains, the Fascists were able to nearly double wheat production in Mussolini’s “Battle for Grain”—from 44 million quintals in 1922 to 80 million in 1933—practically without increasing surface for cultivation.

An unintended consequence was the decrease of malaria. Until then, wheat cultivated along the fertile coast reached maturity precisely when the mosquitoes did. Some of Stampelli’s hybrids matured earlier and could be harvested before peak mosquito season, keeping the farm workers healthier.

ESPRESSO

In another room was everything you ever want to know about making the perfect pot of espresso—and the science behind it. Boiled down to a few pointers.

- Use water without a high mineral content—bottled water, if necessary.

- Fill water up to the safety valve.

- Fill coffee grounds up to the container rim. Do not create a mound. Do not tamp down. Do not create holes.

- Boil over a low flame. This slows the action in a way that prevents bitterness.

- Switch off just before it starts gurgling and sprouting from the internal nozzle.

EGGS

Egg yolks in Piedmont are school-bus yellow, veering on orange. I was never sure why. Some said it was the result of the chickens’ food; if they were fed corn, the result was this intense orange-yellow yolk. But some of our tour guests who had raised chickens said that, no, it was the breed.

The debate is now settled. It depends “exclusively” on the diet, per this exhibition, and the compounds therein. If it’s yellow, the food is rich in carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin. If it’s orange, there’s more capsanthin (also found in paprika).

So if you’re in Milan between now and June 28, 2015, take my advice and spend an hour or two at the Natural History Museum. (All signage is in English and Italian.)

The Expo is worth a visit mostly to see some great eco-friendly architecture; all the pavilions are made of recyclable materials and will be dismantled and recycled as soon as the fair ends. (You can—and should—arrive by subway; parking and signage are a nightmare.) The Expo goes through October 31, 2015.

For generations of Italians, beer existed to wash down pizza. End of story. You had a choice of light or dark, chiara or scura, no brewery name attached. The light was tasteless industrial lager, while the dark, at least every time I ordered it, was esaurita—run out.

How times have changed. On a recent pub crawl in Rome, I tried oyster stout, smoked IPA, assorted sour beers, ale steeped in Andalusian orange rind, beer with myrrh substituting for hops, lambics aged in wine and whiskey barrels, farmhouse ales made with kiwi or farro, hybrids of cofermented beer mash and wine must, even Etruscan beer.

Welcome to the brave new world of Italian craft brewing. As enthusiastic and energized as young love, this movement has gathered steam with remarkable speed. The start date is precise: 1996, when a change in Italian beer laws opened the way for three pioneering microbreweries in Piedmont and Lombardy: Baladin, Birrificio Lambrate, and Birrificio Italiano. By 2007, the number had climbed to 70. Today it’s over 650, with breweries not just in the cool northern climes, where giant stalwarts like Moretti and Forst set up shop a century earlier, but in every nook and cranny of Italy.

For beer lovers wanting to explore this terra incognita, all roads lead to Rome. This is where 70-plus bars and bottle shops cater specifically to craft beer, where beer festivals and presentations happen every week, and where you’ll meet a network of beer enthusiasts who are eager to spread the love.

That’s where I head for my crash course in birra artiginale. What follows are my three favorite beer meccas. Follow this zigzag route down the Tiber, and you too will never again think “great Italian beer” is an oxymoron.

Open Baladin

No one could imagine why Teo Musso, son of a farmer, would want to open a brewpub, let alone one in Piedmont wine country. But that “crazy” impulse proved prescient. Inspired by travels to Belgium, Musso transformed his crêperie into Italy’s first brewpub. He called it Baladin, meaning jester or minstrel—one of Musso’s nicknames. But this was no joke. Today Baladin is Italy’s most widely exported craft beer, and Musso’s pub in the obscure village of Piozzo now has branches in Turin, Cuneo, Cinzano, and Saluzzo, plus a mega-sized operation in Rome, which, according to its staff, is probably the largest craft-beer gastropub in Italy, if not Europe. Every Rome beer pilgrimage should begin here.

Two priests are among the lunch clientele when I arrive, along with business workers, a table of moms with kids, and a group of Italian hipsters, one sporting a t-shirt that reads “Mad4Beer.” Motown plays on the soundtrack, and burgers and cacio e pepe croquettes feed the crowd. Altogether, 44 beers are on tap today, including four hand-pump casks. There’s another hundred labels in bottle—95 percent Italian. Though Baladin’s own brews dominate, they share the stage with other microbreweries. “The project is to popularize Italian artisan beer,” says manager Rosy Spataro.

I sample one of Baladin’s most popular labels: Nora, a spiced ale made with kamut wheat, which has a sweetish caramel finish. “In Italy, we make a lot of experiments, because we don’t have a very long history in beer—so we try everything,” says Luca Tosato, one of Musso’s business partners.

This pioneering spirit, combined with the rage for all things indigenous, has led to some interesting concoctions—not all successful. (I once tried a basil beer in Genoa that tasted like soap.) But they hit the jackpot with ArcheoBirra Etrusca. “It’s very strange,” Spataro cautions as she pours me a bottle. I read the ingredients: malted barley, hazelnut flour, chestnut honey, pomegranate, myrrh resin, gentian root. Not your everyday brew.

It is strange—and alluring and worlds away from the bitter-hops IPAs that are my usual fare. If you were a time-traveling Etruscan, you’d feel right at home. Or that was the intention when the ArcheoBirra Etrusca project started a few years ago. I lit up when I heard that Patrick McGovern was involved, for this professor of biomolecular archeology at the University of Pennsylvania has been publishing some pretty interesting stuff on the drinking habits of ancient civilizations. Etrusca’s exotic list of ingredients grew out of his analysis of drinking vessels in 2800-year-old Etruscan tombs, and three master brewers stepped up to create their own interpretations: Musso from Baladin, Leonardo di Vincenzo from Birra del Borgo (northeast of Rome), and Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head (Delaware). Each of the “Birreria Bros,” as these frequent collaborators call themselves, tried a different vessel for fermentation: bronze (Dogfish), oak cask (Baladin), and terracotta amphorae (Borgo). What fun!

If you’re stuck Stateside, you might luck out and find some bottles at Whole Foods or Eataly. For me, the weird and wonderful Etrusca sums up the try-anything mentality that defines Italy right now.

Brasserie 4:20

It’s late afternoon, so I have the bartender all to myself. Hearing my mission, he offers one sample after another from today’s 30 taps: Dark Star Brewing’s Seville, a wheat beer matured with Spanish bitter oranges. Birrificio Italiano’s Nigredo, a black lager with roasted hops (motto: “Blacker than the blackest black”). Bloed Zweet & Tranen (Blood Sweat & Tears), a smoked Netherlandish beer aged in Bruichladdich Scotch casks. Then there’s the pub’s own label, Revolution Cat. I sample their molasses-dark black double IPA (Bombay Cat) and two sour beers (my newest infatuation, thanks to this trip), including one aged in Brunello wine barrels. If I lived in this neighborhood, I’d never leave this place. A roof deck, a smart incentive program for regulars, and an affiliated BBQ joint next door makes it all the more appealing.

Soon Brasserie 4:20’s owner joins me for a chat. Alex Liberati was part of the first wave of Rome’s beer revolution and remains an influential player. “I discovered beer by pure chance,” the cheery ponytailed brewer says with a perfect American accent. (Though born in Rome to an English mother, “I traveled a lot in the U.S.,” he explains with a shrug.) He studied psychology, but didn’t see a future there. “Too many other students, and not enough Italians going to shrinks.” What excited him more were his trips to Belgium, Germany, and beyond. “I brought back beers, made my friends try them. They loved them. So I thought, This is great! I should make a business out of it. There was no craft beer in Rome at the time.”

Liberati dropped out of school and kept his bimonthly trips going. Being the early 2000s, “there were no websites to show the lay of the land,” he says. “I learned by knowing people, especially in Belgium.” In 2004, at age 22, he opened Brasserie 4:20. “We were probably the first to sell only and exclusively craft beer,” he says. In 2009, Liberati began brewing his own beers under the label Revolution Cat.

As an advisor to Unionbirrai, the craft brewers association, he has a bird’s eye perspective of Italy’s progress. “It all changed in 2009, when the first serious manual for craft brewers, the bible, was translated into Italian,” he says. “We’re the Galapagos of beer here in Italy, because no one speaks English. We don’t intertwine with the rest of the beer-drinking communities. So after that, the quality of Italian beers really flipped.” Evolution came overnight, making this Galapagos the New Frontier.

Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fà?

Just over the Ponte Sisto bridge to Trastevere lies another old stalwart, Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fà? (translation: What in the heck are you doing here?, affectionately known as Macchè). When Manuele Colonna and Fabio Zaniol opened this sliver of a bar in 2000, they were largely ignored. But over time it’s become an institution and requisite stop for beer pilgrims. It’s also a launch pad for brewers. When Birra del Borgo founder Leonardo di Vicenzo was about to make the leap from homebrewing to commercial production, “he brought us the first bottles he’d made, with labels handwritten in pencil,” says my bartender, Paolo.

Like 4:20’s Liberati, Colonna was inspired by travels to northern Europe. Rubbing elbows with master brewers, he picked up a fervent dedication not just to artisanal beer, but to serving it right—keeping the tap lines clean, the kegs fresh, the temperature right, the foam head appropriate.

Most nights, a young, predominately male crowd fills Macchè’s tight quarters and spills out onto the sidewalk. Unlike Rome’s gastropubs, this bar is open all day. When I settle down on a bar stool one afternoon, I find myself next to the manager of No.au, another destination on my list, known for its natural wines and beers. He’d stopped in for a quick beer before his shift. “A lot of people from other pubs come before or after work,” Paolo tells me later. “They like good beer, and they’re friends. Plus, we’re open all day and are in the center.”

Macchè’s predominantly Italian list changes constantly. Today 16 beers are on tap, with dozens more in bottles. Here I’m introduced to beer with myrrh resin, from German brewer Gaenstaller Bräu (“weird, but not off-putting,” I scrawl in my notes), a beer/wine hybrid from LoverBeer fermented with 20 percent Barbera (“delicate and light”), and Petit Ghisa from Birreria Lambrate, a low-alcohol smoked IPA that I adore. Even better is Verdi, Birrificio del Ducato’s Imperial Stout, a dark, rich beer infused with habanero chile (“Mole!”).

Feeling hungry? Across the street is Bir+Fud, a pizzeria Colonna started in 2007 with Di Vicenzo and chef/baker Gabriele Bonci. I’ve had some fantastic pizzas there over the years (try their potato and rosemary pizza bianca) and have gotten blissfully lost in their beer list—36 beers on tap, all described in elaborate detail. But there’s also 200 bottles in the cellar, mostly oak-conditioned Belgian brews collected by Colonna over the years. (You must ask for that list.)

With 650 breweries and more on the way, Italy is evolving fast. Time will tell which brewers have staying power. According to Bir+Fud manager Alfonso Strianse, “only 25 percent are really good. But they’re as good as any Belgian, German, British, or American.” That’s not a bad start.

This article was first published in the April 2015 issue of Tastes of Italia, but since they don't post articles on their website, I'm doing that here—for all you Rome-bound travelers!

We congregate in Napa annually, like monarch butterflies seeking warmer winter climes. This year, 67 wine writers and editors alighted on the forested hills of Meadowood Resort for the 11th annual Symposium for Professional Wine Writers. Housed in posh bungalows that normally go for $900 a night, wined and dined like dignitaries who matter, surrounded by landscapes vibrant with Easter-egg colors—pink magnolias, chartreuse grass, yellow mustard, robins-egg skies—we were nonetheless an anxious lot.

Writers always are. Thomas Mann has our number: “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

As glamorous as “wine writer” sounds, it’s not an easy profession. Meadowood offers three days of group therapy, a safe place for writers to recount successes and failures, talk craft, pitch stories, and bond with fellow scribes. Good ones. We’re talking Jancis Robinson, Andrea Immer Robinson, Alder Yarrow here, and folks from Wine Enthusiast, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chicago Star Tribune, LA Times, Forbes.… You can see why I’m hooked.

We do sometimes talk about wine. More than 150 Napa wines were poured over the three days, and that’s not counting the orgy of tastings that accompanies Premiere Napa Valley, the benefit auction that dovetails with the symposium.

But ultimately, we’re here to focus on the business and craft of writing. So what follows is my notepad of takeaways from 2015.

If your writing’s getting stale and your vocabulary recycled, read some poetry.

It was an inspired choice to pick U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins as our keynote speaker. Though a self-confessed wine novice, he enraptured us with his poems—all ‘gettable’ in one go, every one a precise alignment of images that are as finely crafted as handwrought cabinetry, to use his metaphor.

Take the opening of “Osso Bucco”:

I love the sound of the bone against the plate and the fortress-like look of it lying before me in a moat of risotto, the meat soft as the leg of an angel who has lived a purely airborne existence. And best of all, the secret marrow, the invaded privacy of the animal prized out with a knife and swallowed down with cold, exhilarating wine.

The moat, the fortress, the angel’s leg…that’s anything but routine food writing. The poem goes on to other subjects—its meandering structure is a lesson in itself—but these unexpected analogies inspire. NOTE TO SELF: When I catch myself lazily recycling phrases, grab a Billy Collins book. That’ll light my fire.

For further inspiration, one need look no further than the winners of this year’s writing challenge: That was to write a tasting note that’s either a) head-over-heels positive or b) over-the-top negative. (Read their brilliant responses here, courtesy WakawakaWineReviews.com.)

Being a wine wonk doesn’t make you a better writer.

Voice does. As Northwestern University writing professor Louise Kiernan said, “Your voice is your fingerprint. Lots of people can convey the information. But you need to get them to follow you through the narrative.”

Ah, the narrative. At our best, we are storytellers, as we were reminded time and again. “Be a writer first, a wine writer second,” said Jancis Robinson.

“Don’t get mired in details. Think about story,” advised Betsy Andrews, former editor of Saveur, now with Departures. “Conjure tangible physical settings with sensory details. Otherwise, your story is inhabited by phantoms in a conceptual space.” (To illustrate her point, she read from her own delectable story, “Taste of Umbria,” Saveur, October 2014.)

Writing is a tough business…and it ain’t getting any easier

Jancis Robinson asked for a show of hands: How many attendees were writing or editing about wine full-time? Only eight raised their hands. We all gasped.

That dismal display echoed a poll on pay rates during the 2013 symposium, which revealed that 44% of attendees earned less than $5K per year on wine writing. (Remember, we’re talking top-quality writers here.) It can be depressing.

Still, it pays to persevere

I remember a conversation with friend, now an NPR news director, who said the problem with most writers—most people, actually—is follow-through. We dream, we get motivated, and, if we’re good, we act. We knock at the door, then if it opens, we give ourselves a big congratulatory pat on the back. But it’s premature. Too often, we miss the next critical step—fleshing out that pitch, expanding that research, doing the follow-up, clinching the deal. (That’s my post-conference mission: to keep the lines open with editors from Afar, Style.com, and The World of Fine Wines who liked my pitches and want to hear more.)

This year I was shocked to hear Richard Bradley, editor of Worth, say that only 50 percent of the writers who’d pitched him last year—and been encouraged to follow-up—had actually done so. That’s jaw-dropping.

Which leads me to Karen MacNeil’s story. We know her as the powerhouse author ofThe Wine Bible; head of wine studies at the Culinary Institute of America; and a regal beauty, in a Nicole Kidman ice queen kind of way.

But here’s the thing: She started from nothing and created her present self from scratch. Speaking in a trembling voice, MacNeil recounted her difficult beginnings: How she ran away from home at age 14 and moved to New York at 19. How she had $6 in her pocket and didn’t know a soul. Homeless, she talked her way into a room at the YMCA, and the next day landed the first of multiple menial jobs, as housecleaner, waitress… She moved into a five-floor walkup and lived on food stamps. “But I wrote every night,” she said. MacNeil acquired 324 rejection letters, pinned to her bulletin board. Then this starving writer had an inspired idea. “I thought, If you write about food, maybe they’ll give you samples!” Her first published piece, for the Village Voice, was about butter. It earned her $30.

MacNeil went on to describe her challenges doing TheWine Bible’s first edition. Written before the age of the fax, this hefty tome had to be researched by snail mail and telephone. It took 10 years to complete.

The moral of her story, MacNeil said, was perseverance. We all nodded; lesson received and noted! The usual writers’ laments seemed downright petty after that.

There’s a curious disconnect between what writers are writing and readers are drinking.

Wine-market researcher John Gillespie presented some interesting stats that show topics in the wine press do not reflect what people are drinking. French wines get the most ink, with even Provence taking a decent slice of the pie. But when it comes to wine imports—what people are actually buying—France falls in fifth place, at 10% of imports. It’s preceded by Italy (26%), Australia (16%), Chile (13%), and Argentina (11%).

Given those numbers, you’d think a book like Evan Goldstein’s Wines of South Americawould sell like gangbusters. But the Master Sommelier confessed that sales for his latest title are struggling—unlike his Perfect Pairing evergreens. Evidently, just because 24% of imbibers are buying Chilean and Argentine wines doesn’t mean they care to read about them. The implications are another reason for writer angst.

Take youriPhone camera seriously

I forgot my Canon EOS Rebel SL1, so I was forced to give my iPhone 5 a workout—with mixed results. Trying to capture the full dynamic range of an early morning Napa landscape, where white fog encroaches on dark, wet trees, can be a fool’s errand—unless you have the right tools.

So I owe a hat-tip to John Curley, Tasting Panel writer and photographer extraordinaire, who turned me on to the following apps:

Pro HDR X – Combining three shots, it solves the extreme-range-of-exposure problem, filling in highlight and shadow details on shots like that Napa landscape.

TouchRetouch – Need to erase a sun flare, telephone line, or exboyfriend? This app’s got your back.

Slow Shutter!– Just what it sounds like, this app enables long-exposure FX with moving water, sports action, night lights, and so on.

SnapSeed – This photo editor gives Photoshop-like control over brightness, contrast, cropping, and straightening.

I downloaded these apps post-Meadowood and will be testing them over the next few weeks. Let me know if you like what you see!

Lastly, stock up on those 2005 Napa cabernets

This falls into my “if only” category. If I had the cash, I’d buy a mixed case of 2005 Napa cabernet sauvignon, my personal favorite during the blind tasting of 2003–2012 vintages. It seems the 10-year mark is the sweet spot, a phase when the wine’s primary fruit is still lively and fresh, but the underlying structure has had time to integrate, melding into a beautiful, supple, approachable whole. I drew several stars next to the 2005s from Rocca Family Vineyards, Ackerman Family Vineyards, and Reynolds Family Winery—all new names to me. That’s nice, because it gives me some wineries to investigate when I flutter back to Meadowood in 2016.

As a typical American, I can barely conjure up the names of my great-grandparents. So it’s hard to imagine being Francesco (above)or Filippo Mazzei, who can trace their family tree back to the 1300s. “We’ve owned the Castello di Fonterutoli property since 1435. That’s 24 generations,” says Francesco Mazzei, speaking of the medieval hamlet (below) nestled in the hills of Chianti Classico, which the family inherited 57 years before Christopher Columbus discovered America. The Castello di Fonterutoli winery is now one of Italy’s oldest family-owned firms, run by the two brothers in tandem.

“Actually, a couple of nephews are on the board of directors now, and they always complain, saying, ‘Hey, we’re the 25th generation! Why do you always say it’s 24?’ And I say, ‘Because we’re the boss, and you’re not! When you’re the boss, it will be 25.’ ”

Francesco laughs, then glances at the menu of our lunch spot, settling on roast chicken to accompany the winery’s latest creation, a Tuscan cabernet called Philip. “Please catch a small chicken!” he tells the waiter. Long, lean, and elegant in a light tweed jacket, it’s easy to imagine this CEO powering up the slopes of Mt. Etna on a mountain bike, as he did just two weeks prior to our meeting. The man is fit, with energy to burn.

The modern era of Castello di Fonterutoli began when Francesco and Filippo joined the winery full-time in 1994 and 1989 respectively. Both studied economics and first worked outside the family fold—Filippo in consumer finance, Francesco at Barilla, then Vespa, the icon brands of Italian pasta and motor scooters. “It’s important to manage something where you’re not the boss by blood,” Francesco says.

When the brothers took the reins from their father, Lapo, the winery was at a crossroads. For centuries, it had been a traditional Tuscan farm with mixed crops; wine was just one component.

“You have to think that things changed tremendously after World War II,” says Francesco. “Until then, this kind of farm was managed with the mezzadria—having peasant families who were assigned plots. They had a house, and they had to cultivate that small piece of land.” Sharecroppers, in essence; they kept half their crop and gave the other half to the land owner. “My father was one of the first to change that.” That was in 1955—two decades before Italy officially abolished the mezzadria system in 1974. Lapo Mazzei gave the workers a wage; at the same time, he phased out the farm’s wheat, corn, and other crops. By the 1960s, the property was fully specialized in wine.

For the next two decades, the winery grew slowly but steadily; markets opened up organically. “We saw there was room the push the business ahead. And that’s why we both came on board full-time,” Francesco explains. “We came with the task to grow the business.”

They’ve indeed taken it to a new level. Today Castello di Fonterutoli is among the most revered producers in Tuscany. Producing 800,000 bottles annually, they’re large enough to make several versions of Chianti Classico. Most widely distributed is Fonterutoli Chianti Classico, sourced from the 120 different parcels they own or manage beyond their five main vineyards, with a 10 percent dose of colorino, malvasia nera, and merlot. Though considered a ‘second wine,’ it’s polished, elegant, and always a pleasure. Further up the scale is their chateau wine, Castello Fonterutoli Chianti Classico, coming from 50 select parcels. Now ranked a Gran Selezione (a new category in Italy), this contains indigenous grapes only—sangiovese with a bit of malvasia nera and colorino. Then there’s Ser Lapo Chianti Classico Reserve, made in special years from sangiovese and 10 percent merlot.

Which brings up the matter of names. Several of their wine names hint at significant bits of family history. Ser Lapo Mazzei was a notable ancestor who served as notary to the Tuscan merchant Francesco Datini in the 1300s. A meticulous record-keeper, Datini amassed a voluminous correspondence that has survived intact. (This formed the basis of Tim Parks’ excellent nonfiction book TheMerchant of Prato.)

“He was the first to introduce the letter of credit,” Francesco says of Datini. “So he was the first dealing with all of Europe, not paying cash, but paying with letters written by his notary.” Among those papers is the first documented reference to Chianti as a wine, written in 1398: “In one of these letters, Ser Lapo writes that Datini is buying a few barrels of Chianti wine from another guy. The funny thing is, the wine was from Chianti, but it was white! But at that time, Chianti was a little bit of both.”

A more recent ancestor gave his name to their latest wine: Philip Mazzei (above, in a Louvres portrait by Jacques-Louis David), a cabernet sourced from their two Tuscan estates, Castello di Fonterutoli in Chianti and Belguardo on the coast. This 18th century forbearer was a friend of Thomas Jefferson and planted the first vitus vinifera in Virginia. (Read more about Philip the man and Philip the wine in my article “Meet Philip,” in the February 2015 issue of Tastes of Italia.)

Mix36 gives a nod to the family’s more recent enterprise involving clonal research on sangiovese, an ancient grape prone to genetic mutation. This wine is a blend of 36 sangiovese clones and biotypes. The difference in terminology is a matter of whether or not they’ve been officially cleaned of viruses, certified, given a code name, and commercialized. There are dozens of sangiovese clones that have gone through this process, but probably hundreds of biotypes in Tuscany and neighboring Emilia Romagna. Many were studied during the Chianti 2000project, a massive joint research effort overseen by the Chianti Classico Consortium. “It was started when my father was chairman of the Consorzio,” says Francesco. “He was the leader of that job—which is one of the biggest investments made for clonal research in the world.” Castello di Fonterutoli also devoted some of its land to the experimental vineyards during that time.

“What we have at the estate is 18 certified clones that you can buy at any nursery. Another 18 sangioveses biotypes are proprietary with us,” says Francesco. “They’ve been propagated from our old vines, and you cannot buy them.” All go into Mix36.

Which means is that Mix36 is wholly unique: Not only does it contain historic sangiovese biotypes that no one else has; what’s more, it can simultaneously be called a blend, a monovarietal, and, coming from one vineyard, a cru. But it’s also very much au courant, typifying the trend nowadays in Tuscany to blend sangiovese types—getting a hint of violet aroma from one, more tannin from another, and so on.

The team behind the blending is Fonterutoli’s agronomist, their enologist, and the famed Tuscan consulting enologist Carlo Ferrini. Francesco and Filippo join in during the penultimate step. “At the start, you go into the room and there’s a big table full of bottles. It’s incredible. “You need to be very talented,” he says. “I know where to end, but I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Be that as it may, Francesco and Filippo Mazzei have ushered an entire winery to fruition. And that takes talent too.

See those melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chips? If you’re a chocoholic, just one bite of these Double Chocolate Biscotti will have you singing Fred Astaire’s “Heaven, I’m in heaven.”

I think these cookies are pretty intense, what with their unsweetened cocoa powder and semisweet chips. But this is my adaptation of Triple (!!) Chocolate Biscotti from Bon Appétit. I left out the third player: white chocolate chips. That’s mostly because I just don’t like white chocolate. But I also took my lead from on-line comments like “too sticky to cut” and “too sweet.” Instead, I upped the intensity quotient with a dab of espresso powder.

Normally I recommend a wine with recipes. But if there ever was a cookies-and-milk pairing, this is it.

Which is to say these biscotti are perfect for everyone. Perfect for kids, great for Santa when he drops down the chimney, brilliant for gifting, and fabulous to have around the house for your own special holiday treat.

Like all biscotti, they’re simple to make. Double-baking to the preferred level of dryness is the time-consuming part. (I skipped the half-hour in the refrigerator without any problem. But if your dough is too wet to shape, chilling can help.)

The recipe makes 30 biscotti. Double it if you’re gifting. But if it’s for home, stick to one batch and be forewarned: They’re utterly addictive!

DOUBLE-CHOCOLATE BISCOTTI
Makes 30 biscotti

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp espresso powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 large eggs
1- 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350˚ F. and lightly oil large baking sheet.

Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder, espresso powder, and salt into medium bowl.

Using electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in large bowl to blend. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then vanilla. Beat in flour mixture. Stir in semisweet chips.

Drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto baking sheet, making two 10- to 11-inch-long strips, spaced 3 inches apart. Using metal spatula or wet fingertips, shape strips into 11- by 2 1/2-inch logs. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

Bake logs in middle of oven until tops are cracked and dry and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes; cool 10 minutes. Lift logs onto work surface. Using serrated knife, gently cut warm logs crosswise into 3/4-inch-thick slices. Arrange slices, cut side down, on two baking sheets. Bake biscotti until just dry to touch, about 8 minutes. Turn biscotti over. Bake until top is dry to touch, about 8 minutes. (Stand up and bake for about five more minutes for drier biscotti.) Cool on cookie rack.

Biscotti keep in airtight containers 1 week, or frozen 1 month.

Please don’t tell me you don’t like dessert wines. I’ve heard this time and again from our guests on tour in Italy—then watched them eat their words after they try a really good one.

It’s like with men: You just haven’t found the right one yet.

So, let me offer some advice. First, give dessert wine a try at Thanksgiving this year. Second, make it a bottle of Vin Santo from Tuscany.

To the first point: Why is Thanksgiving one of the best times to take the plunge? Allow me to answer a question with a question: What’s on your dessert table? Pumpkin pie? Apple pie à la mode?

Desserts made with fruit—pies, tarts, crumble cakes—go perfectly with dessert wines. Why? Fruits pies and tarts are not super sweet. There’s a rule of thumb when it comes to dessert wines: The wine should always be sweeter than your dessert. Otherwise the wine will taste acidic and nasty. (I’d also add, dessert wine should be slightly chilled.)

To the second point: Why Vin Santo? Think about this: You’ve got a fruit or pumpkin pie with baking spices like nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon. A good Vin Santo—that is, one with five or more years of aging in small caratelli casks—is loaded with flavors of butterscotch, caramel, dried apricot, and candied orange peel. Wouldn't you call that a marriage made in heaven?

All of this is why I featured Vin Santo in my feature article for Tastes of Italia this month. I write about how it’s made, where it got its name, and which producers to look for. The current issue is at Barnes & Noble, among other outlets. Or else, you can simply read it here. Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m sorry I wasn’t raised with the Day of the Dead. Sure, Halloween’s great, but there’s something so magical, mythical, and mysterious about this pagan-Catholic mash-up. It’s a holiday suited for grownups.

Cooks, especially. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

My first experience with Day of the Dead was in my husband’s village of Varinella in Piedmont. The day was almost over—All Soul’s Day, in Catholic parlance—and the gates of the walled cemetery a few paces outside of town would soon be locked.

I knew that Claudio’s relatives had visited earlier to clean the family graves and dress them with flowers. As usual, Claudio put things off until the last minute. But today, his procrastination netted positive results.

Because of it, we arrived at dusk, when the cemetery was its most atmospheric. In the fading twilight, dozens of votive candles glowed, casting a flickered light on the faces of the deceased, who were immortalized in photographs embedded behind glass in the gravestones. Initially it all seemed spooky, but it was beautiful too, with those pools of golden candlelight, fresh flowers, and murmuring visitors.

A number of people were still wandering around when we arrived. They greeted us, asked about Claudio’s relatives, both living and dead, then continued on their way, spotting more friends—living and dead—and stopping to greet them too. Claudio and I searched for those who had once been part of his life. I soon realized that for the folks in this village, the Day of the Dead was like a passegiatta or evening stroll through the cemetery. It was a time to visit, to socialize, to reminisce. It just so happened that some of the people you met along the way were dead.

They say that Mexicans are take Day of the Dead rituals to the most extreme. Their unique traditions stem from the forced union between indigenous cults and the Catholicism of invading Spaniards. Unable to snuff out longstanding behaviors, the Spaniards wedged Aztec rituals for the dead, held at harvest time, into All Saints Day and All Souls Day (November 1 and 2) and gave everything a religious veneer.

The Aztecs shared their first feast after harvest with the dead, who returned for 24 hours to be amongst the living. Today, Mexican families will cook up their loved ones’ favorite meals, leaving their portions on the familial altar and consuming the rest in a feast. These offerings sit alongside photos of the dead, which invite the souls to come party; pictures of other souls in purgatory, who pray for the deceased to escape that benighted holding pen; and violet candles, which represent mourning. Four candles arranged in a cross indicate the four cardinal points, helping the souls get oriented and navigate home. Likewise, the yellow and orange flowers, representing rays of sunlight, are placed in a straight line to show souls their path home.

Hungry though they be, souls cannot eat. And so they inhale the aromas. It’s said that, the day after, neither food nor cigarettes left on the altar have any flavor left. The spirits have sucked it all away.

If I weren’t in the midst of a kitchen renovation right now, without sink or stove, I’d cook up my mother’s favorite chicken casserole recipe—a classic ’60s-housewife concoction using canned mushroom soup, dried Lipton’s onion soup, and Uncle Ben’s rice. (I confess, I loved it too.)

Instead, I’ll go to Veniero’s, the Italian bakery in my old East Village neighborhood, and pick up some Saints Bones (ossa di morti; recipes here and here), made of sugar, flour, and clove—sweet treats left for the youngest departed souls. I’ll light a candle next to my old family photos, line up some flowers, and greet whomever arrives.

We’d taken the back road to the Greek temple of Segesta and were bumping along on a pockmarked stretch of gravel. Outside the van window lay Sicily in the raw: towering craggy mountains, weathered farmhouses, the occasional flock of sheep, and vast geometric patterns of vineyards and melon fields and charred remains of wheatfields.

“If you want to see the real Sicily, this is it,” Claudio said from behind the wheel, addressing the group who had come with us for seven days of trekking and winery-going.

He was right. The places we go during our  SICILIAN SAUNTER tour can only be described as authentic: rugged nature reserves, an agriturismo hidden down a long, unmarked road that offers a quintessential Sicily lunch, a boat ride with the jovial Capitano Franco, a home-cooked meal with a scruffy nobleman turned winemaker—and, yes, those bumpy back roads that take you to the beating heart of this unique place.

Because the tour sold out, we added another departure and did two Sicilian Saunters back to back. So I came away with a lot of photographs. Here’s a selection from the combined tours, 98 shots that give a good sense of what Sicilian Saunter has to offer—the people, the hikes, the wine and food, the fun. We had a good time.

Click here for the SICILIAN SAUNTER 2014 photo album.

“So, are we going to your mamma’s house for lunch?” I ask Paolo Turnaduri, my guide from the trekking company Etna People, when he tells me he’s from the village of Linguaglossa on Etna’s north slope.

“Did you know that we call Etna ‘Mamma Etna’? So if she’s preparing something, it will be pretty spicy!”

Not only does this mamma like her dishes molto piccante. She’s also a nag, badgering everyone with constant reminders that she exists.

Today she’s quiet after a turbulent summer. But it seems all the locals keep a fond picture of mamma in their pocket. A chef I met had a cell screensaver showing a volcanic plume generating its own lighting (pictured above). Paolo keeps an iPhone video of “black rain,” a shower of walnut-size pumice that pummeled his car. His friend, a photographer and trinket-shop owner, displays close-proximity photographs of Etna’s brim and firestone throughout the shop, next to the pumice ashtrays and trail maps. I myself bought a couple of basalt bracelets, so now I too have my reminders.

I’m here on the north face of Etna because I wanted to understand Etna DOC wine better. There’s a New Wave that’s emerged here in the past 15 years, and most of these wineries are situated on the north slope. On the south side, Etna’s four major craters simmer in a desolate lunar landscape of black ash. This is the destination for mass tourism. I wanted to avoid the tour buses, the funicular lines, the procession of 4-wheel drives, and the same redundant cinder ash all the way to the top. Having visited Vesuvius, I’ve been there, done that. Instead, Etna People offered an all-day excursion with a variety of geographies and activities: a hike through lava fields, a descent into a lava cave, lunch at an Etna DOC winery, and river trekking in the Alcantara River Gorge, framed by towering walls of volcanic basalt.

By popular vote, my group decided to go on a slightly harder trek: up the lava field of 2002. The trailhead itself makes quite an impression. A little village had sprung up here to take advantage of the tourism that came to gawk at the nearby 1973 lava field (“the first ‘commercial eruption,’ Paolo explained). Today all that’s left of it is one splintered roof peeking out from the black lava. The townsfolk thought they were safe, since the main flow was directed elsewhere, but at the last minute a side channel opened and an eight-foot wall of the black molten stuff pushed straight their way, devouring everything in its path.

As we ascended, Paolo pointed out a whole range of formations and lava types—a geological vocabulary of crevices and craters, fracture and fissures and buttons. It’s like the Eskimos with their hundred words for white. “They call this type of lava AiiAiiAii, because that’s how you sound when you walk across it,” he said, mixing anecdote with science.

We climbed and climbed, going through fields of sharp rock and up paths where one’s boots sank in the volcanic sand as if climbing a vertical beach, until we reached some huge orifices in the earth. Truly, Etna is massive, and the sense of its vastness and our dwarfed presence is acutely felt. As we surveyed the craters and tongues of lava that transformed this landscape within a few hours, Paolo expressed the opinion of many locals: “I think Etna is a living thing, with a spirit and an intelligence,” he said, adding, “She destroyed what should be destroyed—those things made by man.”

He then pointed to a particular cloud, one with a smooth back that moved between the puffy white cumulous like a shark in a school of sardines. “See that? I think it’s going to rain in an hour.”

And indeed, after sliding down huge dunes of black ash and passing the skeletal remains of heat-blasted trees, we arrive back at the trailhead just as the skies let loose, with thunder and lightning and a fury worthy of the gods.

That continued on and off all afternoon. At higher elevations, the precipitation came down as hail and snow, depositing a white cap on Etna’s 3000’ peek that remained for several days. Meanwhile, we dodged showers at our other destinations: the lava cave, created when the surface cooled faster than the moving magma; and the Gole dell’ Alcantara, the narrow gorge with its towering, rippled walls of basalt.

Etna makes a deep impression, one that fed into my experience of the vineyards within the Etna DOC during the days that followed. While there are other wine regions on volcanic soil around the world—Santorini, Soave, Lacryma Christi, and Pantelleria, for example—none have the firepower or the fascination of Etna. It’s a place that draws you back.

If you’re into the health benefits of resveratrol, or like to try obscure indigenous varietals, or have a passion for big tannins, have I got a grape for you! It’s Sagrantino, my friends.

Not so long ago, this behemoth of a grape was on the verge of extinction. Now it’s considered Umbria’s jewel in the crown.

I was introduced to Sagrantino in all its various forms last year at a Wine Media Guild luncheon (see my report), where I met Marco Caprai, the region’s leading light, as well as the lovely Maila Orazi of Colle del Saraceno and other top producers.

That led to a research trip to Montefalco and a thorough indoctrination in all things Sagrantino last fall. And that, in turn, begat this article, “Saints Alive! The Rebirth of Sagrantino,” which appears in the current issue (October 2014) of Tastes of Italia. You can find it now in Barnes & Noble, or simply read it here.

So, if you’re wanting a change of pace as the weather cools and harvest-time dishes take center stage, this could be just the ticket. Salute!

We didn’t set out to visit Jerez de la Frontera during International Sherry Week. The catalyst was instead a bottle of Lustau Escuadrillo Amontillado—my nightcap this past winter, while my Italian mate, Claudio, stayed true to his Marsala Superiore. Until he tried the Lustau.

The conversion was swift. Two months later, the husband who’d never liked sherry emailed from Italy saying, “Why don’t we take a quick trip to Jerez? There’s a cheap fare from Milan.” $150 on EasyJet for a 2½–hour flight, comparable to New York–Cincinnati. A look at our La Dolce Vita Wine Tours schedule showed we could squeeze in three full days, plus travel.

What can you do in three days in Jerez? I canvassed my wine-industry friends who’d traveled to this corner of southern Spain (thanks May and Lauren and Richard!) and came up with a Top 5 list: Lustau, Gonzales Byass, Bodegas Tradición, and Valdespino in Jerez proper, then Bodegas Hildago/La Gitana in the coastal town of Sanlúcar. Armed with a plan and two partially empty carry-ons, we set off.

Day 1: Valdespino & Bodegas Tradicion

We quickly realized that Jerez has a well-developed tourism industry, and each bodega has a fixed schedule for tours in English, Spanish, and German. Despite the appointments I’d made in advance, we were usually herded into a group tour. So much for my journalist creds.

First up was VALDESPINO. Like many top-tier sherry houses intent on survival, this one is now folded into a larger company, Grupo Estevez, led by Real Tesoro. Here we experienced our first boilerplate bodega tour—educational for sure, but redundant by the second day.

The guide first led us over to a barrique with Plexiglas lid. She pressed a button, and voilá, the barrel was lit from within (a popular trick, we soon learned). Here we could see the white flor, or yeast, growing on the surface of the sherry. (Mysteriously, it develops only in this part of the world—and no one could explain why.)

Flor divides the world of sherry into two. Since anyone can wrap their mind around two parts, this is an easy way to get a handle on sherry and its dizzying array of categories.

The presence or absence of flor results in either biological aging or oxidative aging. Simply put, one group of sherries ages under flor; the other doesn’t. Those that do (fino, manzanilla, amontillado, palo cortado) are protected from oxygen by this Kryptonite yeast barrier, which also chews away at wine’s glycerin, breaking it down and making flor sherry the driest wine in the world.

The other group (oloroso, moscatel, pedro ximénez) demands oxidation, so the flor is immediately killed off by the addition of a higher dose of grape spirits. (For an exhaustive run-down of sherry types and production techniques, see sherry.org.)

Bodega architecture aids these processes. Above-ground cellars promote happy, abundant flor. But to keep temperatures cool during Jerez’s blistering summers, every bodega has a A-frame roof that soars as high as a four-story building. “We call them cathedrals,” said one guide after another. Some have ornate rose windows to press the point. Within such a space, the hot air naturally rises and escapes through rafter-level windows, leaving the air inside a good 20ºF cooler in summer.

Another tour theme was geography: specifically, the two types of soil (albariza and barros and arenas) and the three growing areas (Jerez de la Fontera, Puerto di Santa María, and Sanlúcar de Barrameda). Every bodega also offered an explanation of the solera system (“suelo means soil,” went the refrain), a perpetual blending method with tiered barrel rows that was created in Jerez and later adopted in Marsala.

Exiting Real Tesoro’s aging cellars, our tour continued an unexpected direction. A short walk took us to the stables, home to a dozen sleek black stallions—an extraordinarily beautiful reminder that Andalusia is horse country, too. We stroked the nose of Tio Diego, the sole chestnut, and scooped up four wriggling puppies, still unstable on their feet. Smudged with dirt, we then trudged through a collection of antique horse carriages and Andalusian tackle.

More surprising still was the next stop: an art gallery containing dozens of Picasso prints, mostly from his lusty Minotaur series, plus a few fist-shaking Guernica studies. Though Picasso permanently boycotted Spain after Franco’s rise to power, he’s still a prominent figure here. Bodegas Gonzalez Byass went so far as to ship a barrel to Paris for his signature, and Malaga named its airport after the expat artist.

Everything was turned up a notch at BODEGAS TRADICION—both the sherry aging and the art. They, too, had a gallery, this one filled with museum-worthy canvases by El Greco, Goya, and Velasquez, among others, an astonishing treasure trove for a boutique bodega.

We’d been recommended Bodegas Tradicion because of its unique charter: an exclusive focus on old sherries and brandy. Since its founding in 1998, its owners have sought out 10-year-old casks from other producers, such as F.P. Domecq and the now-defunct Croft, then aged them further, sometimes for decades, producing sherries that might reach an average age of 50. By law, the bodega can’t brag about that on the label. Unlike Portugal, where aged Tawny Ports clearly indicate 10, 20, 30, or 40 Year, sherry has only the VOS and VORS categories, which signify an average of 20 and 30 years respectively. In the case of Bodegas Tradicion’s 50-year-old sherries, you just have to know.

Picks of the day:

Fino Inocente, Valdespino – I’d sampled this single-vineyard Fino at dinner the night before and found it played very well with grilled octopus and roasted vegetables. Tasting it again at the bodega, I was compelled to buy a bottle. (Each purchase was torturously debated, as we’d left room in our luggage for just four bottles.)

Contrabandista Amontillado, Valdespino – On a roll with his new amontillado kick, Claudio dedicated space in his luggage for this winner. It was the prettiest label, to boot.

Moscatel Promesa, Valdespino – Sherry’s 100% muscatels were a complete revelation to us. Made from grapes that had sun-dried for a week, these sweet monovarietal sherries have that same seductive, honeyed, orange-blossom character that runs throughout the Muscat family.

PlTinum Brandy de Jeres, Bodegas Tradicion - A 50-year-old brandy aged in Pedro Ximenez casks, with notes of toasted nut and vanilla, this was smooooth and deep. If I drank brandy, I’d demand this from Santa every year

Day 2: Lustau & Gonzalez Byass

At LUSTAU, we joined yet another group tour, picking up additional details. “You’ll see spider webs in the bodega,” our guide explained, “because spiders eat the insects that eat the wood casks.” We learned that flor subsides in summer and winter, and that each sherry subzone has its own type of flor, which influences flavor. We observed the old railroad tracks that once connected Lustau to the port of Cadiz (much like Haro’s railway lines tied Rioja to the port of Bilbao).

But the most interesting thing at Lustau was its relationship to almancenistas—small, independent bodegas that produce only a few hundred casks. (By comparison, Lustau, a medium-sized firm, ages some 15,000 casks.) Lustau started out in 1896 as one of these almancenistas, selling to the big sherry houses. Today it provides a helping hand to eight of these indie sherry producers by bottling and exporting their unique gems. (Being harder to find in the U.S. than Lustau’s solera reserve line, I bought an Amontillado de Sanlúcar de Barrameda by almacenista Manuel Cuevas Jerada, an amontillado that starts from manzanilla, then is aged in a solera of only 21 butts. A rare treasure indeed.)

GONZALEZ BYASS, in turn, was something we just wanted to experience. To miss it would be like going to Orlando without visiting Disney World. This 42-million-liter firm, which owns 10 percent of the region’s vineyards, makes the world’s most popular sherry, Tio Pepe, which also happens to be Spain’s largest export.

The tour was Disneyfied, but not obnoxiously so. It began with a 15-minute film (narrated by Tio Pepe) that pleasantly encapsulated sherry’s history and the estate’s 19th century beginnings. Next, we boarded a little red choochoo train that carried us from one aging cellar to another. Along the way, we spotted jaunty Tio Pepe logos tucked in the shrubbery and ogled famous signatures on the sherry butts, including Jean Cocteau, Orson Wells, Steven Spielberg, Javier Bardem, and, of course, Pablo Picasso.

The best part, though, was the mouse ladder. On the floor of one bodega stood a solitary glass filled with sherry. Propped against its rim was a tiny ladder. As the story goes, a caretaker—one José Gálvez—noticed mice eating the crumbs of his meal. He started leaving bigger breadcrumbs, then, thinking any good meal required sherry, dreamed up the mouse ladder. As living proof of its success, several photos showed mice perched atop the ladder, lapping up the sherry. And in the expansive gift shop, kids can ask mommy for a Tio Pepe mouse eraser. Take that, Mickey Mouse!

Picks of the day:

Puerto Fino, Lustau – From the port town of Puerto Santa Maria, this bone-dry fino had appealing petrol notes. Is it the ships?

Very Rare Oloroso Emperatriz Eugenia, Lustau – Dry oloroso was another welcome discovery. This category offers a delicious, oxidized nuttiness that is sometimes even more intense than the amontillados. Named after the wife of Napoleon III, this example was VOS (aged 20 years) and meant to be paired with game or oxtail, a common local dish.

Moscatel Emilín, Lustau – Yet another moscatel that seduced us, from grapes harvested two weeks late.

Day 3: Bodegas Hildago/La Gitana

When BODEGAS HILDAGO moved to its current location in 1850, there was nothing between it and the sea; butts of manzanilla could bath in briny sea breezes for years on end, acquiring that saline kick that manzanilla lovers crave. Gradually the town of Sanlúcar swallowed the bodega whole, so today it sits next to an elongated plaza in the centro that leads to the seaside boardwalk.

“This is not a plastic visit,” Miguel Gutiérrez announces, striding into the shadowy heart of the bodega. We’re thankful to have a private hour after so many groups. Unlike the pretty young things at previous wineries, Gutiérrez is a grey fox who has worked at the bodega for 23 years. Our conversation is unfettered and wanders hither and yon. We hear about Javier Hildago, the charismatic sixth-generation owner, and his days racing horses on the beach in Sanlúcar’s annual Carreras de Caballos. We talk about market trends for sherry, and quiz him about Spain’s perplexing mealtimes. “At 7 o’clock, I’ll have a coffee,” he states. “At 10, I have a breakfast of orange juice, toasted bread, and olive oil. I prepare the body. For me, noon is a good time for amontillado. After, I continue with manzanilla.” We nod, as if this were normal. “The biggest meal of the day is at 4 p.m., then at 10 o’clock I have a light dinner.”

Gutiérrez eventually leads us to a small cask room, where the oldest sherries slumber for up to 45 years. He points towards two rickety rocking chairs. “Relax,” he insists, then grabs a venencia, Jerez’s uniquely shaped wine thief, and plunges it into a cask. “I believe in starting with the oldest wines,” he says, lifting the venencia high above a glass and pouring a perfect stream over a distance of one yard.

This is their Napoleón Amontillado VORS, aged 40-43 years from Manzanilla; it’s the color of burnished gold. “This is very dry, very serious, but very pleasant,” Gutiérrez says, nosing his glass. “Javier’s father would dab some on his handkerchief and say, ‘This is perfume!’” It’s sensational indeed—rich and nutty, with a bone-dry finish (and our fourth acquisition).

More barrel samples follow: Oloroso Faraón VORS, another 40+year treasure, as dry as sherry can be. (“Oloroso should be dry,” Gutiérrez opines. “Some estates leave it a little sweet; I don’t know why. To be sweet, we have cream sherry, with 15% pedro ximenez.”) Then comes a Wellington Palo Cortado VORS (46 years). No spitting is allowed.

In between, Gutiérrez ducks out for a smoke (“For the sherry!” he declares, as if this were a no-brainer). He manages to keep pace with our pours. “I can only imagine how jolly he’ll be at the end of the day, if he keeps this up with other visitors,” Claudio whispers.

And indeed, after an hour, Gutiérrez fetches a group of 12 assorted foreigners. We tag along, going into a larger bodega for barrel samples of their younger wines: a 12-year manzanilla cru called Pastrana, which smacks of the sea and is the loveliest manzanilla we’ve tasted by far. Then there’s the flagship La Gitana Manzanilla, a 5-year version that retains the briny, oxidized flavor of their greater wines. (In the shop, we purchase a half-bottle for a measly 2.50 euros, which we’re drinking tonight with friends in Italy, trying to make converts of them, too.)

Our trip wasn’t all wine. We spent time in Jerez’s spectacular market (“If I lived here, I’d never eat meat again,” said Claudio, lusting after the piles of fresh, glistening fish.) We drove into the mountains outside Jerez, switchbacking through parkland where oaks had been stripped of their bark for cork. We ventured into a maritime park near Sanlúcar, where seabirds flourish and sea salt is made. And every night, we ate very, very well, doubly satisfied that every wine list had a deep by-the-glass sherry selection to play with.

On the plane returning to Milan, Claudio mused, “I can see coming back.” That’s good news. I owe a tip of the hat to Lustau.

En route to Jerez, we took a side-trip to the Rock of Gibraltar. A few surprises on the way:

- Monkeys roam the roads. Evidently, there are 250 Barbara macaques living on the 1400' rock, now a natural park. But they come into town, as we saw when we veered our car to miss one nonchalantly crossing the road. I initially thought it was a small dog. Too quick for my camera.

- The UK still rules. There were policeman in bobby caps, bright red phone booths, and the UK flag waving. When we first entered the territory, Claudio said, "I'm filling up with has here; it's half price." I had to point out that the prices were listed in pounds sterling, not Euros—our moment of awakening.

- You can see Morocco from your window! The mountain of Jebel Musa looms large—the mate to Gibraltar, forming the pillars of Hercules.

- There's a large mosque at Europe Point. Go figure.

- Leaving Gibraltar, we had to wait 90 minutes to pass through Customs. "It's the Spaniards," said the man in front of us. "There are no taxes in Gibraltar, so they're looking for electronics and other goods being smuggled in." Drugs too. We passes unscathed.

When preparing for this week’s Douro Valley tour, I wanted to consolidate some information gleaned from various ViniPortugal lectures, conversations with Douro winemakers, and books like the incomparable Port & the Douro, by Richard Mayson. My idea was to create a quick list of interesting tidbits. Well, that quickly ballooned in size. But it also turned into something useful enough to share on this blog. So, dear readers, here are some extended factoids on Port history:

1. WHAT IS PORT?

Port is a fortified wine made exclusively in the Douro Valley of northern Portugal. The grapes are native Portuguese varieties and the wine is fortified to 19-20º using aguardente, a neutral grape spirit.

2. CAN PORT BE MADE ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD?

It depends who you ask. The EU has DOP laws (Protected Destination of Origin) that do just that: They protect the names of food and wine tied to specific places—everything from Gorgonzola and Camembert to Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena to Melton Mowbray pork pie.

(These laws have teeth. In 2004, Genoa defeated Nestle in a classic David vs Goliath court battle, when one of the food giant’s pestos was labeled à laGenovese, referencing Genoa, pesto’s place of origin and the region where a particularly fragrant, small-leafed type of basil grows. But Nestle’s product was in fact made elsewhere from German and Swiss seeds. It lost the case and had to rename its product.)

Nonetheless, you will find dessert wines from California, Australia, Argentino and beyond with port on the label. How’s this possible? Well, not all nations are on board with the EU DOP laws. And guess what? We’re one of them! In the U.S., port may come from anywhere in the world. However, we do recognize that Porto, Oporto, and Vinho do Porto are nongeneric terms specific to Portugal’s Douro Valley. So look for those Os. That’s the real deal.

3. IS ANYONE EVEN DRINKING PORT ANYMORE?

Port sales have been static in volume over the past decade. But that’s just part of the story. In fact, there’s been a 30% growth since 2000 in the premium categories, according to Fladgate CEO Adrian Bridge. These “special category” Ports, as they’re called in Portugal, include everything except the cheap, entry-level ruby and tawny (which makes up the overwhelming majority of Port sold—over 80%.) The special categories  includes Vintage, Crusted, LBV, aged tawnies, colheitas, and so on. In short, the demand for quality Port has increased, while sales for the cheap stuff have fallen off.

4. WHEN WAS PORT ‘INVENTED’?

There’s no quick answer. It’s worth nothing that the first quintas (wine estates) on the Douro date back to the time of the Crusades in the 1100s. Before that, there were the Romans (naturally) and the Phoenicians practicing viticulture here. But Douro wine is far older still; scientists have found fossilized grape seeds that date back to 2000 BC.

The foundation for Port was laid in the 1600s. The first time a shipment was labeled vigno do Porto by Customs was late that century. By then, there was already a robust trade between England and Portugal (more on that later). This was a time when early shipping firms like Kopke (1638), Warre's (1670), and Croft (1678) were being established. But—and this is a big but—17th century Port wouldn’t be recognizable as such today. It was dark, dry, and austere, earning the nickname blackstrap. What’s key is that many shippers added brandy (up to 15%) to the dry wine to stabilize it for the long journey at sea.

The first time anyone made a sweet Port—that is, arresting fermentation with the addition of brandy before all the sugar had converted to alcohol—was in 1678…maybe. Some Liverpool traders said they’d seen this done by an abbot in Lamego, but their report was uncorroborated. Thus the abbot remains an unknown and 1678 remains an unofficial start. Even in 1750, sweet Port was still controversial. One shipper said that adding spirits to fermenting wines “must be considered diabolical.”

This was a time when an association of shippers had started to regulate Port and crack down on its bastardization by growers who were known to add elderberries (baga), sugar, Spanish wine, raisin wine and so on. (The theme of shippers versus growers continues through the centuries, until the lines between them blurred completely.

Nonetheless, we can set the 1750s as the official beginning of Port. In 1755, after the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami, the Marques do Pombaltook over as Prime Minister. Among the measures this ambitious, practical, and somewhat Machiavellian politician took to regulate Port was the creation of a boundary in 1756, which marked the growing zone for grapes intended for Port wine destined for export. (His new regulatory institutions were also intended as a strike against the over-weaning power of the British shippers.)

The first mention of Vintage Port dates from 1773, in a Christies catalog. And the first time a shippers name was attached was in a catalog from 1810, which names Croft.

5. WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH ENGLAND & PORTUGAL?

Three words: cod, cloth, and wine.

Trade between England and Portugal was already established by the 1200s. The Brits sold wood and cloth, while the Portuguese sold wine, olive oil, and citrus. By the 1300s, salted cod (bacalhau) from the northern Atlantic was added to this trade mix. (The Portuguese still go gaga for bacalhau and brag they have 365 ways to prepare it.)

Simultaneously, political alliances were formed—the first in 1373, when Portugal wanted help fending off those pesky invaders from Spain (another continuing theme over the centuries).

One of those treaties—1386’s Treaty of Windsor—is the oldest, most enduring alliance between two nation states. It was signed after 500 British archers helped in the final defeat of the Spanish in Estremadura.

After the Reformation in the 1500s, when Brits were freed of Catholic fish-Friday obligation, Portugal became even more important to the British as a cod customer. The 1500s saw Portugal at its peak. Since Spain was not a cooperative neighbor, it had been forced to look outward, towards the sea, for trade routes. And it did, first with Henry the Navigator in the 1400s, then with Magellan in the 1500s. By the Renaissance, Portugal had colonies in four continents and was enriched by sugar from Madeira, spices from India, and gold from Africa. (That also led to its ruin, when its men and resources were stretched too far. Workers left the farms, and Portugal was forced to import food. Oporto citizens were reduced to eating offal and eventually gained a taste for tripe. Even today, they’re called tripe eaters: tripeiros.)

By the time of the Commonwealth Treaty in 1654, Portugal was essentially a British colony. (Expats were exempt from taxes and had their own judges, while the Portuguese had no power over their own property upon death—just to give a taste of how things went.) 1703’s Metheun Treaty reinforced the mutual favoritism in trade: England got preferential treatment for its textiles, and Portugal got a favorable duty on its Port: one-third less than that for French wine.

6. WHY ARE PORTO AND VILA NOVA DE GAIA SEPARATE CITIES?

That owes to a struggle of church vs. state. In 1255, King Afonso III—who presided after the Spanish were thrown out—questioned the Bishop’s control of Oporto. So he established a competing royal borough at Vila Nova da Gaia. Moreover, he decreed that one-third of all ships descending the river and half of those arriving should unload at Gaia. Gaia remained the bottleneck through which control was exerted over the trade and export of Port until 1986.

Here it’s worth noting some epistemology: In Roman times, Portus was the name for the port on the north side of the river. Cale was a fortress on the south side. Together, they formed the name of the settlement: Portucale.

7. IF I WANT TO SEEM SAVVY ABOUT PORT HISTORY, WHAT ARE THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT DATES?

1754: When the boundaries and regulations for the denomination were established by Pombal and his newly created institutions. (See above.)

1986: When Portugal joined the European Union. At this time, the EU passed a law allowing single quintas to export their Port without having to pass through Gaia. With that stranglehold broken, growers upstream transformed themselves into boutique shippers, and a new energy was unleashed. (It also helped that air-conditioning came into play in the upper Douro in the 1980s.) In addition, the state monopology on aguardente collapsed in 1990, allowing it to be bought on the open market (even from Cognac), thus improving quality. The EU also invested in infrastructure, including the Oporto–Pinhão highway, which decreased the growers’ isolation and old-farmer mentality.

Runners-up: 1863: When phylloxera arrived 1873: When construction on the Douro railroad began. (It reached Spain in 1887.)

8. IS PORT TRULY THE WORLD’S OLDEST DENOMINATED WINE ZONE? CHIANTI CLAIMS THAT IT IS

It’s true that Chianti’s borders were defined earlier—in 1716—by Cosimo III de Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. For that matter, Tokaji beat Port too: vineyard classification for this Hungarian dessert wine began in 1730. But here’s why Port wine can claim to be the oldest, according to CIA wine instructor Michael Weiss: Chianti and Tokaji were about borders only; Port was about border and two more things: 1) There was a specific set of rules and standards for Port, set down by Pombal’s institutions. 2) There was an overseeing authority—the Institute of Port Wine—which Chianti and Tokaji lacked.

9. WHEN DID DOURO DRY WINE TAKE OFF?

Quick answer: in the mid-1990s.

Long answer: There was a forerunner 40 years earlier. In 1950, Ferreira’s Fernando Nicolau de Almedeida made a trip to Bordeaux and discovered softer methods of extraction for dry table wine than foot-treading in lagares. Applying what he learned, he created Barca Velha, now a legend. (Today it easily sells for $300-400 retail.

Others followed suit in the 1970s and ’80s. And even though the Douro DOC was created in 1979, the mindset wasn’t yet right. Most producers used substandard grapes and vinification techniques meant for Port. The wines were vile, it’s said.

With Portugal’s entry into EU in 1986 came new investments in winemaking equipment. But there was neither the expertise, nor the will, to do it right. That had to wait until a new generation came along in the 1990s: dubbed the Douro Boys, with Dirk Niepoort (from an old Dutch shipping family) as their leading light. They not only saw the writing on the wall about Port’s declining appeal in the market. They also saw no reason not to make the best wine they could from the grapes that couldn’t go into their Port. (Only 50% of an A vineyard can be made into Port, according to the beneficio. The percentage decreases for lesser-grade vineyards.) Today all the major Port shippers (except Fladgate Partnership) have launched Douro wines, made from the same grape varieties as Port. It’s no longer an afterthought.

OTHER DOURO FACTOIDS

• Portugal is 575 miles long and 140 miles wide: the size of Indiana

• The country has 341 grape varieties

• The Douro has 100 “sanctioned” grapes; 29 are “recommended”

• The Douro is the largest mountain wine region in the world (90km/56 miles across, with mountains up to 3280’ or 1000 meters)

• The Douro has 33,000 producers; 28,000 own less than 2.3 acres of land

• Only 1% of Douro wine is single-varietal. Blends are king, starting in the vineyard. Still today, 70% of growers have field blends.

• No irrigation is permitted

If you’re like me, you learned about the white wines of Campania as a group. A trio, to be precise: fiano, greco, and falanghina. All date back to ancient times, when campania felix was colonized by the Greeks. All share similar characteristics when young—they’re light, citrusy, and posses a racy streak of acidity that goes like gangbusters with the calamari, fresh fish, and tuna carpaccio served up and down the Amalfi Coast.

This trio is widely perceived as a single unit, like the backup singers to a Motown band. To the casual observer, they seem similar, even indistinguishable.

But in reality, that’s like saying all the Supremes are alike, as I learned on my last trip to the Amalfi and Cilento coasts. Ask any Campania winemaker and they’ll tell you that certo! there is indeed a Diana Ross in the group, and her name is Fiano.

For the June 2014 issue of Tastes of Italia, I took a closer look at this break-out star, who has yet to gain fame Stateside. I spoke with winemakers Piero Mastroberardino, Luigi Maffini, Bruno De Conciliis, and Clelia Romana of Colli di Lapio to find out what’s going on with the styles, techniques, and terroir of Fiano di Avellino and Fiano Paestum.

Read the article here.

Want to visit some of the wineries? Join our tour Amalfi Coast for Winelovers.

When it comes to the environment, an individual can make a difference. Take the case of Montelpulciano’s Michele Manelli. This is a guy who doesn’t just recycle yogurt containers and switch off the lights. He took it upon himself to revamp an entire winery, deploying an array of renewal-energy techniques that enabled him to take it completely off the electrical grid. It took a decade, but now that winery, SALCHETO, is a model of energy independence. (They make pretty darn good Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, too.)

I first visited Salcheto years ago, before its revamping. Then I returned last fall after getting wind of this transformation. It’s pretty awesome, in a word -- inspiring enough for me to write a feature story about it, which is in the current issue (April 2014) of Tastes of Italia. If you can't grab a copy on the newsstand (which I recommend; it's much prettier in print), then you can read it here.

Oh, and if you want to see it with your own eyes, join our Tuscan Wine Treasures tour this spring. This testament to green thinking is in itself is worth the trip.

If you’re like me, you’ve got way too many books and magazines gathering dust. There’s the Top Priority shelf in my bedroom, packed with books I haven’t touched. In the living room, the magazine pile grows at an alarming rate, itself the overflow from the magazine basket beside it. That wobbly stack is at least two feet tall now, and those issues of Wine Enthusiast, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, La Cucina Italiana, and Saveur are getting stale. Oh, the guilt when I glance their way.

That’s why I’m making a different kind of reading list for 2014. I’m simply digging through my own bookshelves to see what tickles my fancy. Sure, I’ll pick up some new books this year (Jon Bonne’s The New California Winetops the list [@jbonne]). But honestly, why not simply read what I’ve already got, though it might be a few years old? A good read is a good read.

I was reminded of the allure of great writing when acting as a judge for the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at Meadowood for the second year running. Some 60 writers vying for a fellowship submitted two articles each, to be judged blind. I found plenty of solid, workmanlike writing and reporting in this year’s batch. Jobs well done. But rare was the prose that truly inspired or transported or excited.

To find what I was missing, I kept circling back to Drinking with Men, a wonderful new memoir that I happened to be reading at the time. Rosie Schaap (@rosieschaap), now The New York Time’s Drinks columnist, came up with a clever structure: a life told through the bars she has frequented, being a serial monogamist with respect to drinking establishments. But more captivating still were her sharp observational skills (inspiring to me as a writer); her ability to conjure a living, breathing place and its motley community (very transporting; I longed to visit those watering holes in her company); and her way of carrying you along on her roving, circuitous thought-ways like a shotgun rider taking the switchbacks, yipping in the wind (yes, pretty exciting). There’s charisma in this writing. Henceforth, anytime I need a shot of inspiration, I’ll flip to her account of a negotiation with Harley Davidson bikers over possession of her boho rainbow-striped knit cap. Alternately tense and hilarious, it’s great stuff.

So, after last night’s perusal of my bookshelves, I’ve selected six books for my 2014 reading list. Four are by authors who also write fiction—a promising sign, if you’re looking for character, place, and color along with your factoids (and who isn't?). Forgive me, but a couple are recycled from previous book lists, like New Years’ Resolutions that keep coming ’round.

And dear reader, please send me your favorite book titles, old or new. I’ll try to get around to them someday!

 Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine, George M. Taber (2005)

Does this book even need an introduction? I’ve started it several times, but writing deadlines always yanked me away. The fact that I was extremely reluctant to put it down suggests that it really does “read like a thriller,” as one reviewer blurbed. A correspondent for Time at the time, Taber (@GeorgeMTaber) was the only journalist who attended this event, an obscure publicity stunt that wound up shifting the tectonic plates of the wine world. Since he waited 29 years to write his book-length account, I don’t feel so bad for taking nine years to read it.

Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country, Robert V. Camuto (2008)

Another longstanding fixture on my bookshelf is Robert Camuto’s first book, Corkscrewed. I happened upon it and its agreeable author at Chambers Street Wines, where he stood at a card table signing books with a silver sharpie. Despite obtaining an autographed copy, I never got around to reading Camuto (@robertcamuto) until his second book: Palmento, a vivid portrait of Sicilian wine and its new breed of makers. I recommend this to all our wine-tour clients heading to Sicily (Intrigued? Check this out), and I’ve heard New York Times wine columnist Eric Asimov say he aspires to writing that's as good as Camuto’s is here—to which I cry, “Me too!” So at long last I intend to read Corkscrewed, which the author wrote after a move to Provence. This earlier book follows his journey to all corners of France where “neo-peasant” winemakers are crafting natural wines. Not a new story anymore, but I trust it will be engagingly told.

 Libation: A Bitter Alchemy, Deirdre Heekin (2009)

I’ve never been to Woodstock, Vermont, nor have I eaten at Osteria Pane e Salute there. But I’m curious to read this collection of essays by restaurant owner and fiction writer Deidre Heekin (@panesalute). A self-taught enophile with Italian tastes, she commands the cellar while her chef husband mans the kitchen. Heekin’s wine education led her to attempt liqueur- and winemaking, then grape-growing—in snowy Vermont, of all unlikely places. I’m curious to see how this story goes. But the book melds memoir into these essays, so there will be flashbacks to her year living outside of Florence as a newlywed and to inspirations found in Italy’s antique digestives and obscure indigenous grapes that she came to love.

The Juice: Vinous Veritas, Jay McInerney (2012)

I was a big fan of Bacchus and Me in 2000, the first book of essays by the novelist and Wall Street Journal wine columnist (@JayMcInerney). With this latest collection, my admiration for McInerney’s writing chops remains high. It’s tough to craft short wine articles for a broad public in an engaging way. I know that from my own experience, and I saw it in those Meadowood submissions, living proof of how wine writers across the board struggle with this same challenge. McInerney has a knack for turning 1500 words on, say, Friulian wine blends in Napa into a story, something that’s anchored in full-blooded people and recollected conversations and well-observed detail. Plus, he knows how to tie up the ending in a neat little bow. They’re satisfying, these essays. Like his column, they cover a broad range of wine topics and personalities, so there’s something for all tastes here.

Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo, Tim Parks (2013)

What a peculiar topic: looking at the Italian way of doing things (for better or worse) through the lens of Italy’s railroad system. Parks, a British expat novelist and nonfiction writer who has lived in Italy for 33 years, stumbled upon the topic while commuting from Verona to Milan for a teaching gig. Some scribbled notes begat an article, which begat this book. Having spent my share of time on Italian trains—from the sleek, 200mph, businessman-friendly Italo to the milk-train that strains to crest the Apennines with its haul of local students and pensioners—I’m curious to see what worlds Parks conjures and what insights he extracts.

My Venice and other Essays, Donna Leon (2013)

Donna Leon is another expat novelist in Italy, but her claim to fame is a series of twenty-some gialli, or crime novels, that feature the fictional police commissioner Guido Brunetti. All are set in Venice, her home for the past 25 years. I’ve never read any of these wildly popular, English-language police procedurals (maybe next year), but their allure is reputedly enhanced by the way she integrates the milieu, social strata, and politics of contemporary Venice. That backdrop moves to center stage in this collection of mini-essays—musings on all things Venice, from the battles over garbage to the advantage of car-free streets. With so few actual residents left in Venice (only 60,000 now; but the city is sinking under the weight of 20 million tourists), it’ll be nice to get an insider’s perspective.

This is what a bistecca fiorentina looks like. It’s served rare. Always. I’ve seen grown restaurateurs cry when Americans send a perfectly grilled Florentine steak back to the kitchen for further cooking.

“Too rare!” these tourists say, wrinkling their nose at the dripping juices and blood-red bone.

Last year, I saw a chef / restaurant owner virtually get on his knees and beg a group: “Please, don’t ask me to cook it more! It will taste like shoe leather.”

This man owns his own herd of Chianina cattle, the massive white creatures that are the source of this bone-in steak. He makes his own salumi, his own pasta. He cares madly, deeply, passionately about the meat that ends up on his clients’ plate. But, stubborn Americans, they insisted on throwing it back on the grill. Needless to say, the chef was right. Shoe leather with green salad.

The next day, I overheard two of the women say, “You know, that bistecca fiorentina wasn’t so good. It’s really overrated.”

Millions of Chianina cattle turned in their grave.

I once thought Ferrari was just a sports car. Big mistake. As I learned in bits and pieces over the years, it’s probably the top winery for metodo classico sparklers in Italy.

First I kept bumping into them at Gambero Rosso’s Tre Bicchieri awards—the Oscars of the Italian wine world. (Their wines have been there a record 22 times.)

Then I got an invite from importer Palm Bay to a vertical tasting of Giulio Ferrari Riserva del Fondatore, their top reserve, which they keep for an incredible 10 years on the lees. It was here that I first really felt the wow factor of Ferrari. It started with pre-tasting pours of their mid-tier Perlé in both blanc de blancs and rosé forms, then escalated as we progressed through the Riversa del Fondatore: 1999, 1994, 1992, 1989, 1986, and 1983. It makes me dizzy just to think of. And the winemaker was there to boot: Marcello Lunelli, third generation of the family that bought the firm from the heirless Giulio Ferrari in 1952. An extremely handsome man, by the way, in that tall, lean, dark-haired Italian way. He was as elegant as his wines, and dizzying too.

As a result of that tasting, we added Ferrari into our wine and hiking tour in Alto Adige, The Italian Alps & Dolomites, so the next year I was touring the estate, a modern complex on the autostrada just outside of Trento. Here our tasting went broad rather than deep, and again I came to appreciate the excellence of their wines, from the entry-level Brut NV on up. The firm is big (4.5 million bottles), but they do it right.

This past week, I was working on an article for Tastes of Italia about TrentoDOC, the denomination to which Ferrari belongs. Naturally, they were on my list of calls. This time I had the chance to talk with Maurello’s cousin, Matteo Ferrari (right), chairman of Ferrari. We had a great chat. I know all this information won’t make it into my article, so I thought I’d run the interview in full here, even though it’s not a very blog-like thing to do.

And just for the record: There’s no relation between the families of Ferrari the car and Ferrari the wine. Ferrari is a common name, derived from ferro or iron, so in the distance past, the name implied working with iron. As it so happens, we do visit the other Ferrari too, stopping at the Ferrari Museum in Modena during our Slow Food Festa tour. So you can take your pick. Car. Wine. Both are at the top of their class.

***

What makes the area around Trento so good for sparkling wine?

Certainly, it’s all about mountains and mountain agriculture. Being on the slopes of the mountains provides a very special climate, and these conditions are perfect to grow chardonnay and pinot noir for sparkling wine.

At the end of the summer, you get a very high diurnal shift. During the day, the vineyards are kissed by the sun and the temperature tends to be warm. But during the night, the temperature goes down, and we have chilly nights. So this difference is very important.

If you’ve been to Trento, you know this doesn’t happen on the bottom of the valley [where the town of Trento lies]. It happens when you get to a certain altitude or in some of the valleys, like the Valle dei Laghi, which is very special. In this valley, which goes from Lake Garda to Trento, you have an interesting mix of climates: one coming from Lake Garda, and the cold weather coming from the mountains of the Dolomites.

That diurnal shift is important because it provides the level of acidity you’re seeking for your sparkling wines?

Absolutely. The difference in temperature between day and night and the climate conditions allow the grape to develop an aromatic maturation while maintaining a good acidity. This is crucial if you want a sparkling wine with elegance and complexity.

What I think is very special about TrentoDOC is that these are wines able to meet the challenge of time. If you did a vertical tasting, you’d notice how our Giulio Ferrari, and even our Perlé, are able to develop over time. Now [in 2013] we are selling the 2006 Perlé, for example. In the U.S., you can find even older vintages. But they are incredibly fresh and crisp. At the same time, being wines that age on the lees for five to six years, they have complexity. What keeps the wine crisp and fresh and elegant is the acidity.

But you need to have the combination of well-balanced acidity and aromatic maturation. This is what we’re able to do with our mountain agriculture.  This obviously complicates our work, because cultivating a vineyard on the slopes of a mountain makes it much harder! But it is a longtime tradition for us in Trentino.

In the world market, how do you position yourself relative to champagne and also to Franciacorta?

Relative to champagne, we want to emphasize that we are different. As much as champagne is an expression of the French tradition, we at Ferrari want to present ourselves as the Italian art of living. So we are strongly Italian, even if we use the methode champagnoise.

On the other side, what makes us special is the territory, and it’s what makes Ferrari and TrentoDOC different from Franciacorta. Franciacorta is still in the Alps, but they are much lower altitude and closer to the plain of the Po River.

A great wine has to be an expression of its own territory. Ferrari and TrentoDOC are an expression of Trentino.  The acidity and elegance we can have I think is quite unique. The crispiness, the drinkability, is really unique to our region.

Can one generalize about the differences between Franciacorta and TrentoDOC in terms of fruit flavors? One’s more tropical, the other’s more citric—anything like that?

Probably you can. In each area, different wineries have different styles. If you think about champagne, there are houses with very different styles. You go from a very clean blanc de blancs style to a style where you have more pinot noir or use of wood. So the wines can be very different depending on the style of the winery.

But I think you can differentiate between Franciacorta and Trentino. In Trentino, the wines tend to be more age-worthy. They tend to be more straight and elegant. Franciacorta tends to be rounder and more tropical, probably. I think there is a difference in the expression of these two territories.

But I’m proud to say that Franciacorta and Trentino currently express the excellence of Italian metodo classico. I have a lot of friends in the area of Franciacorta, and together we have a challenge, which is to promote the luxury tier of Italian sparkling wine. It’s an area where I think we have a huge potential in the U.S.—both for TrentoDOC and for Franciacorta.

Seen from the US, the distance between Franciacorta and Trentino is not very huge. But there is a difference if you come and visit us. And that difference reflects a bit on the style.

Giulio Ferrari was the first to bring chardonnay into Italy, correct?

Yes. He was a true pioneer for a number of reasons. First of all, for a young man from Trento, it was certainly not common to go abroad and study in Montepellier, visit the champagne area, then go to Germany to specialize in the study of yeast.

Nowadays, a lot of students go abroad to work or to study. But this was not the case at the end of the 19th century. So he was really open-minded. He was eager to improve his knowledge of agronomy and winemaking. And this is what allowed him to be a pioneer.

He did bring chardonnay to Italy for the first time. That was a very important innovation. Probably there were some chardonnay vines perhaps, but not classified. Nowadays, you can find chardonnay from Trentino to Sicily.

In addition, at that time in Trentino, there was a culture of wine and a tradition for winemaking, but the wine was simple, generally made by farmers.

Giulio Ferrari from the very beginning wanted to create a luxury wine—a fine wine for the most prestigious and exclusive hotels in Italy.

When was sparkling wine in Trento given a DOC?

I think 1993. I’m certain that it was the first DOC in Italy dedicated solely to bottle-fermented sparkling wine. TrentoDOC is only for metodo classico. Trentino DOC is for the white wines.

TrentoDOC as an association was founded in 2007, correct?

No, actually 2007 was when we created the new name and the new brand. But for a long time, there has been an institute—an association of sparkling wine producers in Trentino. Once upon a time it was called Instituto Trento Classico—even before the DOC was classified. My uncle Gino Lunelli, and then Mauro Lunelli were president a long time ago. Then they changed the name. Today it’s Istituto TrentoDOC, an association of the producers of TrentoDOC, where I sit on the board.

2007 is the date when the new symbol of TrentoDOC was created, and there was an agreement between the Chamber of Commence of Trento and the group of producers about using this new TrentoDOC brand, the logo.

Is this essentially a branding and marketing association? The goal is to spread the word and expand exports of TrentoDOC?

Yes. I have to say that a lot of the TrentoDOC producers are very small wineries, and they are more focused on the local market. Even the Istituto has mainly done promotional activities in the Italian market. I’m sure that in the future we will have to go around [the world] even with the Istituto. Currently, only the biggest two or three wineries are doing promotions internationally, while the smaller wineries are mostly focused on the Italian market. So that’s why you probably haven’t seen too many initiatives from TrentoDOC around the world.

I’m among the people currently pushing all of the producers, trying to convince them that in the future it’s very important to make the TrentoDOC brand more and more international.

I’m very happy you are dedicating an article on that, because certainly there are wine regions that tend to be better known than TrentoDOC. I think it’s important for the customers to understand that Ferrari is TrentoDOC: We are a metodo classico, bottle-fermented sparkling wine made with grapes only from Trentino. And TrentoDOC has a tradition that we are part of.

It’s a funny challenge you have. I’d bet that many people who drink wine have heard of Ferrari. Few people—very few—have heard of TrentoDOC. When speaking of categories, Franciacorta is better known than TrentoDOC. But Ferrari is better known than Franciacorta.

[laughs] It’s a very good point. And you should ask why?

Probably nowadays, we have better coordination between the wineries in TrentoDOC. But in the past, Franciacorta was probably better working as a team. That’s because in Franciacorta, the producers are more homogeneous. If you think about it, Bellavista, Ca’ del Bosco, Berlucchi, Monte Rossa—they are relatively similar in terms of size. And they started much later—the Franciacorta area started in the [1960s and] 1970s. So there are a lot of producers who are more similar to each other, and they started working together earlier [than TrentoDOC]. That’s why they’ve worked together better.

TrentoDOC is quite peculiar. You have three groups: Ferrari, the biggest winery with the longest tradition. Then you have the big cooperatives that produce, for example, Rotari [the sparkling label of MezzaCorona], Cesarini Sforza [La Vis], and Altemasi [Cavit]. And then you have a lot of smaller producers.

Until now, there probably has not been enough coordination of these groups of producers.

But I’m optimistic. We at Ferrari are proud to be TrentoDOC, and we think it’s important for us as well to promote the territory, and the smaller producers can understand that Ferrari can do big promotion and help them when we go around the world.

Total production for Trento DOC is 8 million?

Probably a little bit more: 8 to 9 million.

And the total for Ferari? 4.5 million. Still for Ferrari, the main market by far is the Italian market.  In the U.S., we are around 100,000 bottles.

I was happy to see that Eataly in New York, where I live, now carries about six Ferrari labels. That's a real treasure trove.

I actually spoke yesterday with [Eataly owner] Oscar Ferretti; we’re very good friends. He’s actually a shareholder in a couple of companies that make sparkling wine. Notwithstanding that, he still opens a bottle of Ferrari when he opens a new shop. When we opened the first Eataly shop in Turin, we had a big bottle of Ferrari for our toast. This is a tradition we have maintained for all the shops around the world.

He opened the New York store with a Ferrari toast with myself, Ferretti, Mayor Bloomberg, and even Timoth Dolan, the Archbishop of New York. We both share the idea of promoting the Italian tradition and Italian food and wine.

CALIFORNIA ESOTERICS
From aglianico to ribolla gialla, obscure Italian varieties are gaining a foothold in the Golden State

Back in the days when Bill Clinton was president and Nirvana ruled the airwaves, the Cal-Ital phenomenon—wine made in California from Italian grape varieties—was at its peak. Sangiovese was hot, the sexy new kid on the block whose Italian accent, noble pedigree, and kicky character had besotted winemakers grafting vines faster than you can say ciao, bella! But a decade later, that boom went bust, leaving an empty hole where the Cal-Ital niche used to be.

That’s changing. While there’s no lemming-like stampede towards one grape like sangiovese in the ’90s and the phrase “Cal Ital” is rarely heard anymore, there is a renewed interest in Italian varietals as California winemakers, like consumers everywhere, are branching out to more esoteric grapes.

These days California is like a simmering pot. Lift the lid and you’ll find tiny bubbles across its entire surface: vermentino in Lodi, tocai friuliano in Mendocino, barbera in Amador, nebbiolo in Paso Robles, refosco in Napa. Most of these wines are passion projects, made in miniscule amounts. Nevertheless, it’s easy to find intriguing examples throughout the Golden State. Here are three noteworthy cases.

Matthiasson

When Napa’s Steve Matthiasson started his label in 2003, he literally had his pick of the crop. A viticultural consultant for Spottswoode, Sinskey, Trefethen, Stags Leap Wine Cellars, and more, with intimate knowledge of the area’s best vineyards, he could have gone in any direction and been a success. Matthiasson initially took a well-worn path, starting out with a Bordeaux-style blend that, however excellent, was nothing new in Napa. When he was about to make a sauvignon blanc as his first white, ribolla gialla stopped him in his tracks. “I’d never heard of it before,” Matthiasson says the yellow grape from the mountainous border region of Italy and Slovenia. “I don’t know anyone in 2005 who’d heard of ribolla other than sommeliers in New York.”

But one of his clients, Luna winery cofounder George Vare, was growing it as a retirement project. He’d gone to northern Italy to research styles of pinot grigio, but once in Friuli, fell in love with ribolla gialla, eventually bringing back cuttings from the master of ribolla, Josko Gravner. Through Vare, Matthiasson caught the bug. He abandoned the sauvignon blanc idea and took inspiration from the complex Friulian blends of Gravner, Radikon, Edi Simcic, and especially Miani. “His wines are so intense, so balanced,” Matthiasson says of Miani winemaker Enzo Potoni. “He manages to capture acidity and minerality, but with flesh and richness. Those wines really appeal to me.”

Matthiasson started buying ribolla from Vare’s 2.5-acre Oak Knoll district vineyard and later expanded with two small plots of his own, wedged between his 1903 farmhouse and cavernous barn. Though he makes California standards like chardonnay and syrah, it’s his Friulian-style wines that have put Matthiasson on the map. His flagship is Napa Valley White Wine, a mouth-watering blend of sauvignon blanc, ribolla gialla, semillon, and tocai friulano that’s a cornucopia of stone fruit, citrus, and minerality. With production at 895 cases and growing, it’s what you’ll find in shops. Far rarer is the Napa Valley Ribolla Gialla, a skin-fermented ribolla with beguiling hazelnut notes. The entire production fits into two barrels in the barn. That’s a mere 22 cases, sold only through their wine club.

Not surprisingly, Matthiasson has also ventured into Friulian red territory. Working with a grape called Refosco del Penducula, he makes both a rosé and a classic red. Like his pure ribolla, the Napa Valley Refosco is foot-tread by his 12- and 15-year-old sons. “They complain, then brag about it,” says wife and partner Jill Matthiasson, who likes to keep the kids involved. “We always have these mini-micro projects going on.”

Matthiasson is among a small coterie of winemakers who source ribolla from Vare’s vineyard. Others include Massican, Chiarello, Grassi, Forlorn Hope, Arbe Garbe, Arnot-Roberts, and Ryme Cellars, who together form a Friulian outpost in the heart of cabernet country. Their ribollas come in every form: pure and blended; dry, sparkling, passito; fresh and orange style. For several years, they’ve gathered for an annual cookout and comparative tasting. “It was really fun,” says Jill Matthiasson, who hosted last time. “It was amazing to taste the variety of what people had done from the same vineyard.”

Ryme Wine Cellars

When Ryan Glaab started Ryme Wine Cellars in 2007 with a single ton of aglianico, he had no business plan. Nor did he deliberately set out to build a label focused on Italian grapes. But six years later, Ryme offers four superb renditions of vermentino, ribolla gialla, and aglianico, along with cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc. “I’m definitely not looking for the next big thing,” says the soft-spoken winemaker, who developed a European palate on annual trips to Italy since age 19. “There’s no reason a winery our size can’t produce the wines we love.”

As assistant winemaker at Wind Gap Winesin Sonoma’s Russian River, Glaab owns neither vines nor winemaking facility. He borrows space in Wind Gap’s Forestville quarters and buys all his grapes.

That crop of aglianico—native to sunny Campania—came from friends in Paso Robles. “I’m a big fan of aglianico, and it’s a great grape for Paso Robles. It likes the warm climate,” Glaab says. “I bought a ton, just to try it out. We were way more impressed with the wine than we expected to be.”

The next year, Glaab made a cabernet sourced from Chalk Hill, where he and his wife Megan were caretakers. By 2009, they were actively searching for vineyards. But “we still didn’t know what the brand was all about,” he says.

He again turned to Italy. “I’m fanatical about orange wines and love Ribolla Gialla, so I took a trip to Friuli to explore.” It was there that Sasha Radikon informed him about the ribolla growing just 50 miles away. “So we went all the way there to find out that George Vare had two acres in Napa! We called him as soon as we got back.”

Next came vermentino. Glaab buys grapes from Frances Mahoney, a grower and winemaker who pioneered Old World varieties in Carneros. Mahoney’s vermentino is planted in the windy Las Brisas vineyard in view of San Pablo Bay—obeying the imperative that vermentino needs to see the sea. “He’s got the best vermentino vineyard in California, I would say confidently,” Glaab states. “I love the salinity I can get on this wine,”

Glaab planned to skin-ferment his vermentino, like the “exotic, exuberant, bizarre” renditions he admires from Massa Vecchiain Tuscany and Dettori in Sardinia. This would complement his ribolla, which he macerates in oak for five months.  But Megan Glaab, also a winemaker, protested. “She said, ‘Are you crazy? We don’t need two orange wines!’ I put my foot down and said, ‘I found the vineyard. You should go find your own vineyard,’ ” he recounts, grinning. “She told me to forget about it. So we decided to compromise and make two versions.”

The result is “His” and “Hers” vermentino. His offers luscious peach, white flower, and herbal notes, arising from late-harvest, whole-cluster grapes macerated for two weeks. Hers has the powerful aromatics and zippy character of a Ligurian version—an ideal summer wine.

In 2011, the couple started another label, Verse, to showcase pinot noir and chardonnay from Sonoma vineyards. With Ryme and Verse, it seems their business strategy is now set. Meanwhile, restaurants and consumers are catching up to the Glaabs’ tastes. “Nobody would have been interested in these wines five years ago,” says Ryan. “People would’ve asked, ‘Why do you make a wine like this? What’s the point?’ Now it’s like, why not?”

Yorba

Barbera is no stranger to California. First planted in the 1880s, this Piedmont variety exploded in the Central Valley in the 1970s—a component of Gallo’s Hearty Burgundy and other jug wines. Today it’s identified with the Sierra Foothills, where vintner Dick Cooperpioneered the grape in the 1970s and dozens of boutique wineries followed suit.

Among the best is Yorba, the label of grower Ann Kraemer. After working 30 years as a vineyard manager and consultant for top Napa wineries (including Swanson, Shafer, and Domaine Chandon), she longed for vines she could call her own. In 2001, she bought land on Shake Ridge Road in Amador County, where she now grows 36 acres of vines—mostly zinfandel and Rhone varieties, but also barbera, primitivo, and greco—selling most, but keeping selected grapes for her own label.

Bumping along in a jeep, it’s clear Kraemer is at home in the vineyards. She stops to point out barbera’s lacey canopy; greco’s tiny tendrils and dinner plate–sized leaves; the differing clusters of zinfandel and primitivo (genetic twins); the soil’s sparkling quartz. “During the gold rush, they’d find surface quartz and dig for gold there, because they were formed at the same time,” she notes.

Her soil is “geological chaos,” she says fondly. “We’re on the edge of a tectonic plate, so there’s a little bit of everything.” That mishmash of volcanic uplift, ocean bottom, quartz, and metamorphic rock gives her plenty of options to play with when matching soil, exposure, and grapes.

Kraemer planted barbera because “I didn’t want to do just zin”—the local star. “Looking at varietals that could handle the heat, barbera seemed like a really good bet,” says the agronomist, who tapped Italian enologist Alberto Antonini for advice. “Amador’s hot enough during the day to tame the acid, but cool enough at night that you don’t lose the fruit.”

Indeed, Yorba’s barbera is all about clarity of fruit; it’s blueberry-rich without being cloying or heavy. “It’s not super-extracted,” Kraemer notes. “We use gentle winemaking, which preserves the pretty fruit. I asked my winemaker, Ken Bernards, to make wines that show what the vineyards taste like. He’s a pinot winemaker, so he’s used to this.”

These days, Kraemer is pondering how to best train her baby greco vines. Ryan Glaab is toying with the idea of verdicchio as his next white. And Matthiasson sums up this great experiment with Italian varietals in California today: “We’ve barely scratched the surface.”

For a PDF of the original article, go to PatriciaThomson.net and click on the download there.

Click here to watch the video

Through our travels in the Douro Valley, I've become acquainted with Jackie Thurn-Valsassina (below), PR manager at Symington Family Estates, a gracious, loquacious, and high-energy woman who has escorted us on visits to Graham’s, Malvedos and Quinta do Vesuvio. On the train to Vesuvio a few years ago, I discovered that she and I have something in common: animal rescue. The day we met, she'd arrived late, with blood on her shirt. Offering profuse apologies for her delay, she explained she had to stop en route to rescue a wounded rabbit that she'd spotted on the road and take a detour to the animal welfare center she was involved with.

Hers is a far greater enterprise than my backyard affair: Called Aanifeira, it involves dozens of volunteers, vets from around Europe coming to donate their services, pet food companies donating food, and contributors from around the globe.

I finally checked out the Aanifeira website and just had to share this wonderful 3-minute video about the organization. (It was another volunteer effort, created by the Portuguese company Pixel.)

Funny part is, a week after seeing Jackie in May, I encountered a dog that was in dire need of Aanifeira's services. Visiting Quinta Vale D. Maria in the Douro, there was an old, half-starved hound lying on the drive. He wasn't one of their regular winery dogs. “He just showed up a few days ago. I think he’s sick; he doesn’t eat much,” said winemaker Joana Pinhão, looking concerned.She wasn’t sure who to turn to. “I just happen to know an organization,” I said, giving her Aanifeira’s contact info, handwritten on Jackie's card, which I still had in my pocket. Call it serendipity.

I hope that pooch is okay. I know he couldn’t be in better hands. He was one of the lucky ones.

Inspired by our recent tour in Alto Adige & the Dolomites, I went down into our wine cellar in Piedmont to see what AA wines might be lurking there. Miraculously, there was 2006Gewürtztraminer Kolbenhoffrom J. Hofstätterthat we’d bought on a winery visit a full six years ago and simply forgot about. Kolbenhof is a steep, southern-facing vineyard that I’d hiked through just last week, so we uncorked the bottle, not sure what to expect from a Gewürtztraminer this old.

It was breathtaking: intense, as if this aromatic wine had gathered force over the years, but still fresh, without any nutty or oxidized character. A beautiful burnished gold in color, the wine still showed some classic rose and lycee notes, but the overwhelming aromas were of honey and honeysuckle. Vinified off-dry (10 grams), it was rich and viscous – not surprising at 15%, which added to the impression of sweetness. This was an opulent wine suited for serious food, like the fig and pear ravioli sprinkled with poppy seed that we devoured at a fabulous osteria in Canazei, El Pael. Or the aromatic cheese we brought home from Val di Fassa, called Puzzone (“big stink”) de Moena.

Sadly, this was our only bottle. And it was my final bottle, period, for the spring season in Italy. I returned to New York yesterday, while Claudio stays in Italy for another month to run our July tours. But it’s inspired me to spend the summer delving into Germanic grapes from northern Italy for a future article. If you have any specific recommendations, send them my way!

Anyone who's been on a Dolce Vita tour knows that I take a lot of pictures. "What do you do with all those photos?" I'm often asked. My standard reply is that some go in our brochure, some on our website, while others accompany the articles I write for Tastes of Italia. But a lot sit in folders on my hard-drive, gathering dust.

Occasionally I post a slide show on this blog, but frankly I don't like the long strand of images that email subscribers get. So I'm trying something new: a link to PhotoBucket.

So without further ado, here are my 100 best shots from our Alps-Dolomites wine + hiking tour. I assembled these to show guests before our final dinner together. (Instant nostalgia is best shared.) Altogether, I think they give a good sense of this tour -- the locations, the flow, the fun. Now I can share all of them with you too.

This is the first time we've combined the Alps and Dolomites, which previously were separate tours. We loved the combo, so this is how it's going to be in the future, too.

We spent 3 days in the lower Alps around Lake Caldaro. This is the heart of Alto Adige wine country, and our hikes were followed by tastings at Tiefenbrunner, J. Hofstätter, Cantina Terlano, and (in Trento) Maso Martis.

Then we moved to the Dolomites for the remainder of the tour. It's not wine country, but it is some of the most jaw-droppingly stunning mountain scenery one could ever imagine.

As for the cold in late June, you'll just have to imagine it. 2013 has been a cool, wet year so far (the grapes are three weeks behind), and we dodged the rain all week. Up in the mountains, that meant new snow and daytime temps of 4C or 39F degrees. Brrr! But that brisk mountain air invigorated the blood and got us moving. All the better to prep us for our nightly wine dinners.

“What’s serendipity?” asks Claudio, dropping in on a conversation I was having with two clients on our AMALFI COAST tour.

“It’s the happy accident that brought us here,” I explain as we leave the gift shop at the end of an isolated bus parking lot, where we happened to meet the daughter of Andrea De Gregorio, the self-appointed “guardian of Vesuvius.”

Just an hour earlier, when zigzagging up the side of Vesuvius, Claudio had been recounting how the old Neapolitan tune Funiculì Funiculà was written to celebrate the opening of a tram that took 19th century tourists to the top of the volcanic crater.

When descending, we decided on a whim to turn down a side road marked “Observatory,” just to explore. It led through a bus parking lot that dead-ended at a spectacular overlook facing the Bay of Naples. There was one lonely bar and tchochke shop selling miniature replicas of Vesuvius and cheap bracelets made of volcanic tufa. Several well-fed dogs slept in the empty lot. No other tourists were around.

After a Kodak moment at the overlook, Claudio waved us into the shop. “Come hear this history,” he said without elaborating.

Inside, a middle-aged redhead was waiting, holding the book VESUVIO, A VOLCANO & ITS HISTORY, by Elio Abatino. As she paged through the photographs, she launched into a history of tourism on Vesuvius, pointing out that this bar was on the exact spot where the funicular terminal once stood.

As it turns out, her father, Andrea De Gregorio, tended the ticket office for the two-seat cable car that replaced the tram after it was destroyed by the 1944 eruption, Vesuvius’ most recent. It was also severe, with lava flowing at 100 mph, debris hurdled three miles high, and ash falling as far away as Albania.

The beginning for the modern period of Vesuvius’ eruptions was the famous one in 79 AD that buried Pompeii. Before that, Mt. Vesuvius had been well behaved for about 15,000 years. The Romans saw it as benign, planting vines up and down its slopes, as seen in frescoes of the period. Pompeian wine was famous and sold far and wide in terracotta amphorae labeled “Vesvinum” and “Vesuvinum.”

Pliny the Younger offered the most vivid description of the 79 AD eruption in letters to Tacitus. (His uncle Pliny the Elder, in command of a fleet, perished while observing it from the sea.) From afar, Pliny the Younger first noticed a huge cloud that resembled a pine tree, rising straight up like a trunk, then branching out.. It then dropped back on itself from its own weight and spread out. Then ashes started to shower on the young writer.

“I turned and saw behind me a thick cloud that pressed upon us like a river, flooding the ground,” he writes. Night fell. “Not a cloudy, moonless night, but as if in a closed room when the lights are out. We could hear the moaning of women, the wailing of children, the shouting of husbands. […] There were those who, afraid of death, cried out for it.” Then he describes a clearing of air, followed by “a new darkness and a new cloud of thick ash.”

Modern scientists say the 79 AD eruption came in two phases: First was an eruption of pumice, ash, solid blocks, and gas that was propelled 17 km in the air. This fell and buried Pompeii in a couple of hours. A rain of finer ash smothered Herculaneum and other towns on the coast. Afterwards, groundwater flowed into magma chamber for 10 hours, causing a new eruption of different materials (a “freato-magmatic” process) and a shifting of the shoreline as the volcano swelled and rose up.  A ring-like cloud of gases and ash formed and spread horizontally with the destructive speed of a hurricane, destroying everything in minutes. People who did not flee earlier died from suffocation due to the high temperature of the cloud of steam mixed with piroclastic material and toxic fumes. It was all over in 24 hours.

In the 19th century, visiting Mt. Vesuvius was hard work. The first visitors traveled by pack animals on paths paved with large lava stones to the Atrio del Cavallo, where horses were refreshed and people rested before undertaking the ascent up the Great Cone by foot or on sedan chair.

Local farmers recast themselves as guides (“ciceroni”) and came armed with leather straps, ropes, and other devices to haul petticoated women and dandified men up the steep cinder slopes. Chaos ensued as their number increased.

To eliminate the inconveniences, a financier, Ernesto Enrico Oblieght, had idea of building a tramway in 1870. The funicular was completed in 1880, and the song Funiculí Funicular by Peppino Turco and Luigi Denza was the jingle written to publicize its grand opening.

That tram was subsequently destroyed three times by lava flows, and they finally threw in the towel after it was swept away by the 1944 eruption. The chair lift that replaced it in 1953 was ultimately discontinued a decade later, as the ascent was considered too windy to be safe.

So said the redhead and her book. And we wouldn’t have known any of this had it not been for that turn down Observatory lane. Sometimes it pays to follow a whim.

###

Psst: Want to visit Mt. Vesuvius? Check out the Campania wine tours offered by La Dolce Vita Wine Tours.

It’s been years since I caught a pickpocket red-handed. The last time was on a rush-hour subway in New York during the bad ol’ 80s.

Today it was on the #28 tram in Lisbon.

But that was just one of today’s surprises. First was the 3-flight walk-up my husband booked for me. A grueling step-by-step climb with heavy luggage. (Thanks, honey!) But my room is nice and quiet, and the young mother at the reception desk had an adorable infant and nice manners. She, too, suggested the 28 tram for a circle around the city.

It’s not the official tour bus; that costs four times as much. This is a rickety old yellow tram that both locals and tourists use. For $8.50, you can buy an unlimited day-pass, which also includes subways and buses. Not bad. Even though I’ll be hiking the Alps in a few weeks, I just didn’t feel like schlepping up and down Lisbon’s steep hills today. So the tram was great.

But I soon realized that Lisbon isn’t particularly tourist friendly—not like, say, Florence, where city maps are posted all around town spelling out “You Are Here!” In Lisbon, it’s tough to know where the heck you are. Given its age, the tram doesn’t have overhead signage indicating upcoming stops. But neither does the conductor bother to say a word. And even if you could see out the windows (which is impossible when standing in a densely packed car), the stops outside keep their identity hidden, having no conspicuous signage. You have to just guess where you are. And did I mention the free city map sucks?

Which is why I ended up all over town and missed the Castle of San Jorge, Lisbon’s most conspicuous landmark—twice.

But today was a Zen day. It was the journey that counted, not the destination. Maybe it was my jetlag, but I took everything in stride, even when the tram driver drove off with the front door wide open, despite a straphanger just inches from disaster; and even when I finally found my castle but it was closed due to a strike.

The Zen state temporarily fizzled, though, when a horde of middle-aged French tourists jeered at a North African woman who was trying to board the tram with some unwieldy bags. She let them have it, but jeez, people; lighten up.

More unpleasant still was when I felt someone lean heavily against me when the tram careened around a corner.

Maybe it was a sense memory from my early days in New York. (I’ll always remember one time when an elderly black woman on the subway kept nudging my foot and signaling with her eyes towards my purse. Once I figured out what in the world she was trying to communicate, I caught the teenager red-handed. And that wasn’t the only time I foiled a robbery attempt.)

So today I instinctively looked down at my purse, which was strapped across my chest and held tight against my front. Nonetheless, it was half unzipped. What skill! What cajones! I turned to look eye-to-eye at the pickpocket—a paunchy man in a polo shirt standing right beside me.

“Get your hand outta my purse,” I said. He just stared back, then inched away, exiting the tram at the next opportunity with a frizzy haired woman (an accomplice? I wonder how they tag-team it).

Given the fact that the tram had “Beware Pickpockets” signs posted all over, I thought it’d be redundant to scream “thief.” Or maybe it was the fact that he went away empty-handed. Or it was my New York nonchalance. Or my jetlagged Zen state of mind. I now think I should probably have made a fuss, rather than let it be between just him and me. Alas, that’s water under the bridge.

But here's the funny part: When I later recounted the story to the night clerk at my pensione, she said these pickpockets gather every morning for coffee in a nearby cafe. Just like they're going off to work. "They probably divvy up the turf," she said.

At least someone has a job, of sorts. She mentioned how many people she sees nowadays eating garbage when she looks out the pensione window that faces a restaurant kitchen. That's a sad state of affairs.

I hope to do my part to flush some cash into Portugal's economy this week—starting tonight with some crispy grilled sardines and fresh vinho verde. I can't fix the world, but I can try to keep the economic engine of tourism grinding along.

As a journalist for three decades now, I’ve conducted at least a thousand interviews. But rarely do I find myself on the other side of the microphone. That still gives me the jitters. And while I’m confident that I’m a very fine print journalist, I know that my voice isn’t mellifluous, my sentences don’t smoothly unspool, and my thoughts often lag behind my words—sometimes by a day or two. (Who hasn’t cringed the morning after for something you said or didn’t say? Now imagine doing that for all the world to hear.)

Nonetheless, when Lynn Krielow Chamberlain asked me to be on her show “Wine & Dine Radio” on iWineRadio, the wine-tour marketer in me said “Yes, ma'am!”

iWineRadio bills itself as “the exclusive wine dedicated internet radio channel on iTunes News/Talk Radio Directory since 2004. A collection of conversations about what we drink. Interdisciplinary wine-centric. Organic. Unscripted. Irregular. Sustainable. Broadcasting for wine and culinary enthusiasts since 1999.”

Working from a university radio studio in North Carolina, Lynn Krielow Chamberlain has that enviably warm, easy radio voice, and I can honestly say it was a pleasure speaking with her.

She wanted to chat about La Dolce Vita Wine Tours—picking up the thread after eight years or so, when we’d done our first interview together. And she also wanted to talk about my Q&A in Wine Enthusiast with British director Ken Loach, whom I’d recently interviewed about his whiskey heist comedy, The Angels Share. (Watch the trailer.)

Here, then, is my interview on Wine & Dine Radio.

Like the show? Get the weekly podcast at www.winefairy.com.You can also spread the love by liking iWineRadio on Facebook. (While you’re at it, like La Dolce Vita Wine Tours, too!) 

Follow iWineRadio and La Dolce Vita Wine Tours on Twitter
Subscribe to iWineRadio on YouTube
And finally, you can listen to theiWineRadio channel on iTunes RADIO News / Talk genre.

Friday was Claudio’s birthday. And that meant a pull-out-the-stops dinner. As the sole chef on this one (Claudio was busy working in a tax office—part of our freelance shuffle), I got to choose the menu. With spring in the air, I wanted to get away from the heavy meat stews or braises we normally do—the perfect excuse for uncorking some big red wines, like the older Barbaresco cru and Barolos stashed in our basement (there’s a distinct advantage to having a Piemontese husband)—but now was not the time. So fish and chicken it was.

And boy, we had a feast. For our primo, I adapted a Wine Enthusiast recipe for Maryland Crab Cake with batons of zucchini & squash & toasted pine nuts. “This is the best crab cake I’ve ever had,” gushed Linda, our upstairs neighbor. And it was just right—crispy brown on the outside, with a crab interior that was tender and not too compact. (Somewhere I’d read that the trick is to not overwork the crab cakes when shaping them, and that proved right.)

The crab cakes were browned, baked, then served atop a bed of zucchini and squash batons. I added diced red peppers for festive color and topped them with a dollop of mayo with Old Bay seasoning (to spare myself the ordeal of citrus beurre blanc sauce), some argula, and a sprinkling of toasted pine nuts. Delish. The four of us devoured them lickity-split with a bottle of 2007 Chablis Grand Cru Les Close from 14th generation vignerons Jean-Paul & Benoir Droin, then uncorked a Gavi from Valditerra. Despite living one hill over from Gavi, I wasn’t acquainted with this estate (it’s closer to Novi Ligure, says Claudio, who visited once). But the wine was just lovely, with all the minerality and crystalline clarity that a good Gavi affords.

When I served the secondo, Andrea seemed surprised: “Two dinners!” But we had no problem polishing our plates. This was a lip-smacking Chicken Tagine with Apricots and Spiced Pine Nuts from Gourmet. Only...I forgot to add the pine nuts (the sorry consequence of two bottles of wine.) But it was fabulous anyway, with fresh ginger providing zip and blood-orange preserves adding a scrumptious sweetness that echoed the apricots. This got piled on couscous with more fruit—dried cranberries and prunes.

All that sweetness begged for a wine with ripe, succulent fruit, so a Chateauneuf-du-Pape was in order—a perennial favorite of Claudio’s. (I stayed loyal to the Gavi in my glass, however, which pairedC equally well.)

As a side dish, I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful late-winter citrus now in season.  So here’s my simple concoction, which not only goes great with tagine, but is as pretty as a bouquet of spring tulips.

ORANGE SALAD WITH CILANTRO
Mixed oranges (e.g., Clementine; navel orange; cara cara, a grapefruit-orange hybrid)
Cilantro, finely chopped
Arugula (optional)

For vinaigrette:
2 tablespoon orange juice
2 tablespoon red-wine vinegar
3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon fennel seeds, ground

Cut oranges in thin horizontal slices. Top with minced cilantro and vinaigrette. Serve on argula leaves (optional).

This being a birthday dinner, the coup de grace was a 7-layer chocolate cake brought by Linda & Andrea. The perfect excuse for a Ruby Port from Quinta do Infantado.

Happy birthday, Claudio!

When I heard that Ana Fabiano would be appearing at the Wine Media Guild’s April luncheon, I was jazzed. Last year, I’d picked up her book The Wine Region of Rioja—and didn’t put it down. The photos alone had me flipping through all 240 pages to drink in the stunning scenery, captured in all its sublime, rugged glory.

On a design level, this seemed a coffee-table book; its roomy photo spreads and spacious body font make it easy on the eye. But then I delved into the text, and the content was surprisingly, satisfyingly meaty. Fabiano covers the place and its geography, its rich history, the millennia-long development of Rioja wine, its aging classifications, its modern iterations, and the key bodegas. She does so with an economy of words, but with enough depth to offer new information to Rioja aficionados like me. Having been to the Yuso and Suso monasteries on our Rioja Roundup tour, I particularly enjoyed her synthesis of religious and viticultural histories. She ties Rioja’s emergence to the cave-dwelling mystics, who gave rise to the powerful monasteries in the 11th century, which in turn built Rioja’s wine infrastructure—expansive vineyards for sacramental wine; roads and bridges to transport pilgrims and wine; and an internal communication system between monasteries in the region that precipitated the spread of information on vineyard care and winemaking techniques.

Fabiano’s book was, in short, an excellent companion to what I consider the benchmark book on Rioja, The Wines of Rioja by the late John Radford.

Before lunch I hastened to tell her all this. My comments were music to the author's ears, it seems, for minutes later, she recounted our conversation in her opening remarks, saying I’d “expected the book to be fluff” (on hearing this, I nearly choked on my breadstick; fluff wasn’t a word I’d used), but she was truly pleased that a reader like me had found the book to be everything she’d intended: information-rich, comprehensive, and travel bait for the Rioja enthusiast.

Why wouldn’t we learn from her? Fabiano has impressive creds as trade director at Vibrant Rioja and brand ambassador for the DOCa Rioja, who has devoted the past 23 years of her life to Spain. She got her feet wet during a junior year abroad in Madrid in 1980, when Spain was crawling out from under the rock that was General Franco, blinking in the light of democracy. In writing this book, she relied on 20 years of personal notes, new interviews with several generations of winemakers, and old documents unearthed from the archives. With her knowledge of Castilian, Fabiano was able to access people and documents that were previously unutilized in the English-language canon on Rioja. And she tapped into a pool of very talented local photographers, whose magic-hour images suggest they were ready to pounce whenever the light was right.

My favorite four

Then there were the wines. Our walk-around showcased 14 Riojas, including three whites and three rosés, with older vintages on the table during lunch. Some wineries I knew; most I didn’t—which isn’t surprising, given the fact that 150 bodegas now export to the U.S. (Compare that to 16 in 1985 to get an idea of the region’s explosive growth.)

My favorite four (just to narrow it down) began with the very first red, a 2008 Crianza from Bodegas Ramirez de la Piscina ($15). This winery was a new acquaintance. Located on a side road near the village of San Vicente de la Sonsierra, they’re within the radius of our Rioja Roundup tour, I’m happy to learn. Though aged 15 months in oak, this crianza represents that juicy, fruit-forward, quaffable style of young Rioja that’s so lip-smackingly good. It’s a consistent prize winner, and I’m not surprised.

Another favorite was Beronia. I liked their 2008 Reserva ($21) well enough during the walkaround, but absolutely adored the 2005 Gran Reserva ($33) at lunch. The dry oak tannins and tart fruit of the younger vintage had here mellowed out and cohered into a complete, beautiful wine. (No wonder it got 93pts from Wine Enthusiast.) Fabiano calls its style “Modern Classic,” with a preponderance of tempranillo (90%) in the blend and some French oak added to the American barrique that’s historically used in Rioja.

Another Modern Classic was the 2005 Muriel Reserva ($21) from Bodegas Murielin Elciego, long-time grape sellers who started bottling under their own name in 1986. With a delicious dark-chocolate cloak around a berry core, this 100% tempranillo was my top wine of the tasting and a favorite of many other attendees.

I was glad to see Faustino here—like spotting an old friend in the crowd. Despite its huge production (20 million bottles), this family-owned, centenary winery (f. 1861) manages to maintain a high level of quality, as we’ve discovered on various visits to their Oyón estate. We tasted their 2000 Gran Reserva ($38), a tempranillo/mazuela blend, which falls in what Fabiano calls Rioja’s “Classic” style (i.e., sourced from parcels in all three subzones and blending tempranillo, mazuelo, garnacha, and/or graciano, Rioja’s classic quartet). Compared to the other wines, this one had greater tannic grip and a more austere character. Its age—now 13 years—was showing nicely, with notes of tobacco, tomato leaf, and earth.

As Fabiano repeatedly pointed out, the Gran Reservas are some of the best price/quality values around. I’d second the motion. And the 2005s were all stunners. I suspect I’ll be making extra room in my suitcase for those next fall.

“These are robot wines, rolling off the assembly line, millions and millions of them,” wrote wine importer Kermit Lynch in Adventures on the Wine Route. “When I see wine writers taking the current formula Beaujolais seriously…awarding points and stars, discussing the ‘banana’ aroma, I want to scream, THESE ARE NOT LIVING WINES.”

Lynch hammered out this screed back in 1988, but in the 25 years since, Beaujolais has yet to find its superhero defender, its redemptive plot point or way into the hearts and minds of wine conoscenti. A simple bistro wine, it’s not the kind of thing that’s featured in professional wine tastings in New York, so it rarely crosses my path. (I’m not at all opposed to summer quaffers—au contraire—but I usually turn to Italy for these: basic Chianti, Valpolicella, Ciro…)

That’s why I was delighted when Lynn Abell offered to host a Beaujolais Cru tasting for our bimonthly wine club. The idea was to give Beaujolais a fighting chance by focusing on its best wines: the 10 cru that lie on the granite-based soils in the northern half of the appellation, a 67-square-mile zone above Lyon.

The crus comprise just a fraction of the whole. Factoid: Half of all Burgundy wine is Beaujolais. And half of all Beaujolais is Beaujolais Nouveau—the “assembly line” wine that Kermit Lynch was dissing, which arrives with such great fanfare at Thanksgiving.

Beaujolais Cru flash cards

Being a Beaujolais novice, I picked up some ABCs, starting with this fact:  Beaujolais crus do not include the word ‘Beaujolais’ on the label. So we all need to write these names on flash cards and memorize them: Brouilly, Côte de Brouilly, Régnié, Morgon, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Moulin-à-Vent, Chénas, Juliénas, and Saint-Amour—the 10 cru, strung south to north along the meandering Saone River.

Reading up on Beaujolais and the gamay grape before our tasting, I uncovered a few more interesting tidbits. In A Carafe of Red, former Gourmet wine writer Gerald Asher explains how the Beaujolais Nouveau phenomenon took shape soon after France introduced its AOC laws in 1935. “Growers were still shipping barrels of new (and probably fizzy) Beaujolais to Lyons as recently as the 1930s,” he writes. In bistros, the wine went straight from barrel to carafe. When drunk in its infancy, Beaujolais was a charmer: “tender yet sprightly…redolent of peonies in full flower—as seductive as any wine can be.”

But that practice was curtailed when France’s new appellation laws clamped down on such freewheeling, undocumented selling. WWII intervened next, definitively breaking tradition. The Vichy administration’s restrictions were revoked in 1951, when authorities fixed December 15 as the date when AOC wines could be sold. “Too late!,” cried Beaujolais growers who’d traditionally sold some of their fresh-pressed wine soon after harvest. They lobbied for and obtained a waiver that allowed them to release en primeur wines one month early, on November 15. For commercial motives, that date was changed in 1985 to the third Thursday of November. As Asher euphemistically notes, “The arrival of the new wine in far-flung places could be tied to a weekend during which everyone could enjoy it.” (“Or tie one on,” as club member Michael Shroeder translated.)

I was particularly interested in reading how Beaujolais has evolved in style over the past half-century. That’s what set Kermit Lynch off. He quotes Jean-Baptiste Chaudet, a post-war wine merchant, recollecting Beaujolais being “very light in color, at times really pale, slightly aggressive, even a touch green, and rarely above 11 degrees alcohol.” Chaudet decried the overproduction, lazy cellar techniques, and heavy-handed chaptalization that changed Beaujolais entirely, raising the alcohol several degrees and making the wine “supple” instead of “young, light, and aggressive. ”

Indeed, all the wines we tasted were between 13 to 13.5%. It’s impossible to know how much is due to global warming, which has affected all of Burgundy. But undoubtedly sugar plays a part.

The thing is, today's wine drinkers prefer “supple” over “aggressive”. We certainly did. There was one Kermit Lynch wine at our tasting—a 2010 Chateau Thivin Côte de Brouilly—and not surprisingly, this was the lowest alcohol (12.5%) and most tart of the lot. Pale in color, its bouquet was delicate, reminiscent of strawberries (“strawberry lip gloss,” I jotted in my notes). But it was more linear than plump, and it fell to the bottom of the list when we voted for our favorites. (For a differing opinion, see Eric Asimov’s “Looking for Renewed Magic in Beaujolais.”)

And the winners are…

Instead, the group’s wine of choice was the 2009 Domaine Pascal Brunet Morgon, sourced from the granite- and schist-rich soils of Côte du Py.  In my mind, this was in a class by itself, possessing a structure and minerality that made it resemble—how shall I say this?—regular wine. I missed the flirty charm and fruity aromatics of gamay and, for that reason, was less smitten than the others.

To my mind, the wines that really sung were those that offered the prettiest fruit and the most floral aromas. These were the ones that flaunted the essence of gamay, like proud girly girls. My top picks were the 2009 Dom. Tranchand Fleuri Vielle Vignes, which offered a noseful of violets, reminding me of my grandmother’s guest bathroom, with its rose soap and dried-flower sachet; the same vintner’s 2009 Saint Amour, which added a grapey scent to the floral base, like a trellis of ripe Concord grapes in your flower garden; and—topping my list and #2 for the group—the 2009 Dom. Chevalier-Métrat Brouilly Vieilles Vignes (above). Made from 50-year-old vines, this offered an intense bouquet of peony, grape, and plum, and its higher acidity supplied a nice, food-friendly tartness. Whereas many of the wines were lovely at first blush but stopped short, this had some length and seemed the most complete wine, while retaining the charm.

These Beaujolais make me smile. And not just because of their reasonable price (all $17 to $18). Friendly and winsome, they’re perfect companions for a pleasant summer afternoon or an al fresco supper. And that gets my respect.

That’s been going on for few decades now. It desperately needed to be done, as any babyboomer will attest. (We survived not only sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll, but thin, weedy Chiantis.)

Now everything’s changed. Every time I visit the region—about twice year—it’s clear that Chianti Classico is a land of overachievers. And god bless ’em. They’re constantly tinkering with vineyard density, trellising, and clones. And they’ve gradually changed Chianti Classico’s very identity, moving it from its original 1860s recipe (sangiovese, canaiolo, and colorino, plus a softening splash of white malvasia or trebbiano) to today’s big-tent definition that includes not only blends with international grapes, but also pure sangiovese, that fine-blooded but temperamental Arabian stallion of Tuscan grapes. Even in the blended Chiantis, the trend is towards ever-increasing amounts of sangiovese. (The white grapes, meanwhile, have been unceremoniously pushed out of the tent for good.)

The revamped rooster & 3-tier system

Paul Wagnerof Balzac Communication said it well when introducing the seminar accompanying the Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico Grand Tasting, held in New York last week. When teaching Chianti Classico, he noted, “it’s less like medieval history, which doesn’t change too much, and more like slang or modern English, which changes continuously.”

Last week we learned more change is afoot. As announced in a jazzy video, the black rooster has gotten a makeover and now the trademark has a “livelier, more contemporary” look.

But behind the window dressing, there are deeper changes: Consortium president Sergio Zingarelli of Rocca della Macie announced a new three-tier pyramid for Chianti Classico, which goes into effect in 2013.

The bottom tier is your basic Chianti Classico, now dubbed Chianti Classico Annata. Other than that word annata (meaning vintage), nothing much changes here; it’s still 12 months of aging. This entry level indicates a fresher, fruitier style of Chianti Classico.

Next rung up is Chianti Classico Riserva, a category that’s been around for awhile. It requires double the aging (24 months, including three in bottle). The riserva label suggests a more powerful, age-worthy wine—one that uses better grapes, possibly more time in wood, and definitely more oomph.

New is the top tier: Chianti Classico Gran Selezione. This requires grapes to be estate grown and estate bottled, and aging increases to 30 months. Both it and the riserva have updated, presumably intensified “chemical and organoleptic parameters,” per the consortium. Gran Selezione will clearly be the grand master of Chiantis, perhaps intended to challenge its rival to the south, Brunello di Montalcino. (In a price/value comparison, Chianti is already the hands-down winner.)

Is this new three-tier system good? No doubt most Americans will blithely ignore it. But for those who do pay attention, it could be a blessing.

Because, let’s face it, it’s hard to know what’s inside a bottle of Chianti Classico, given the variables of blending, maturation, and microclimate in this sizable wine zone. And no one can possibly know all the Chianti producers and their house style firsthand. There are 365 consortium members who bottle their own wine—one for each day of the year. That’s a lot of Chianti to taste through. So clues like Annata, Riversa, and Gran Selezione just might help.

Pat's chianti picks

At the walkaround tasting, where 26 Chianti Classico wineries showed their wares, that range in style was apparent. And so was the overarching quality.

I gravitated toward some old friends who make what I consider benchmark wines: There was Casa Emma’s lovely and amiable Chianti Classico 2010, a traditional blend (with 10% canaiolo and malvasia nera) that always foregrounds ripe red fruit—a perfect lunch wine. Moving up the ladder was Capannelle’s Chianti Classico Riserva Capanelle 2007, a pure sangiovese that’s as refined as the Relais-quality hotel on their property, and Fontodi’s sought-after Chianti Classico Riserva Vigna del Sorbo 2009. Despite its dose of cabernet (5%) and 24 months in new oak, this cru from the conco d’oro or golden bowl of Panzano is an exemplary Chianti Classico, showing the finesse that characterizes this high-altitude subzone.

Good old Ruffino keeps stepping up to the plate with its 2007 vintage of Chianti Classico Riserva Ducale Oro. (2007 was a fantastic year in Tuscany, by the way, and the winemakers said 2012 looks good as well.) It was a pleasure to taste Ruffino’s top Chianti Classico again—this one blended with 20% cab/merlot—and see how it’s so consistently elegant and supple. (For more on this historically interesting estate, see my story Time Traveler: A Day with the Ambassador of Ruffino, in the March/April 2013 issue of Tastes of Italia.)

Finally, I was pleasantly surprised with Rocca della Macie’s Chianti Classico Riserva Famiglia Zingarelli 2008, a modern blend with cab and merlot (5% each). I admit I’d previously shied away from this estate because of its huge size. (At 3- to 5-million bottles annually, it’s the fifth largest winery in the zone.) But by gosh, this was my favorite wine during the seminar, and it appealed again during the walkaround. And no, that wasn't just because owner Sergio Zingarelli is the new DOCG head (nor because his father, Italo, produced dozens of spaghetti westerns). I liked its mouth-watering acidity (sangiovese’s benchmark) combined with fruit as sweet and ripe as grandma’s cherry pie. Ripples of earth and tobacco gave it that old-world Tuscan touch that I find so appealing. I’ll be looking for this wine at restaurants next time we’re in Chianti.

And that, folks, will be this coming July on our  Tuscan Wine Treasures tour. So join La Dolce Vita Wine Tours there, taste Chianti Classico in situ, and see for yourself how far it’s come.

“Tell us about the tannins,” said one wine writer through stained, inky teeth. By this point in our Montefalco Sagrantino tasting, everyone looked as though they’d been slurping denim dye—a sign of the power of this indigenous Umbrian grape, which possesses polyphenols that are off the charts. (Drink up, health nuts.)

The theme of this month’s Wine Media Guild luncheon was “Wines from Montefalco,” and the tannin question was addressed to Marco Caprai, one of six winemakers in attendance. The Arnoldo Capraiwinery, founded by Marco’s father, is an acknowledged leader in the appellation, and their efforts garnered Wine Enthusiast’s 2012 European Winery of the Year award. (“It’s fantastic for a little winery from a little region in a little village,” Marco said with endearing modesty.)

So, what about those tannins? They’re clearly a hallmark of the grape. During our walkaround tasting of 3 whites and 16 reds before the sit-down lunch at Felidia, people were wincing and talking about stripped enamel as much as they were the blackberry flavors and oak spice, despite the fact that these wines had some age, being from the 2004 to 2007 vintages. (The DOCG requires one year in wood and 29 months overall. But 2008 is the vintage currently on the market, so it’s evident that most top producers hold them back at least three years—for good reason.)

During the walkaround, I gravitated to the more accessible Montefalco Rosso, a blend of sagrantino (65-75%) and sangiovese (10-15%) that’s rounded off with a splash of something else: merlot, barbera, cabernet, and montepulciano are all permitted. I took a particular liking to Antonelli’s Montefalco Rosso 2009 ($20) and Caprai’s Montefalco Rosso 2010 ($23). The latter, in particular, had buckets of fruit (comparatively speaking) and a delicious cherry-candy core (thank you, sangiovese).

But then at lunch, the Montefalco Sagrantino (always 100 percent sagrantino) lost its gladiatorial aggressiveness and opened up enough to be a wonderful team player with the dishes that Felidia’s magnificent chef had prepared: risotto with mixed funghi, to which a dash of coffee powder had been added (“we’ve discovered it goes with sagrantino,” the chef later told me), followed by duck wrapped with prosciutto on a bed of spinach and lentils. Mmm, mmm, good.

As we chowed down, my favorite sagrantinos wereLe Cimate Sagrantino 2008 (n/a), from a new winery founded by third-generation grape growers (their Umbria Bianco was also superb: an unusual 60/40 blend of vermentino/grechetto, called Aragon, which offered all of vermentino’s enticing macchia aromas, minerality, and sapiditá, but with a plusher finish that went on forever); and also the Colle del SaracenoSagrantino 2008 (n/a), coming from Montefalco’s smallest winery, according to Myla Botti, wife of winemaker Francesco Botti. This tasted very old-fashioned in a good sort of way, like some of the grandpa-style primitivos that use whole clusters containing ripe, green, and raisinfied grapes. It seemed late-harvest, and yielded some of those same coffee notes that our chef had detected. “No, the harvest is normal; the secret is in the vinification,” Botti explained when asked. “We stop fermentation with a few grams of sugar. That gives it a smoothness that balances out the tannins, which we don’t want to lose.” Aged three years in stainless, then one year in large Slavonian oak, the wine still packs 14.5% alcohol, despite that touch of residual sugar. “It would have no trouble going to 19 to 20 percent,” she said.

And in fact, sagrantino’s thick skins and abundant sugars explain its history as a passito dessert wine. Made this way at least since Roman times, sagrantino’s history reminds me of the recioto of Valpolicella—another Roman-originated dessert wine made from the drying of thick, waxy-skinned grapes, which can endure this kind of abuse without shriveling into desiccated jawbreakers. We tried Colle del Saraceno’sSagrantino Passito 2008 (n/a) with dessert, and it was indeed a nectar suited to wine critics and gods (nectar is Latin for “drink of the gods,” derived from the Greek néktar, a compound of nek or death, and tar, overcoming).

My husband has been pushing to add an Umbria tour to our roster at La Dolce Vita Wine Tours for some time now. This tasting certainly has bolstered our rolodex with some new names I wouldn’t mind visiting. But for me the capper was Myla Botti’s involvement in the monastic church of San Francesco in Montefalco. On my one trip to the region a dozen years ago, we had the good fortune to visit when the cathedral’s magnificent fresco cycle TheLife of Saint Francis by Benezzo Gozzoli was undergoing restoration. Miraculously, the church allowed visitors to climb the scaffolding all the way to the top and stand nose-to-nose with Saint Francis and his peers in the capella maggiore. Here one could see a level of detail in Gozzoli’s fine brushwork that was invisible to human eyes below: the weathered skin on Saint Francis’s face, the feathers on his aviary congregation, the individuals leaves on lollipop trees and blades of grass. God was the artist’s intended audience, and here we were, sharing the view mostly intimately. Perhaps we shared the sagrantino, too. The passito was most likely the sacramental wine in these parts.

Myla invited us back, saying she’d give us a tour of the cathedral, now fully restored. And, of course, she’d pour us some good Montefalco afterwards. That’s a pilgrimage worth taking, I’d say.

“The central defining element of a novel is, ‘And then…?’ ”

That quote comes from E.M. Forster by way of James Conaway, one of the most inspiring speakers at last week’s Professional Wine Writers Symposium at Meadowood in Napa. It’s as true for nonfiction writing as it is for novels, and it even holds for wine writing—though, in my opinion, too few wine scribes follow that code.

I’m a new fan of Conaway, and I haven’t even read his books yet. (But I’m heading to B&N posthaste to buy his 1992 best seller Napa: The Story of an American Eden and its 2003 sequel The Far Side of Eden: New Money, Old Land, and the Battle for Napa Valley.)

Conaway epitomizes the kind of long-form narrative nonfiction that I love and aspire to. Something that sets scenes, establishes characters, and moves them through environments and conflicts. Writing that approaches wine through people and the culture they create and populate. It’s precisely what I want to do with my own wine writing, even in magazine form.

Did this conference get me charged up? You bet. There’s nothing like a week of talking shop with fellow writers and editors to get energized and re-set one’s compass. I managed to connect with editors from Wine Enthusiast, Decanter, and the travel magazine Afar, which has the kind of first-person writing that’s right up my alley.

As my high school English teacher Clyde Coon used to say, the best way to learn to write is to read. So, in addition to Conaway, I gathered a list of recommended reads that begins with Hugh Johnson’s A Life Uncorked, GQ’s Alan Richmond, Corie Brown’s Zester Daily, the Smitten Kitchen and Lot18 blogs, the aggregator Longreads.com, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life, and stretches on from there.

I Want My YouTube!

An all-day session on video production by Storycellars got me jazzed about learning iMovie. While 60 to 90 second videos (the sweet spot for YouTube) might be down the line for me (honestly, I’ve got only so many lives to live and hours to learn), I do see iMovie as a way to repurpose the zillions of photographs I’ve shot during our 13 years of La Dolce Vita Wine Tours. Expect to see a short iMovie on each of our tour itineraries.

For those of you in my shoes—comfortable with a DSLR, but video curious—here’s a short list of low-cost gear worth knowing about that was mentioned during the seminar:

• Zoom H1 digital audio recorder ($95) for usable sound (forget about your iPhone mic)
• Foam-core board ($6) or Impact5-in-1 collapsible reflector ($25–47) for bounce light
• PluralEyes for audio sync / sound slate ($199)
• GoPro camera for timelapse and wide shots (shoots up to 4K) ($200–400)
• Tip: Use a 100mm focal length for interviews, set to 320 ASA. When doing a walk & talk, stay wide to maintain focus
• Killer Tracksfor royalty-free music
• Lynda.com for tutorials about editing software and how-tos

Our Storycellars instructors put together this 90-second video of Meadowood 2013 for our farewell dinner, which nicely encapsulates the vibe of this event. But as proof that entertaining video needn’t be so polished, another panel showed William Shatner's crazy, low-rent Brown Bag Wine Tasting—as addictive as cat videos, and just as cheap.

“Don’t quit your day job”

While it’s nice to get motivated, this conference also dumped a bucket of cold water on our buzzing brains. In the conference’s most-tweeted panel, Wine Enthusiast editor Susan Kostrzewa presented figures on pay rates gleaned from 20 wine journalists. On average, those scribes bring in only $15–25K from wine writing (mostly from print), which constitutes just 10-25% of their annual income. The balance comes from wine education, consulting, judging, or wholly unrelated work. Their word rate is $1.50 maximum; more typical is 25¢ to $1/word.

Pathetic, in other words. And this is for established wine writers. The data sent shivers through the room.

After Susan recounted these sobering facts, we did something interesting. All 55 of us were given a remote-command unit that could instantly tabulate survey results and produce a pie chart. What this live survey showed was another jaw-dropper:

• 44% of those attending the Professional Wine Writers Symposium earn less than $5K a year on wine writing.

• The vast majority (43%) get between 1–10% of their income from wine writing (mostly for magazines; the web pays little to none). Only 19% derive most or all income (75–100%) from their chosen métier.

As Vinography’s Alder Yarrow later quipped, “Don’t quit your day job.”

Since mine is La Dolce Vita Wine Tours, I have no intention of quitting. But neither do I plan to give up my other paying occupations: film writer for American Cinematographer and freelance copyeditor for Elle. I suppose I take some comfort in knowing that I’m not the only wine writer who gets scandalously low rates. And I’m reassured to know that virtually everyone—including the most successful, established writers at this event—are spinning multiple plates, just like me.

This was my second time at Meadowood, and I feel I’ve found my peer group. It’s nice to belong—even it that means sharing the pain along with the satisfactions of the wine-writers’ life.

I began researching this DECANTER story even before I knew it, routinely hitting up the wine bars of Florence, Venice, Milan, and Rome whenever I had a spare moment there.  A few years back, I’d written about the rise of wine-bar culture in Italy in an article on the FRESCOBALDI WINE BAR & RESTAURANTin Florence—a phenomenon that arose much later in Italy than in the U.S., for reasons I explain in that story.

So when Decanter editor Guy Woodward asked me for a roundup of the best Italian wine bars for their annual Italy supplement, I was ready.

I wound up writing two version of the article. One you’ll find on newsstands right now in their February issue. It includes 12 wine bars overall, with micro blurbs on each. An earlier version, which I include here, singles out 1 wine bar per city, with a little more verbiage on each. Next time you visit one of these cities, drop by—and tell them I sent you.

Rome

Enoteca Ferrara - Via del Moro 1/a, Piazza Trilussa 41

BEST FOR: Literary enophiles. Label readers will devour Ferrara’s two-volume list of 1,300 Italian wines. Each entry pictures the label alongside a descriptive paragraph penned by sommelier Lina Paolillo, who co-owns this elegant Trastevere oasis with her sister Maria, its chef and architect. With a formal restaurant, casual osteria, and wine bar in adjoining rooms, Ferrara suits all appetites and wallets. The osteria’s smaller, user-friendly list is grouped by price, starting with 80 choices at 15€, while the restaurant’s comprehensive list includes an impressive backlog of vintages. Altogether, some 26,000 bottles reside in their three cellars—as many as a small winery.

MUST TRY: For a truly unique experience, raid Paolillo’s archive of aged Pecorino wine. This Abruzzo grape is the latest darling of Rome wine bars, but only here can you find vintages going back to 2006. “After 10 years, it becomes like the best of French whites,” Paolillo swears. If dining, do as the Romans do and go for carciofo alla giudia, or Jewish-style artichokes, a classic here served with slow-baked suckling pig. Paolillo would pair this notoriously difficult-to-match dish with a Lazio white—either a Frascati (now enjoying a renaissance) or a skin-fermented Grechetto. Craving something more exotic? Try their ravioli stuffed with foie gras on a bed of radicchio, raisins, and almonds and wash that down with a palate-cleansing Franciacorta, such as Uberti’s Comari del Salem.

Florence

Coquinarius - Via delle Oche 15

BEST FOR: Social drinkers. With only 30 seats, this cozy Duomo-area restaurant is the kind of spot where one shares wine and conversation with cheek-by-jowl strangers. That convivial spirit is sparked by co-owner and sommelier Nicola Schirru, who radiates a contagious enthusiasm for their esoteric selections. Want a history of Timorasso, the nearly extinct Piemontese white that’s now a Slow Food favorite? He’ll happily provide one—and a sample pour—while you’re deliberating over the 14 by-the-glass choices. The full carta dei vini rotates continuously “to keep ourselves interested,” says Schirru, who has about 350 wines in the cellar at any given time. About half are from Tuscany, most are organic or biodynamic, and all are small properties (“no more than 10 hectares”) otherwise absent from the Florentine vinoscape—wineries like Ar.Pe.Pe. in Valtellina, Girolamo Russo near Mt. Etna, and Taschlerhof in Alto Adige.

MUST TRY: With 20 inventive entrée salads, Coquinarius is a favorite haven for the veggie-deprived, a frequent affliction among restaurant-dependent travelers in Italy. Salad nibblers should kick the Pinot Grigio habit and try an Erbaluce, Verdicchio di Matelica, Bianco di Pitigliano, or other exotic option. Homemade pasta is another magnet, especially the sumptuous ravioli filled with pear and cheese. To dine alla Toscana, order the pappardelle with rabbit, saffron, and robiola cheese, then take your pick of a dozen Chianti Classico gems, such as Val delle Corti in Radda or Riecine in Gaiole. “Small and famous is our politic,” says Schirru.

Venice

I Rusteghi- San Marco 5513, Campiello del Tentor

BEST FOR: Authenticity hounds. A notoriously tough town for foodies, Venice is likewise behind the curve on Italy’s wine-bar boom. The old-fashioned bacaro still rules, but the vino sfuso at these neighborhood watering holes isn’t likely to satisfy discriminating palates. That’s why it’s worth tracking down I Rusteghi, tucked in a hidden courtyard near the Rialto bridge. It has a homespun feel, but fourth-generation proprietor Giovanni d’Este possesses the wine credentials and worldliness his progenitors did not. Trained as a sommelier in Piedmont and Lausanne, the sociable d’Este stocks 420 wines from the regions he loves—above all, Tuscany, Piedmont, Alto Adige, the Veneto, and Friuli. The best part? Everything is available by the glass—always at one-sixth the bottle price. So if none of the daily blackboard specials strike your fancy, don’t hesitate to ask for a bicchieri of that cult Dal Forno Amarone or the off-beat Israeli Gewürtztraminer spotted on the shelf.

MUST TRY: Adventurous drinkers will find nirvana in the raft of antique northern Italian varietals, including Schioppettino, Pignolo, Refosco, and the aptly named Tazzelenghe (tongue cutter). But if fame’s your game, check out the 20 Brunellos and swoon over marquee names like Casanova di Neri, Biondi Santi, and Poggio di Sotto. Ditto for the Amarones, where Quintarelli, Tedeschi, and Fumanelli dwell, with vintages going back to 1990. Although I Rusteghi serves only cold plates, there’s plenty to tempt, including hand-sliced prosciutto di Parma and Spanish jamón, Bay of Biscay anchovies, and pint-sized panini with culatello and truffle cream.

Milan

N’Ombra de Vin - Via San Marco 2

BEST FOR: Cultural mavens. After soaking up Michaelangelo at Castello Sforzesco, Piero della Francesca at the Pinacoteca, and Robert Wilson at the Piccolo Theater, art denizens need to recharge. Fortunately, Milan’s artsy Brera quarter has N’Ombra de Vin. Founded in 1973 as a wine shop by the Corà family, it has doubled as a lively bistro since 2005. This fall, a renovation opened up 40 more seats in the groin-vaulted space downstairs, once a refectory for the 13th century St. Marks church next door, where young Mozart stayed and Verdi conducted. Now you can gather ’round an ice-filled sarcophagus for a pour of Prosecco di Valdobbiadene while rubbing shoulders with staffers from Corriera della Sera and neighborhood patrons arriving on bicycle.

MUST TRY: The wine list’s giro d’Italia runs through Italy tip to toe, with 30 rotating selections grouped by type—“perfumed whites,” “reds to drink chilled,” “structured reds,” etc.—to easily pair with a short but well curated menu of cold plates. The shop’s 2,000 wines are all available by the bottle, so the options are endless. That tartar of Piemontese fassona beef would go perfectly well with a glass of Bruno Rocca Nebbiolo Fralù from the list. But treasure-seekers might prefer it alongside a bottle of 1971 Gaja Barbaresco or a 1981 Brunello from (pre-Frescobaldi) Castelgiocondo discovered in some nook. Here the pleasure is in the hunt.

ANTIPASTO

Roasted Peperoni with Bagnetto Verde
This was Claudio’s piemontese contribution: Roasted red peppers with a topping of minced parsley, garlic, anchovies, and capers.

Goat Cheese Marinated in Rosemary, Fennel, Red Hot Pepper (Gourmet)
I've been making this every year since Gourmet published it in 1991. It's pretty in a glass jar (making a nice gift) and it gets better over the weeks, as the flavors infiltrate and infuse the cheese.
Prosecco NV, Zardetto

PRIMO

Creamy New England Clam Chowder (in Health, October 2000; not online)
My husband loved this recipe. It didn't quite live up to my memories of the lobster-shack chowders I had as a kid vacationing in Maine and Cape Cod, but it had enough comfort-food-thing going on to make everyone happy.
Chablis 2007, Domaine Le Verger

SECONDO

Spinach and Mushroom-stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Sherry Cream Sauce (Fine Cooking)
I think any meat that's tied up with string looks pretty impressive. Even moreso when it's a colorful pinwheel when sliced. But the best part of this recipe is that the pork loin was oh-so-tender—an iffy proposition with that cut. So much so that the yummy sherry cream sauce was hardly needed.
Offerus Saint-Joseph 2008, Jean-Louis Chave
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 1998, Avignonesi (from our cellar in Italy!)

CONTORNI

Mom’s Collard Greens (New York magazine)
The. Best. Ever. This is the Platonic Ideal of comfort foods—collard greens with tang, spicy heat, decadent bacon, and just the right amount of melt.

Wild Rice and Quinoa Pilaf with Pecans, Green Onions, and Dried Cranberries (New York magazine)
This, too, was a keeper. A medley of textures (pecans, cranberries, quinoa, rice) with some unexpected ingredients (whiskey, Earl Gray tea).

Pickled Red Onions (Food and Wine)
Slicing bermudas is so much easier then peeling those darned pearl onions, so I'm keeping this recipe around for my future sweet-sour-onion fix.

DESSERT

Panettone & torrone
Moscato Passito, S. Stefano Belbo
Marsala Superiore Oro “Vigna La Miccia”, Marco De Bartoli

Happy New Year!

I’d never seen so many open bottles of champagne. Two tables groaned under the weight of 60 deep-bunted bottles of Mumm, Taittinger, Moët, and their brethren in the upstairs dining room of Felidia, where the Wine Media Guild was having its annual champagne lunch. Ed McCarthy, known to some as “Mr. Champagne”, to the twittersphere as @EdChampagne, and to the rest of the world as coauthor of Wine for Dummies (with Mary Ewing-Mulligan), had brought 15 labels of rosé champagne, which ranged in price from $48 (Ayala Brut Rosé) to $300 (Perrier-Jouët Cuvé Belle Epoque Rosé).

It was my first time attending this event, by far the most popular of our monthly gatherings. Why had I been MIA for so long? Indifference, for one. Like professional sports and country music, champagne is a world I’d blissfully ignored for most of my life. It was out of my price range, and there were too many other temptations tugging at my hem.

Second, my piemontese husband has a visceral aversion to champagne. “It’s dirty water,” he says when asked to explain his antipathy. I remind him that’s the same phrase he uses to describe American coffee (which makes sense relative to espresso. But champagne?). “In Italian, ‘dirty water’ means something that’s useless,” he replies. I press further, and he offers a dozen variations of “they charge too much.” When I finally get him to cede that—price aside—he might like some champagne, his conditions are severe: only full-throttle, toasty-yeasty versions. Fair enough.

Personally, I had my champagne epiphany at a Society of Wine Educators conference two years ago, when nonvintage champagne was featured at a luncheon. Presenting it was none other than Ed McCarthy, who cogently laid out the styles of NV champagne, from light to full-bodied, as we tasted Ayala (representing the Brut 0 movement), Henriot, Mumm, Charles Heidsieck (voted the group favorite), Roederer, and Gosset.

This month’s rosé champagne tasting featured many of the same names. Once again, AYALA was among my favorites. Its NV Extra Brut rosé was light bodied, with zesty pink grapefruit flavors and toasty yeast; and at $48–$54, it was the room’s best buy. ALFRED GRATIEN Brut Rosé was another standout ($62–$75). “It’s not a household name,” McCarthy noted of this traditional old house, but its tart fruit sung in beautiful harmony with the risotto with champagne, salmon, and lobster we were scarfing down. I also loved the full-flavored GOSSET NV Brut Rosé ($70–$80), a mouthwatering marriage of pink citrus and toast (sounds like brunch!), as well as the LOUIS ROEDERER 2007 Brut Rosé ($65–$70).

But for me, the died-and-went-to-heaven champagne was NICOLAS FEUILLATTE’s 2004 Palmes d’Or Rosé. I kept circling back to this prestige cuvée, savoring its distinctive floral character—redolent of rose petal and fresh apricot—so different from the rest. It was like a rare orchid amidst the daisies. (This was the only one made from 100 percent pinot noir, so that explains a lot.) But at $180–$200, it was mine to enjoy only then and there. Santa will certainly be keeping this one for himself.

Between courses, McCarthy noted how, after being an afterthought for decades, rosé champagne is now ‘in’, accounting for 8 percent of all champagne. Its prices tend to be higher, since the winemaking process for red grapes is more laborious and maintaining the same shade of pink each year involves sheer wizardry by each house. But the pinot noir at its core makes for fuller bodied wines. “So it goes especially well with food,” McCarthy said as we gave the thumbs up when waiters wheeled out a cart holding an awesome roasted salmon—26-pounds and a yard long—stuffed with lemon slices and sprinkled with crunchy sea salt. (Bless you, Felidia.)

During lunch, WMG member and champagne maven Cynthia Sin-Yi Cheng gave Ed McCarthy a pop quiz. To wit:

Favorite champagne style? Vintage blanc de blanc

Favorite vintages: 2002, 1996, 1988, 1964

Favorite place to drink champagne: Anytime with friends—especially if they’re in Paris.

Preferred food pairings: Mushroom dishes, especially pastas with mushrooms

Most memorable champagnes: 1928 Krug, and 1988 and 1996 Louis Roederer Cristal

Fair enough. My memorable champagne moments are now two, and both involve Ed McCarthy. Thanks for that, Ed!

Last week, I went to the housewarming party for Elyse, a friend from ELLE, where I do freelance copyediting. She’d promised to make Yuletide wassail, or mulled wine. That had me rsvp’ing lickity-split.

While I loathe sangria, the idea of hot mulled wine triggered all the pleasure centers in my brain, igniting an orgy of images of white Christmases, roaring fireplaces, festive carolers, and snowball fights.

What to bring to such a party? Gingerbread immediately sprung to mind, being another Yuletide treat that’s as traditional as Santa himself.

While I don’t know Santa’s age, I can say that gingerbread has over a thousand years of history. Brought to France by an Armenian monk in 992, gingerbread gets its name comes from the Old French gingebras, which is derived from the Latin word for ginger, zingebar. In the 13th century, German immigrants carried it to Sweden, where it was used to ease digestion. Over time, gingerbread was being sold by monasteries, pharmacies, and town markets all over Europe, reaching a peak in popularity in the 1700s.

The following recipe comes from New York’s famed Gramercy Tavern (cofounded by Top Chef’s head judge, Tom Colicchio). It's truly a classic, with dark molasses, traditional baking spices, and—surprise!—Guiness stout. (Try getting people to guess this secret ingredient; they never do, so you can put some sure money down on that bet.)

So, build that snowman, cue up some holiday tunes, then gather round the fireplace with steaming mugs of wassail and a plate of sugar-dusted gingerbread. It's guaranteed to bring good cheer.

GRAMERCY TAVERN GINGERBREAD
1 cup oatmeal stout or Guinness
1 cup dark molasses (not blackstrap)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
1- 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of ground cardamom
3 large eggs
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
Confectioners sugar for dusting
10" bunt pan or 9" square pan

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter bundt (or 9” square) pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess.

Bring stout and molasses to a boil in a large saucepan and remove from heat. Whisk in baking soda, then cool to room temperature.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and spices in a large bowl. Whisk together eggs and sugars. Whisk in oil, then molasses mixture. Add to flour mixture and whisk until just combined.

Pour batter into bundt pan and rap pan sharply on counter to eliminate air bubbles. Bake in middle of oven until a tester comes out with just a few moist crumbs adhering, about 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes. Turn out onto rack and cool completely.

Serve cake, dusted with confectioners sugar (optional), with whipped cream.

Cooks' notes:
- This recipe was tested with Grandma's brand green-label molasses.
- Like the chocolate decadence cake, the gingerbread is better if made a day ahead. It will keep 3 days, covered, at room temperature.

ELYSE'S WASSAIL
Though wassail is typically made with red wine, in the medieval past it was made with cider, beer, or mead. The beverage was mixed with sugar and spices in individual serving bowls, then topped with toast to sop up the last drops.

1 cup sugar
4 cinnamon sticks
3 lemon slices, plus more for garnish
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 cups orange juice
2 cups pineapple juice
6 cups dry red wine (e.g. Valpolicella)
1 cup dry sherry

Boil the sugar, cinnamon, and 3 lemon slices in the water for 5 minutes and strain. Discard the cinnamon sticks and those lemon slices. Combine with the syrup mixture with the remaining ingredients, heat but do not boil, garnish with lemon slices, and serve hot.

I needed something delicious and savory for last weekend's cabernet tasting that I was hosting for our wine club. Ideally something that wouldn't need much last-minute prep, as I already had my hands full.

My miracle fix was this timeless Quiche Lorraine. The recipe comes from a cookbook I've had since my college days, The Cheese Guide & Cookbook. (The publisher, Nitty Gritty Productions, suggests its 1970s vintage.) It's truly a a classic quiche and isn't shy about using light cream, butter, cheese, or bacon—all the great things in life. Just remember, you need a guilty pleasure every now and then, especially when there's fine cabernet in the room.

I borrowed a cheese crust recipe from another page to make it even better—and easier, since there's no rolling, just pinching and pressing.

Here are several things you can do in advance:

- Make and partially pre-bake the crust
- Chop onions; store in an airtime container
- Cook bacon and drain on paper towels
- Grate the cheese and store, covered

I took care of these the night before. So all I needed to do on party day was assemble the ingredients and throw it in the oven for 30 minutes. The joy of that last-minute baking is that it leaves a heavenly smell in the apartment to greet guests. And the quiche is still slightly warm—my favorite way to serve it. (This quiche also tasty at room temperature.)

So if you're entertaining over the holidays, give it a try. But don't expect any leftovers! It's that good.

QUICHE LORRAINE

Quiche ingredients
1 deep 10-inch pie plate
1/4 cup finely chopped white or green onions
1- 1/2 T butter
1 cup crumbled, crisp-cooked bacon (or finely diced cooked ham)
5 eggs
1 egg yolk (optional)
2-1/2 cups light cream
1/8 t nutmeg
1/2 t salt
2 dashes cayenne pepper (optional)
dash of white or black pepper
1 cup grated good-quality Gruyere or Swiss cheese

Cheese crust ingredients
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
3/4 cup flour
1/2 t salt
1/4 t dry mustard
1/4 cup melted butter

Note: My pie pan is larger, probably around 12", but the ingredients worked fine without being proportionally increased. In fact, I generally decrease the eggs to 4 and skip the extra yolk, so it doesn't slosh over the edges.

TO MAKE CRUST:

Mix with pasty blender or fork until smooth. Knead about 1-2 minutes. Press firmly onto bottom and sides of 10" pie plate and flute edge of crust. Bake 8-10 minutes at 375ºF. This is a partial backing and may be omitted.

TO MAKE QUICHE FILLING:

Cook onions in butter until transparent. Mix with bacon or ham and set aside. Beat eggs and yolk lightly; blend in cream, nutmeg, salt, cayenne, and pepper. Put meat and onions into pie crust. Top with grated cheese and pour egg mixture over all. Bake 30-35 minutes at 375º or until the filling is golden and puffy, or until a knife inserted into the custard's center comes out clean.

Recipe from The Cheese Guide & Cookbook, by Ann Chandonnet (1973, Nitty Gritty Productions)

“Nothing focuses the mind like an execution,” wrote Samuel Johnson.

I’ll take that on faith. But I can personally attest to this: A blind tasting has a similar effect. It induces intense concentration. And it takes guts. With each glass, you face the risk of humiliation from a ridiculously off-target ID. That’s like lobbing a tennis ball four courts away, then having to fetch it with all eyes trained on you.

Our wine club loves blind tastings, not because we like to point and laugh at each other (though that’s fun too), but because we learn the most that way, drilling down into the wines’ characteristics without technical sheets or published commentary or preconceived notions.

But our last tasting really took the cake.

The theme was a Cabernet Blend Face-Off. We were comparing Cab-dominated blends from four regions: Bordeaux, Tuscany, the Columbia River Valley (Washington/Oregon), and California. The mission: Taste them blind, in flights of two, then try to identify the region and blend.

It was my idea…. What was I thinking?

Tennis balls went flying off the court in every direction. We were repeatedly stumped, divided, indecisive, and stunned at the unveiling. It was great fun.

As always, before the big reveal we voted on our two favorites. They were:
• Favorite: San Leonardo, a ringer from Trentino (wine #2)
• Second favorite: A Columbia Valley blend from JM Cellars, based in Woodinville, WA (wine #8)

So now, like the good sports we are, I’m sharing our guesses—the hits and misses—and the end results. Because I was the host and wound up with all the unfinished bottles, I got to taste everything again the next day, and here include those tasting notes.

1. BORDEAUX: CHATEAU CARRONES STE. GEMME 2006, AOC Haut-Medoc
Cab/merlot/petit merlot (sic) 60/35/5, 13%, $27

Our guesswork: “Blueberry.” “Herbs.” “Savory with a bitter finish.” “Stemmy and green.” “Lots of tannin.” “A bit briary; maybe some syrah?” We kicked the can down the road, however, being too indecisive to guess the blend or region, for this or #2.

2nd day: Relatively transparent in color; tart sour cherry with grippy tannins; some earthiness

2. ITALY: SAN LEONARDO 2004 (Marchese Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga), Vigneti delle Dolomiti IGT
Cabernet/cabernet franc/merlot 60/30/10, 13.5%, $55

Our guesswork: “Musty nose.” “More complete on the palate than #1.” “Green jalapeño.” “Nice, sweet dark fruit in the middle.” “Leather.” “This smells like old botti; it’s definitely Old World.” Some were leaning towards Bordeaux. None guessed Trentino—since it wasn’t on the list!

2nd day: Opaque garnet with fading color; nose seems over-the-hill today, with stewed fruit; it’s better in the mouth, with tomato leaf, currant, and high-toned fruit with lots of acid. Tannins are easy and well integrated (it is a 2004, after all).

3. BORDEAUX: CHATEAU LANESSAN 2009, Domaine Bouteiller AOC Haut-Medoc
Cabernet/merlot/petit verdot 60/36/4, 13.5%, $30

Our guesswork: “Pretty purple.” “Not much nose.” “Tightly coiled.” “High acid, with nice dark fruit.” Some are leaning towards a Washington wine, with a hefty dose of merlot. But we agreed it’s a puzzlement. And everyone gasped at the Haut-Medoc reveal.

2nd day: Some transparency in color; barely any nose; bing cherry and plum flavors, with bright acid. Very drinkable and food friendly. Not much tannic grip.

4. CALIFORNIA: STEPHAN VINEYARD, L’Aventure Estate Cuvée 2007, Paso Robles
Syrah/cabernet/petit verdot 49/37/14, 15.4%, $55

Our guesswork: “Inky black, extracted, plush.” “Raspberry jam.” “Lots of alcohol.” “Big oak.” We all agree it’s quintessentially New World. “Oh, no. This is California.” Only one person picked up on the syrah (Linda, who cohosted the Rhone tasting).

2nd day: Inky dark; smell of new oak and black raspberries; in the mouth, sweet fruit immediately hits you; there’s a certain roundness and gobs of blackberry jam; finishes with decent acidy and fine tannins

5. TUSCANY: BISERNO, Insoglio del Cinghiale 2010, Toscana IGT
Cabernet franc/syrah/merlot/petit verdot 33/32/30/5, 14%, $32

Our guesswork: There was disagreement at first. “Funky, earthy, tobacco.” “There’s too much fruit for Old World!” “Cherry.” “Honeydew.” People then start leaning towards Tuscany (here, at least, we got it over the net), and with that, towards sangiovese in the blend (wrong!). This was an unintentional ringers as well; I brought the wine thinking it had cab sauvignon, but it's cabernet franc.  Oops.

2nd day: Really yummy on the nose and in the mouth! Feels very New World, with a Zin-like fruitiness, though there’s some spice that suggests syrah. Not quite opaque. Blue/black fruit of the woods and some red lift, with chocolate on the finish. Goes down easy, with medium tannins. A sunny-climate blend. Very drinkable, and my personal favorite.

6. TUSCANY: CORZANO E PATERNO, Il Corzano 2007, Toscana IGT
Cabernet/sangiovese, 14.5%, $37

Our guesswork: “Marlboro Methol.” “Hot and fleshy.” “Garish.” “Lots of tannins.” The majority were leaning towards merlot in the blend and California as the source. This Super Tuscan from the Chianti Classico region (San Casciano) was one of the real shockers.

2nd day: (deposit in the bottle) Fairly opaque garnet; pleasant nose & taste, with lots of acidity and juicy fruit-of-the-woods (blueberry, blackberry, raspberry). Quite nice. Long finish is mouthwatering, even with notable tannins. Some meaty notes on the finish.

7. CALIFORNIA: STELLA GREY, Napa Valley Red Wine 2009, Sherbrooke Cellars Selections
Cabernet/merlot/cabernet france, petit verdot, syrah 55/25/20, 14.3%, $17

Our guesswork: “Nice nose.” “This is a happy wine.” “Black current.” “Nicely balanced and drinkable.” “Sweet fruit.” “Food friendly.” “Very clean, well-balanced, probably cool climate.” At first folks were thinking Bordeaux, but then gravitated towards Columbia River Valley. It was Napa—another shocker. But at $17, it was our Best Buy.

2nd day: Inky violet; blueberry syrup on the nose; easy in the mouth; long, fruity finish with very bright blueberry/black raspberry fruit that lingers, with snappy acidity. Succulent fruit, but not extracted. The fruit is fairly straightforward, rather than layered. Finely textured tannins are present, but in the background.

8. COLUMBIA RIVER VALLEY: JM CELLARS, Tre Fanciulli 2007, Columbia Valley, WA
Cabernet/merlot/syrah 67/19/14, 14.4%, $37

Our guesswork: “Old World.” “Screams Italian.” “Very ripe, sweet fruit, but short finish.” We picked up a hint of brett, which had some leaning toward Italy, but half thought it was West Coast. The latter scored.

2nd day: Opaque ruby. Nose has an oxidized edge, which carries thru on the taste. More tannins here. Very berry-like in the mouth, with acidic lift and somewhat grippy tannins. Sweet vanilla oak. There’s something about the flavors I’m not crazy about. But it’s midnight, so I think it’s time to call it a day.

If any New Yorkers want to join our wine club, just give me a holler. Both pros and amateurs welcome!

San Rocco is staring impassively at me, pointing to a plague sore festering on his thigh. But I’m not interested. What’s caught my attention is the unique landscape behind him: row upon row of terraces that rise up a steep mountain, all sprouting grapevine hieroglyphs. In 1563, when this fresco was painted, those terraces would already have been hundreds of years old, ancient engineering marvels even then and a distinguishing feature of this alpine landscape.

In that way, little has changed. Valtellina, a 68-mile valley on the Swiss-Italian border, remains the largest terraced vineyard area in Italy. On its slopes are 1,500 miles of drystone wall, built from shards hacked off the mountain and alluvial stones hauled up from the valley floor.

Hours later, I’m on one of those terraces with Matteo Borserio, agronomist at NINO NEGRI, the region’s largest winery. We’re traipsing around a prized viticultural subzone—one of five in the Valtellina Superiore DOCG. This one’s called Inferno, and it’s easy to see why. It’d be hell to work here. Though it’s the Alps, the sun scorches and heat radiates off the granite outcroppings and stone walls. The incline is so steep it’d make Dante throw in the towel. I spot prickly pear. “Another reason it’s called Inferno is because of those spines, which get in your hands,” says Borserio. As unlikely as cactus would seem at this latitude, they have other Mediterranean companions: palms, agaves, capers, rosemary. All signal the unique climate of this valley, one of only 10 to run east-west in the Alps. That alignment means its southern slopes bask in the sun all day.

Which makes it perfect for slow-ripening Nebbiolo, Valtellina’s primary grape.

Nebbiolo is most commonly associated with Piedmont and the Langhe, land of Barolo and Barbaresco. The fact that Langhe Nebbiolo gets the glory is partly the result of Italy’s political history. The architects of Italy’s unification in 1861 were from Piedmont, and they happened to be big champions of Barolo and winemakers themselves. Italy’s first Prime Minister, Count Camillo Cavour, sought to create a piemontese equivalent of Burgundy, while the King of Piedmont fell so hard for Barolo that he bought a couple of Langhe castles with vineyards to keep his cellars stocked.

Claiming ownership of the grape, Langhe winemakers were in for a big shock in 2006 when researchers from the University of Milan produced evidence that Nebbiolo’s birthplace is not the Langhe, as had been widely thought, but either northern Piedmont (Alto Piemonte) or Valtellina.

Nebbiolo—called Chiavennasca in Valtellina—has grown here for millennia, but the wine remains relatively unknown. In fact, it’s less visible today than a generation ago. “In the 1960s, we sold more Valtellina in the U.S. than we do now,” says Casimiro Maule, enologist at Nino Negri since 1971. “If I go abroad and ask around, no one knows it. They barely even know it in Milan,” which is rather scandalous, given that Milan is just two hours down the highway, on the far side of Lake Como. “Then there’s the other problem,” he continues. “Production is quite limited. So if we have to invest a lot to make ourselves better known, we don’t have enough wine to serve.” A dilemma indeed.

NINO NEGRI, RIGHTING THE COURSE

When Maule stepped into the picture 41 years ago, he had his work cut out for him. The 1970s and 1980s were rough on Valtellina. The bottom fell out of the Swiss market, their most important, after Switzerland eliminated favored-nation tariff exceptions for Valtellina products. About the same time, the Swiss started producing their own red wine. Meanwhile, Valtellina wine had fallen into a slump quality-wise. The results were troubling: cellars full of wine that didn’t sell, growers giving up property, vineyard acreage shrinking, terraces crumbling.

Step by step, Maule instituted change. (Founded in 1897, Nino Negri makes 850,000 bottles—one third of Valtellina’s production—and works with 300 growers. So any move it makes has deep ripple effects.) In the cellar, he reduced maceration times and replaced huge vats with French barrique, taking a page from Barolo modernists Elio Altare, Domenico Clerico, and Paolo Scavino. In the vineyard, he upended tradition by replanting vine rows in an east-west orientation, parallel to the slope. This introduced shade into the viticultural toolkit; by keeping or removing leaf canopy, the amount of direct sun hitting the grapes could be precisely controlled.

Maule also introduced narrow caterpillar tractors for pruning and helicopters for harvesting. The helicopters alone nearly halved the man-hours required at harvest. But that’s still triple what’s needed in Tuscany. There’s simply no escaping the fact that working on these steep, narrow terraces is backbreaking. “One can define the work as heroic,” says Maule.

Some consider him the hero. In 2007, Gambero Rosso named him Winemaker of the Year and his 5 Stelle Sfursat di Valtellina ($70)—an Amarone-style Nebbiolo made from semi-dried grapes, which Nino Negri was the first to commercialize in 1983—the Best Red Wine of Italy.

Sfursat “is the maximum expression of Nebbiolo in Valtellina,” Maule says, and the 2009 and 1997 vintages of 5 Stelle he poured me over dinner were special indeed: at once intense and nuanced, with layers of red fruit, spice, and minerality. Truly a wine to savor and watch unfold. As much as the technological advances Nino Negri introduced, the Sfursat DOCG helped save Valtellina.

But their other wines are pretty good, too. Nino Negri sources its grapes from all five subzones: Inferno, Sassella, Grumello, Vagella, and Maroggia. Each has its own characteristics, and some of Negri’s Valtellina Superiore wines play up the specific zone, such as Inferno ($25) and Le Tense Sassella ($38). Others blend several zones, such as Mazèr ($34). But all share a common thread, and it comes from the rock.

Valtellina Nebbiolo “is a mountain wine, first of all,” says Maule. “There’s more minerality than in Piedmont. Here, the earth was pushed up in an explosion that formed the Alps, so there’s silex and quartz in the soil, whereas Piedmont is all alluvial,” having been under sea. As a result, he continues, “our wine is not fat, round, robust, but just the opposite: nervous, angular, in need of the calm and tranquility of several years’ refinement in wood to soften. From that is born a wine with great minerality, great nervatura—structure and nerves. That gives it the strength to endure in the bottle for a long time.”

PHOENIX RISING:  Ar.Pe.Pe.

Years ago, Valtellina’s largest winery was Pelizzatti. Founded in the 1860s, it was making 6-million bottles in 1973—the year Guido Pelizzatti Perego died. Though his son Arturo had worked by his side, the other heirs wanted the money, not the business, so they sold everything—the brand, the wine in the cellar, the land—except for some vineyards.

This was during Valtellina’s bad patch. Guido’s granddaughter, Isabella Pelizzatti Perego, relates the history as we’re standing on a terrace in Grumello surveying what’s left. In front of us, new houses stretch to the main road on ground once occupied by the cellar. But underfoot is a brand new winery designed by Perego’s architect husband. Since developers couldn’t build houses on this steep stony slope, Arturo was able to buy this parcel back and start anew in 1983 with his 11 hectares of vineyards. The winery is called Ar.Pe.Pe.—Arturo’s initials. In 2004, he passed away, so now Isabella and her brother, Emanuele, run the show.

Though production is small—50,000 bottles—they’ve managed to make quite a name for themselves. I first tasted their Rosso di Valtellina ($35) at a friend’s behest, who got tipped off by the savvy folks at Chamber Street Wines. I loved its dried rose and red fruit flavors, flinty minerality, fine tannins, and verve.

Tasting with Perego at the winery, I’m even more smitten with Sassella Stella Retica ($40), a reserve (named after the edelweiss) that shows more concentrated woodsy fruit, and their scrumptious late-harvest Sassella Ultimi Raggi ($36).

Though their architecture is modern, Ar.Pe.Pe.’s approach in the cellar is traditional. Since 2007, all fermentation happens in wood, and maceration is long—from 15 days for the Rosso to 40 or 50 days for the reserves. The top wines mature in oak for four years (the DOCG requires only two), then rest for three years in bottle. That’s a lot of years, but it’s just what the doctor ordered to calm Nebbiolo’s racy nervatura.

Ar.Pe.Pe. is a bridge to a new generation in Valtellina. Other recently launched wineries include Dirupi, Giorgio Gianatti, and Alberto Marsetti. But their production is small.

Nonetheless, any new blood helps counter the downward trend. Perego recites the dismal numbers: “Vineyard territory was at 5,000 hectares at the end of 1900s. It was 3,000 at end of 1970s. Today it’s 800.” Small, part-time growers supply 70 percent of the grapes. “This is a bit of trouble, because every time one of these old people die, we do not have a replacement,” Perego notes. The work is too hard and the terraces too expensive to maintain.

For that reason, there’s a movement afoot to get UNESCO World Heritage status. It’s a long process and maybe a long shot, but they’re pinning their hopes on it. Even with all their improvements, Valtellina wineries need outside help. “Nowadays, if you own a piece of land, you are not obliged to maintain it,” says Perego. “It’s private property. You could even decide to plant nuts instead of vines. With UNESCO, we could bring more awareness and more protection.”

Leaving Ar.Pe.Pe., I drive up to Sassella for a look. After several torturous switchbacks on the paved road, I turn onto a weathered lane that’s no wider than a donkey cart. Yes, this goes the length of Sassella, I’m told by a woman walking her dog—and yes, it’s for two-way traffic. I inch along, alternately terrorized by the heights (the guardrail seems no more secure than a satin ribbon) and enraptured by the terraces’ harsh beauty. But my mood is wistful. Though this landscape seems so solid—drystone on mountain, granite on granite—it’s actually a fragile place.

This article first appeared in the Nov/Dec 2012 issue of Tastes of Italia.

There’s two ways to approach the insane smorgasbord that is the SALONE DEL GUSTO, Slow Food’s biannual fête in Turin. One is like a butterfly, flitting from booth to enticing booth, guided by whim. The other is like an adrenaline-fueled athlete, with springs in your shoes and a game plan in your pocket. I’m from New York City. Guess which style I embrace? But tackling this foodie marathon is no easy task. For one, it’s huge. A thousand exhibitors from 100 countries fill three cavernous halls at Turin’s convention center, a former Fiat plant. A fourth building holds seminars and meet-the-maker panels throughout the five-day con-fab.

La Dolce Vita Wine Tours features a day at the Salone del Gusto as part of our SLOW FOOD FESTA tour. So I had a single day to cover the event. Or more precisely, five hours, for that’s all the free time I had before our group reconvened at the Enoteca for a vinous giro d’italia. A strategy was needed.

GAME PLAN
First, I booked a seminar several months in advance. I knew from past experience that these sell-out panels were well worth it, offering great opportunities to taste supremely rare stuff. Searching the lineup for Thursday, Oct. 25, I spotted gold: GREAT BAROLO RESERVA FOR AGING. Bingo! (More on this Barolo seminar in a future post.)

Next, I did an advanced search for everything wine-related in the Presidia. The Presidia are about biodiversity—Slow Food’s raison d’etre. According to the entomologist who coined that word, Edward Wilson, an estimated 27,000 species disappear every year. Through its Presidia, Slow Food is doing its part to keep that heritage alive, providing in-kind support to artisan farmers around the world who work with rare native breeds, plant varieties, and traditional techniques—things like heritage turkey in the U.S., ancient varieties of coffee in Uganda, and mountain cheese from the Balkans. Over 200 presidia were here, identified by orange booths.

Eight presidia popped up in my search. Armed with that list and a conference-hall map, I hit the ground running.

GEORGIAN AMPHORA WINE
Three gruff men stood behind a line-up of 14 bottles. They eyeballed me without a word. I reached out my plastic cup and broke the ice. Soon the winemaker with a black beret and nubby wool vest was pouring me samples of wine that had fermented and aged in terracotta amphora—the oldest winemaking technique on the planet. He explained in broken English the particulars of each wine: six months maceration with skins and stems for this one, two years in amphora with skins but no stems for that.

If ever there was an ur wine, something representing the prototype of all wine, it must be this. Unfiltered, fermented with whole bunches, aged in man-sized terracotta jars, the wines were rustic, both reds and whites incredibly tannic, and the flavors unfamiliar and intriguing. I could easily imagine sitting around a sturdy kitchen table until the wee hours, waxing philosophic about the origins of wine, and washing down plates of hearty stew with these farmhouse wines from the Imereti, Kakheti, and Kartli regions of Georgia.

Beside a poster of amphorae, a thin man sat silently. When I mentioned Josko Gravner, the Friulian winemaker who started the long-maceration ‘orange wine’ trend in Italy, they excitedly pointed to their colleague: “He’s the one who makes Gravner’s amphorae!” I get them to pose for photos; they’re laughing now. I wanted to linger, but—as Dante would say—“the road is long, so let’s move on.”

SITGES MALVASIA
An ancient grape, Malvasia has more than 40 subvarieties around the Mediterranean. This one comes from Sitges, near Barcelona. The story is that a Catalan diplomat started commercializing the wine, and when he died, he left his land to the HospitalSant Joan Baptista on the condition that they keep making the wine. And so they did, along with one other producer, Vega de Ribes. Only 4,500 bottles of Sitges Malvasia are produced each year, so Slow Food stepped in to preserve the 2.5 hectares of vineyard from land developers (not that those exist anymore in today’s on-the-brink Spain) and to encourage new plantings by young, enterprising winemakers. At the booth, just one sample—a Vega de Ribes Malvasía Saserra—was being poured. Fragrant as honey, it was nonetheless bone dry. It had me longing for seafood paella and a table overlooking the Spanish coast.

POLISH MEAD
A crowd was elbowing for space at the PASIEKA MACIEJ JAROS stand.  Perhaps they were attracted by the handmade ceramic bottles, sealed with red wax. Maybe it was the romance of mead, which appears in Norse mythology, the writings of Aristotle and Pliny, and the mead halls in Beowulf and Shakespeare. Or perhaps it was because Maciej Jaros is the last mead producer in Poland to adhere to traditional practices. With 30 hives, Jaros makes various types of aromatic honey, and from these he concocts a mind-spinning array of mead, using various ratios of water to honey and aging periods that can extend up to 20 years.

A Polish hipster in plaid shirt is pouring samples of Trójniak (2:1), Dwójniak (1:1), and raspberry-infused Maliniak. Once upon a time, mead was popular in regions where grapes cannot grow. That no longer matters. “I was at a mead festival in Boulder,” says the young man, “and there were 400 producers from around the world.” “Who drinks the most mead?” asks the Gravenstein apple-grower beside me. “It’s still Poland,” the youth replies. “It’s sold in good wine shops. We have it after dinner.” My mouth waters; I’m imaging this with makowiec, the Polish poppy-seed cake with raisins, walnuts, and orange peel. Ya think there’s a Polish pastry booth here? But I’m not even halfway through my list and decide to stick to the plan.

SWISS BRENZERKIRSCH
I’m doing my best to follow instructions and detect the marizan aromas in this rare kirsch, but I’m just getting rocket fuel. Distilled liquors aren’t my thing. But I understand why Slow Food has embraced this cherry brandy. The Brenzer cherry, a sweet, black heritage variety, is troublesome. It grows on tall trees so it’s more difficult to harvest than modern hybrids, and the cherries must be crushed the same day as picking rather than heaped into piles to await a consolidated transport to the crusher. This and recent changes in EU duties now make it wholly unprofitable to grow. Thus, the Slow Food cavalry charged in. I’m thinking that Brenzerkirsch is probably okay paired with a blazing fireplace in a Swiss chalet.

Somehow I can’t find booth 6F 032, so I miss the chance to taste Austria’s Wiener Gemischter Salz, a white wine made from old field blends near Vienna. And since time is drawing short, I skip two Italian Presidia—Trentino Vin Santo, made from the indigenous nosiola grape, and Moscato Passito from the Sagnario di Strevi Valley in Piedmont. That leaves one last wine on my list.

MOSCATO PASSITO di SARACENA
Like malvasia, moscato is an ancient grape with a huge family tree. I’ve tried many, from Piedmont’s feather-like Moscato d’Asti to Sicily’s hedonistic Passito di Pantelleria. But never before had I encountered this version from Calabria (the toe of Italy’s boot). The elaborate technique seems like it should have come out of a medieval recipe book, or better yet, represent an impossible fairytale task:

• Pick the Sarecana Moscatello grapes in September, when they are most aromatic. Hang in bunches to dry.

• In October, harvest the malvasia and guarnaccia grapes and crush. Boil the must in a copper vat to concentrate sugars. Ferment.

• Take the dried Moscatello grapes, remove stalks, and select perfect berries, one by one. Lightly squeeze and add to the cooked must. Ferment until the month of April.

Instead of wizards, three normal-looking winemakers stood at the stand. They lined up six wine glasses for me and poured a taste from their various wineries. All were delicious, but my favorite was from CANTINE VIOLA. Its aromas alone could intoxicate, with notes of honey, dried apricot, and candied orange peel. Traditionally, this was served with dried figs that had been stuffed with almonds, walnuts, and lemon peels, then baked.

Tantalus incarnate! My time was up!

Sprinting to the Barolo seminar, I passed heaps of cheese in every shape and form, artisan chocolates, traditional pastries, heritage beans and grains, exotic apples, craft beers, a zillion salumi, even snails. It was painfully obvious that I’d just scratched the surface. Another day or two here would be absolutely essential to come away satisfied. And maybe next time, I'll slow my sprint down to a walk. It is Slow Food, after all.

For me, it’s a disappointment. Uncorked editor Steve Yafa encouraged me to contribute the kind of writing I like to do—something with a voice, a personal perspective, a narrative thread. I’ll start looking for another forum, but believe me, it’s not easy to find that kind of unfettered freedom and allowance for personal voice in magazine publishing.

So, here are the fruits of my labor — text and photos by yours truly. Without the iPad app, the layout doesn’t look as beautiful. But no matter; the content’s still great, in my humble opinion.

CHIANTI: AS YOU LIKE IT - Private appointments and public tours are the key to an unforgettable visit
August 21, 2012

IN PRASIE OF ANCIENT GRAPES: Roman-era vines are thriving in Campania—and produce superb, age-worthy whites
August 7, 2012

HOW TO READ AN ITALIAN WINE LABEL: Our Foolproof Guide: The Next Best Thing to GPS
July 24, 2012

SESTI’S CELESTIAL BRUNELLOS: Heavenly wines from an earthly paradise
July 10, 2012

A NEW DAY DOWNS FOR VALPOLICELLA: A thin, bulk Veronese wine gets reborn as the perfect summer red
June 19, 2012

GRIGNOLINO, PIEDMONT’S HIDDEN TREASURE: In a stronghold of hearty reds, this obscure wine is a real find
May 29, 2012

CHIANTI, BORN UNDER A TUSCAN SUN: Chianti is laced with sandy tannins and fond memories
May 15, 2012

GAVI, DELICIOUS AND NEGLECTED: At 1,041 years old, this wine is primed for a comeback
May 1, 2012

SEASIDE TREASURE: Lean, bright Vermentino, a perfumed gift from the Mediterranean coast
April 10, 2012

I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I ended up walking out of a Bologna wine shop with a bottle of grignolino in my hand. I hadn’t a clue what it was. Looking back, it’s pretty astonishing that this rare Piedmont varietal found its way into that wine shop in the first place, 200 miles from home.

But that was the beginning of a long friendship with this peculiar, love-it-or-hate-it wine.

That evening, I took the bottle to a friend’s apartment. She’d made homemade pizza—a virgin crust sprinkled with rosemary, sea salt, and gobs of fruity olive oil. I uncorked the wine and poured a glass. We all stared. It looked like a rosé: transparent as glass, with a pretty salmon color and orange reflections. Her Italian roommate frowned and suspiciously grabbed the bottle to examine the label. But this was no rosé. I took a sip. It was super dry and tasted of red raspberries and white pepper. And surprisingly, this pale waif had bones: astringent tannins filled the mouth in a pleasing way, giving the wine structure and saying “Come on in!” to that glistening rosemary pizza.

If you’ve never heard of Grignolino (green-yo-LEE-no), it’s no surprise. This is one of Piedmont’s hidden treasures. In wine encyclopedias, it gets lumped together with freisa, ruché, and pelaverga under Piedmont’s “farmhouse reds.” All are rarely found outside their native turf, which for grignolino means Monferrato and Asti. During hot summer days, it’s these wines that the piemontese localsdrink in place of whites, which are as rare as hens’ teeth.

If you happened to be in Monferrato on May 13, you’d have gotten a crash course at the annual “Di Grignolino…in Grignolino” sagra, where 19 producers poured samples ranging in color from onion skin to cherry red. Mind you, none are vinified like a rosé. The grape just happens to have very little pigment in its skin. What it does have is seeds—three times the average. That’s where it gets both its name (grignòle means “many pips” in dialect) and its ample tannins.

Champagne and grignolino
Back when Piedmont was still a kingdom, grignolino had its moment of glory. “Grignolino, like nebbiolo, was the grape of nobility,” says Raffaella Bologna, proprietor at the Braida di Giacomo Bologna winery. “Here, the King of Savoia used to drink champagne…and grignolino.”

Where kings lead, aristocrats follow. Some of those same noble families still grow grignolino today. Italians would certainly recognize the Alfieri name, whose lords were famous in politics and poetry. In addition to their flagship barbera, the Marchesi Alfieri winery makes an excellent grignolino dubbed Sansoero.

Another noble name, recognizable the world over, is Marchesi Incisa della Rochetta. One son, Mario, moved to Bolgheri and founded Tenuta San Guido in 1942, where he created Sassicaia, launching the Super Tuscan juggernaut. The rest stayed in their ancestral home on the banks of the Tanaro river. (The fact that the town is called Rochetta Tanaro speaks to their history here.) The current generation is the area’s largest grignolino producer.

Oh so seedy
But overall, acreage is on the decline. Grignolino is bothersome to grow. The yield is low and it’s sensitive to disease, requiring meticulous vineyard management. That makes it expensive to grow relative to what producers can charge for this style of wine.

Pale and seedy, it’s also hard to vinify. “It can be too light in color, too bitter, or too acidic,” says Bologna. “I confess, grignolino is the only wine I cried over. When I started as a winemaker, I didn’t understand it. You can easily mistake the balance.” The first time she had to decide when to separate the must from the skins and seeds, she despaired: “I kept tasting and retasting, not understanding. In one of my phone calls to my father, I said, ‘Papa, I don’t know what to do!’ ” She laughs at the thought. “Even though I’d studied winemaking and was at his side in past vintages, when I had to make the final decision, I was very embarrassed to say, ‘I’m not able.’ But from that moment on, I learned.”

So why has Braida carried on with this fussy, obscure grape for more than 50 years when other wineries have dropped it? “First, because we love it. In the summertime, it’s the wine we most drink,” she says. “E’ un vino della nostra pancia—it’s a wine of our gut. We’re born with it, so when you open the fridge and say, ‘What will I drink?’ it’s our immediate choice.” (Like most natives, Bologna prefers it slightly chilled.) Then there’s the local history—Braida is neighbors with Marchesi Incisa—plus the changing eating patterns of Italians, who are switching to lighter dishes, which call for lighter wines.

Braida makes 30,000 bottles of grignolino annually. “The market is very loyal and always the same,” says Bologna. It’s also very local. Most of the 2 million bottles of Grignolino d’Asti and Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese—its two DOCs (demoninazione di origine)—are consumed in Italy.

Before Martha's Vineyard, there was Heitz grignolino

If you can’t find a Piedmont grignolino at your neighborhood shop, look in the Napa section, where you just might spot one from Heitz. It’s odd to think of this cabernet king as making grignolino, but it was actually their first wine. “My parents bought eight acres on Highway 29 from Leon Brendel, who’d brought cuttings when he came over from northern Italy,” says Katherine Heitz. She keeps some of Brendel’s old labels—one dating to 1947—in her desk drawer. “He sold his grignolino in gallon jugs out back door. My parents were starting from scratch, and Mr. Brendel already had a client base for the grignolino, so they kept some of those vines to keep that customer base.” Heitz produces about 16,000 bottles in red and rosé styles, and doesn’t plan to stop. “That was our foot in the door, our first vineyard,” she says. Like her Piedmont peers, Heitz likes keeping a lighter option in their portfolio, which is otherwise dominated by heavy hitters.

Heitz recommends having grignolino with spicy Asian food, barbecue, or a simple plate of spaghetti. Bologna says it’s perfect with salumi and antipasti; most recently she served it with tuna paté and crudité. For my part, I’ll take it any day with a rosemary pizza.

4 to try

Castello di Neive, Piemonte Grignolino ($13) 13%
A classic style from 25-year-old vines, this is clear brick-red in color, with red raspberry and white pepper notes, and lean tannins on a long finish.

La Casaccia, “Poggeto” Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese ($12) 12.5%
Characteristic pale salmon color with orange reflections, a delicate bouquet of red berries and spice, fine tannins, and a tart, bright finish.

Cascina Tavijn, Grignolino d’Asti ($22) 13%
An organic wine from 50-year-old vines, this is pale orange-red with a distinctive earthy character, revealing strawberry and black pepper, an almond finish, and loads of mouth-filling tannins.

Heitz Cellar, Napa Valley Grignolino ($19) 13.8%
More ruby colored and fruit-forward than its piemontese counterparts and with less pronounced tannins, this offers juicy strawberry-candy flavors, bright acidity, and a long finish.

This article first appeared in UNCORKED (May 29, 2012).

Yep, today’s my birthday. So I took this occasion to raid our cellar in Varinella for a little gathering last night. It wasn’t exactly a depletion party (that day awaits—and is sorely needed), but I did want to grab some older vintages that my husband normally guards like a growling three-headed Cerebus and uncork them with a few friends. My idea was to have a face-off of four top wines: Brunello, Barolo, Amarone, and Rioja.

So, I popped an allergy pill and went down into the cantina to root around. We’re fortunate to have a real underground cellar. This part of the house is the oldest, probably dating back to the 13th century when the village was founded by monks. Its floors are dirt, it contains an ancient well (with water), an arched brick ceiling with hooks for hanging meat, a square cement fermentation vat in the corner from the 1950s, and our wine collection—about 300 to 400 bottles, very loosely organized by region and vintage.

I went straight for the oldest vintages that we possess—the kinds of bottles we’ve been saving for a special occasion. “Like my birthday,” I coaxed Cerebus.

We selected a mouth-watering line-up of contenders:

BRUNELLO VIGNA DI PIANROSSO  1997, Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona
BAROLO BRICCO DEL FIASC 1997, Paolo Scavino
RIOJA RESERVA 2002, Roda
AMARONE 2001, Trabucchi

We also had pecorino aged under walnut leaves and finocchiona (fennel-flecked sausage) from Tuscany, plus some divine cheeses that I brought back from Valtellina last week, including bitto, made only in summertime from the milk of cows who pastured in grassy alpine meadows. Then there was fruit, grissini, rye cracker-like rounds from Valtellina, and endless biscotti (the gift of choice). Just my kind of meal.

All the wines were decanted. All were sipped and swirled by our friends—some wine freaks, some novices (yes, that’s possible in Italy). Then we voted on our favorite two.

Who would believe that a Scavino Barolo cru from 1997 would actually come in last? Among Piedmont natives, no less! (Always a proud lot.) Actually, it tied with the Brunello (97pt WS). Neither got a single vote. And indeed, the Ciacci Brunello Reserve tasted a bit aspro, harsh and withholding. The Scavino showed some nice licorice notes, and I remember waving my hand in circles of appreciation.

But both paled when compared to the Rioja and Amarone. Roda’s Rioja—a classic blend of tempranillo, garnacha, and graciano—seduced with succulent fruit, which was still lively and fresh. Its American oak was well integrated by now, so you were left of a beautifully balanced, polished wine. Roda has always been a favorite of mine, and this really sealed the deal. The Rioja got everyone’s second vote (except for one).

Folks really fell hard for the Trabucchi Amarone, the hands-down first-place winner. And what’s not to love? Amarone is such a fascinating wine. On first impression, it registers as sweet in the mouth, with flavors of stewed cherry fruit, black fig, black raisin. But wait a second, and finishes dry. It’s like a parlor trick you want to see again…and again. That decanter of Trabucchi Amarone was depleted before you could say boo.

The best part was this: Some of our friends had never tried Amarone before, let alone Rioja. Even though we live next door to a wine town (Gavi) and have friends who love wine, they don’t get many choices in their local wine shops that extend much beyond a 50-mile radius. For better or worse, Italians are still locavores when it comes to food and wine.

So my greatest gift today was to spread the wealth of our cellar—and the bliss.

24 HOURS LATER...
What a difference a day makes. We revisited these wines the next night at dinner.  The little Amarone that remained was still tops.  (Why is it that more wine tourists don’t want to travel to the Veneto? I’ve never understood that lack of interest.) The Roda seemed oxidized. But to our delight, the two “losers” had undergone a beautiful transformation, like butterflies that had finally broken out of their cocoons and were displaying their full glory.

The Barolo was now revealing all those tertiary aromas and flavors that come with age: licorice most notably, plus leather and balsamic notes. The Ciacci was a real surprise, with clove and dry spice coming through—aromas not even hinted at yesterday. These rode on the back of red fruit that was still bright and lively. Comparing 1997s, the sangiovese seemed fresher, the fruit still in its prime, while the Barolo was more evolved – the kind of Barolo that craves a dish with earthy porcini or white truffles.

Bottom line: Even decanting a couple of hours before serving doesn’t do a complex, tight wine justice. They need even more time to find their voice. Next time, we’ll try a morning wake-up call.

As soon as I stepped into the Grant Hyatt New York for the Chianti Masterclass, my heart sank. I’d come expecting a Chianti Classico event, a gathering of the great and mighty from this legendary zone between Florence and Siena. Instead, here was a cast of outliers—47 wineries with unfamiliar names from Siena, Arezzo, Pistoia, Prato, and Pisa. I felt like I’d mistakenly arrived at the wrong cocktail party on the outskirts of town. Worse yet, I felt gypped of the opportunity to taste some really great wine.

What a snob you are, I then thought, wondering where I’d picked up such a dismissive attitude towards “the other Chiantis.” It took only a second to realize—it was in Chianti Classico itself.

Chianti Classico & the "other" Chiantis
I’d completely absorbed their oft-repeated narrative, which goes like this: Chianti Classico is the original territory for Chianti wine, its borders first defined in 1716 by the Grand Duke Cosimo III dei Medici and circumscribing Gaiole, Radda, and Castellina. Here, it’s said, the terrain is more mountainous, the soil rockier, the wines more powerful—Chianti at its best. It was here in the 1800s that Bettino Ricasoli of CASTELLO BROLIO first identified sangiovese as the superior grape among indigenous varieties, recognizing that it had the right stuff for age-worthy wines—those appropriate to the dignified guests he’d soon be entertaining as Prime Minister of the newly created nation of Italy.

But as Chianti’s fame spread, the surrounding territories started jumping on the bandwagon and using its name to sell their simpler wines. The peeved producers in the historic heartland felt it diluted their brand and pushed back. The result was the creation of the Chianti Classico zone in 1932, while outliers were given new names indicative of geography, mostly hills (colli). Today seven Chianti zones encircle the Classico territory: Colli Aretini (the hills of Arezzo), Colli Fiorentini (Florence), Colli Senesi (Siena), Colline Pisane (Pisa), Montalbano (near Monte Albano in Pistoia), Rufina (northeast of Florence), and Montespertoli (southwest of Florence). All fall within a broader DOCG (denominazione di origine controllata e garantita) that takes the name of “Chianti” plain and simple. Producers within each subregion can append their name, such as “Chianti Colli Senesi.”

Meanwhile, at the panel discussion....
Complicated, I know. So are the evolving DOCG rules that dictate grapes, blends, and aging. Predictably, the panel discussion during our master class revolved around such details. As we tasted, wine pros in the audience grilled the panelists about the percentage of sangiovese in each blend (by law, between 70 to 100 percent); about the prevalence of merlot as a supporting player (it softens sangiovese’s aggressive tannins without competing with its perfumes); about the use of French barrique versus Slavonian cask for aging. The usual stuff.

While all this helps explain why a wine tastes the way it does, it only goes so far towards understanding it. Why has Chianti endured as one of the most recognizable wine names in the world? For me, the idea of Chianti clicked into place at a certain moment in the discussion.

“Do people want to know what grapes are in the Chianti?” the moderator asked Dan Amatazzi, wine director at EATALY, Mario Batali’s Italian food emporium.

“No. They ask what’s on sale,” he replied. That got a laugh, but then he continued with a more revealing point: “The customers bring in stories—about their visits to Tuscany, about wines they had on vacation. If they want a Chianti, they’ll get a Chianti; they don’t want to know grapes or regions.”

This is what the Chianti Classico narrative misses: People want a memory trigger, a way to travel back to that cozy trattoria in Florence where they ate penne and drank wine served in a rooster-shaped carafe. It doesn’t matter whether it was a Chianti or a Chianti Classico. And chances are, it was a basic, quaffable Chianti—nothing special, but something that went great with their pasta and augmented the glow they felt after a memorable day under the Tuscan sun.

What's your Chianti moment?
Thinking back, I can pinpoint my own Chianti moment, the one that got me interested in wine. It was at the Pensione Bandini, where I lived when studying in Florence. Two resident Italian law students were in the habit of bringing a crusty loaf of bread, a round of fresh pecorino, and an unlabeled bottle of wine to the fifth-floor loggia at magic hour. A few of us Americans would join them. Watching the swallows dive over the angular landscape of terracotta rooftops, we’d try to bridge the language gap. I don’t remember our conversations, but I do remember that wine. It was fresh, delicious, and nothing like the dreadful plonk I’d tentatively explored during high school. I remember thinking, This actually tastes like grapes! Today I might call it fruit-forward, young, and simple. But “simple” doesn’t diminish its rightness. There are times when simple is good: A Tuscan sunset. Swallows careening in their circular dance. Church bells tolling in a Renaissance campanile. A young Chianti sipped on a loggia with friends.

Mind you, not all Chiantis are simple and young. There’s a huge range, due to the fact that some 3,600 wineries make Chianti (that’s in addition to the 350in Chianti Classico). Indeed, three-quarters of Tuscany falls inside the Chianti DOCG zone, the largest in Italy.

A few good wines
That’s why it is possible to find examples that are as powerful and structured as the best Classicos. At this tasting, CASTELVECCHIO Chianti Colli Fiorentini Riserva was a case in point: a powerhouse wine with sangiovese’s characteristic amarena cherry flavors, ample tannins, and a judicious touch of vanilla. Castelvecchio lies just 200 meters from the border of Chianti Classico and tastes like it.

Then there were wines like MANETTI PAOLO’s Chianti and Chianti Sammontana from FATTORIA DI SAMMONTANA, exemplars ofgood, traditional, lighter bodied Chianti. Both had that transparent crimson color that defines sangiovese and offered tart cherry and cranberry flavors, fine sandy tannins, and an appealing earthiness. Like Tuscany in a suitcase, they’re the type that transport you back to that rustic osteria in Florence or Pisa or Siena that you so loved.

Speaking with the head of the CONSORZIO VINO CHIANTI, Giovanni Busi (who makes a delicious Chianti Rufina under the TRAVIGNOLI label), I asked how to wrap one’s head around all these Chianti denominations. Was it better to explore region by region? To break it down by blends?

“No, begin with the producer,” he insisted. Though one may learn that, say, Rufina has the highest elevation and greatest temperature excursion (which sangiovese loves), resulting in its reputation as the best among the “other” Chianti zones, “Rufina” in itself is no guarantee of anything, he notes. “It’s producer, producer, producer.”

At $12–$20 a bottle, it doesn’t cost a fortune to sample through the outer regions of Chianti. Just ask a trusted wine shop to pick out some favorites. What’s nice is that Chianti still offers terrific value as a wine. As a ticket to Tuscany, it’s priceless.

(A version of this story first appeared in UNCORKED on May 8.)

Poised like a hawk on a rocky ledge, the FORTRESS OF GAVI has a commanding view of the Val Lemme. Below lies the village of Gavi, bisected by two medieval roads, while in the hazy distance the Lemme River and its flanking hills oscillate towards Genoa some 30 miles south. Since 973, this fortress has stood sentinel over the valley and its salt roads, those vital arteries that carried goods inland from Genoa’s port. It’s the Cerberus on the borderland between Liguria and the Po Valley, which the warring kingdoms of Genoa and Piedmont vied over for centuries.

A borderline personality
Gavi now belongs to Piedmont, but it was part of the Republic of Genoa until the 1800s, and locals still refer to it as Gavi Ligure. My husband, a native son, has as his proudest possession a silver coin from the Republic of Genoa that he extracted from his kitchen wall during renovations; dated 1796, it was probably hidden by some terrified paesano when Napoleon’s army bore down from the north.

Though the fort has lain dormant since World War II, Gavi is still a border zone—but now it’s a linguistic and gastronomic threshold, and a porous one at that. The local dialect is a mashup of Genovese and Piemontese. Gavi’s trattorie serve both pesto alla Genovese and Piedmont-style ravioli stuffed with meat (though the condiment here is wine—red dolcetto or white cortese—poured straight from the bottle over the heaping bowls of agnolotti).

All this helps explain the puzzle of Gavi wine, an isolated oasis of white in a sea of Piedmont red. Made from the CORTESE grape, the straw-colored, delicately perfumed Gavi (or Cortese di Gavi) feels more Ligurian in nature, a cousin to vermentino, pigato, or albarola. But cortese is not related to any of those seaside grapes. (Piedmont’s more obscure favorita grape is, being genetically identical to vermentino). Instead, cortese’s birthplace is just up the road near Tortona—well inside Piedmont’s boundaries. In essence, Gavi wine shares the same borderline personality as its namesake town.

Gavi's 19th century origins
As an Italian wine, Gavi has had its moments in the sun. Now is not one of them. But in the late 1800s and again in the 1960s, it was Italy’s most famous white wine.

It first gained cache thanks to Marchese Cambiaso, a nobleman who aspired to serve his titled guests something more distinguished than the rustic barbera and nebbiolo his own farmhands drank. White wine was more difficult to make, thus more special. So in 1876, Cambiaso initiated the first large-scale plantings of cortese. Other nobles followed suit, and gradually Gavi became a region of whites. This high-water mark ebbed a generation or two later, when grapes started being redirected to Cinzano, Martini & Rossi, et al to create the base for spumante.

Gavi’s second wave crested a century after Cambiaso, when Vittorio Soldati created LA SCOLCA’s black label Gavi dei Gavi. A savvy marketer, Soldati managed to get his wine into the trendsetting hotspots like the Orient Express and Paissa, a luxury food shop in Turin. By the 1970s, Gavi was Italy's most famous—and expensive—white wine.

Gavi today
Today, if asked to name the best white wines of Italy, chances are Gavi wouldn’t be the first to jump to mind. It’s facing stiff competition from the Veneto, Friuli, Campania, even Piedmont itself, where Arneis has become the new darling of the white-wine set.

That’s in part attributable to Gavi’s wan marketing efforts. The inability of local winemakers and their DOCG Consortium to muster a collective presence on the international stage is a real handicap. A constant reminder of this neglect sits forlornly at the end of town: the Enoteca di Gavi, the DOCG’s official showcase. Housed in an old slaughterhouse, the building was redone, painted a cheery pink, decorated with flowers, and officially inaugurated in 2006 before the scaffolding came down. But the enoteca has yet to open to the public—a symbol of inertia, if there ever was one.

Individually, however, Gavi winemakers are doing terrific work. If you ignore the bulk wines (and please do, since mass-produced Gavi is totally insipid), you’ll find plenty of great examples. Take BROGLIA’s La Meirana Gavi del Commune di Gavi. This cru has the distinction of coming from the oldest documented vineyard in the area—1041 years old, to be exact. According to a land deed in the church archives, a property called Meirana containing “vineyards and chestnut trees” was sold by the bishop to two freemen of Genoa in 971. La Meirana is textbook Gavi, with shimmering veils of white flower, citrus, and honeydew, followed by a long trail of minerality.

Another name to look for is LA GIUSTINIANA (above), which makes a good basic Gavi, plus two splendid cru from the chalky soil of the Rovereto subzone. This is a gorgeous property to boot, its stately neoclassical villa flanked by marble statues and towering chestnut trees. Built in 1625 by Captain Guistinana, a defender of the Fortress of Gavi, it evokes the patrician lifestyle once enjoyed in these hills, a summer escape from Genoa’s heat.

Cortese’s high acidity makes it a natural for sparkling wines (a fact recognized by Louis Oudart, the enologist who helped give birth to Barolo in the 1800s and the first to use cortese in a sparkler). Today only a few wineries make frizzante or spumante Gavi. Fortunately, VILLA SPARINA’s lovely Brut is exported. Made using the laborious metodo classico technique, this wine sits on its lees for three years, sharing space in the groin-vaulted cellar with homemade salumi dangling from iron hooks. Charming when young, the Brut gains an alluring creaminess and hazelnut character with time. I’ve tasted one that’s 12 years old, and it’s the best argument yet for Gavi’s ageability.

That longevity question was the theme at the premiere event of GOLDEN GAVI, a new promotional group (at last!) formed by nine wineries, with La Guistiniana winemaker Enrico Tomalino serving as president. The initiative launched in 2010 with a vertical tasting of 10 vintages at the Fortress of Gavi, and the group has started appearing at international trade events. More uniquely, these winemakers are promoting local enotourism by designing hiking and biking circuits that pass through their vineyards and presumably end up in someone’s cellar.

It gives hope. Meanwhile, I’ll grab a bottle for my pasta primavera and do my part to keep Gavi’s thousand-year history going. To do yours, try some of the following:

Villa Sparina, NV Brut, $27
La Giustiniana, Lugarara Gavi del Commune di Gavi, $15
Broglia, La Meirana Gavi del Commune di Gavi, $17
Picollo, Gavi del Commune di Gavi, $10

This article first appeared in UNCORKED on April 24, 2012. Visit Gavi on our LAND OF BAROLO tour.

Hiking the Cinque Terre, it's impossible not to be bug-eyed at its spectacular beauty: rocky cliffs towering over aquamarine waters, quaint fishing villages painted a patchwork of pastels. That’s why I always remind my fellow trekkers not just to look, but to smell. “Remember these scents,” I say, “because we’ll be tasting them tonight in our wine.” Kicking along the rocky path, we inhale the perfumes of the macchia—broom and jasmine, wild fennel, pungent sage, resiny pine and juniper—along with flinty trail dust and salt air.

Hours later, it’s all there, swirling around in our glass of Vermentino: a touch of savory herb, some delicate floral notes, fantastic minerality, and a trace of sapiditá—that salinity on the finish that identifies this wine as a seaside treasure.

Vermentino is a grape that needs to see the sea. Plump and prone to breakage and rot, it craves the Mediterranean heat and radiant rocks and diurnal breeze off the water, like a bronzed Italian on permanent vacation in the Riviera. Vermentino thrives in Liguria, both east of Genoa (the Levante) and west (Ponente), where its genetically identical, freckled cousin Pigato also grows. (Pigato is dialect for spots, which develop upon ripening.) It also excels over the border in Provence and the Languedoc, where it’s called Rolle; in Provence, it’s the only grape permitted to be bottled pure, rather than blended. Traveling south along the Italian coast, it’s made a comfortable seaside home in Tuscany. But its cradle is Sardinia and Corsica, smack in the middle of this maritime triangle.

Vermentino came to Italy by way of Sardinia, brought by the Spanish who occupied the island from 1324 to 1720 under the Crown of Aragon. That’s one theory anyway, buttressed by the fact that the Aragonese most certainly introduced Carignan and Grenache (Cannanau) to Sardinia. A competing theory is that it came through Corsica and arrived in Liguria first. Alfonso Gagliano, Sella & Mosca brand ambassador at Campari Wines, makes an etymological case for Sardinia. Northern Sardinians pronounce f like v, he notes, “so fermentino would be vermentino. This varietal ripens early, so it’s the first to ferment—thus fermentino.”

One thing is sure. “The origin of Vermentino is a Malvasia from Iberia,” says Gagliano. “From a genetic point of view, Malvasia is a big grandmother of many Italian varietals,” and Vermentino’s cousins include Vernaccia di San Gimignano and Torbato from Sardinia.

Complicating everything is genetic testing that suggests Vermentino’s kinship with Furmint, the grape in Hungary’s dessert wine, Tokaji. But all could have descended from some Ur-grape in Greece or further east, so the historical threads have yet to be untangled.

While scientists battle it out, you can skip over to your local wine shop for some personal research. The Vermentino you’re most likely to encounter comes from Sardinia, which makes about 75 percent of Italy’s output. Two ubiquitous brands are Costamolino from ARGIOLAS ($15) and La Cala Vermentino from SELLA & MOSCA  ($10), the island’s largest producers. These entry-level wines come mostly from the flatlands—fertile soil that makes for a plumper style with flavors veering towards tropical fruit (think pineapple and citrus). Both are easy summer quaffers that’ll brighten up any grilled fish like a spritz of lemon.

You also might bump into two excellent examples from Bolgheri, Tuscany’s Gold Coast, both by boldface names: Antinori, vintners for 500 years, crafts an elegant, full-bodied Vermentino di Bolgheri ($20) at their GUADO AL TASSO estate. Down the road is POGGIO AL TESORO, a new property of the Veneto-based Allegrini family, known for their Amarone. Using a small-berried clone from Corsica, they make Solosole Vermentino Bolgheri ($18), redolent of acacia and fresh apricot. Like the best Vermentinos, this has prolonged lees contact and no aging in wood (thus its name solo sole, or “only sun”), resulting in clean, concentrated flavors.

The jewel in the crown is the rare Vermentino di Gallura, the only Vermentino to warrant top DOCG classification. Gallura is an area on the jagged northern edge of Sardinia, where vineyards grow on granite cliffs with just the barest hint of top soil. Buffeted by winds from the open sea, the stressed vines produce Vermentino is at its most intense. Though Sella & Mosca makes a gorgeous Gallura, production is just too small for export. Sadly, that’s a common tale. Scouring New York’s meticulously stocked, sommelier-worthy wine shops, I could find just one: Vermentino di Gallura Juannisolou from VIGNE SURRAU  ($16). So if you see a Vermentino di Gallura, grab it.

But take heart. The crème de la crème, in my opinion, comes from Liguria. Maybe I’m biased, living part-time near Gavi, which was once part of Liguria. Or maybe it’s because their Vermentino is so finely chiseled. It’s leaner, bracingly clean, and offers that benchmark bouquet of wild herbs, broom, and minerality that I adore.

When in Liguria, I look for Maria Donata Bianchi, Terre Rosse, Terre Bianche, and Ottaviano Lambruschi. None export, understandably; we’re talking handkerchief-sized vineyards tucked into the folds of the Ligurian Apennines, so production is painstaking and small. Nonetheless, a few bottlings make it Stateside, and they’re worth tracking down. There’s LAURA ASCHERO’s sprightly Vermentino Riviera Ligure di Ponente ($50), plus two from CANTINE LUNAE BOSONI. A stone’s throw from the marble quarries of Carrara beloved by Michaelangelo, Lunae collaborates with 150 growers and thus is able to get some volume. Their gray-label Vermentino Colli di Luni ($20) is fresh, floral, and bright—a benchmark wine. The black label ($33) comes from a rigorous selection of grapes with two days of cold maceration, offering more color and complexity. Both have been racking up awards and, according to importer Laird & Company, reaching the U.S. in greater supply. (See “Loonie for Lunae” for a winery profile.)

So do yourself a favor. Hunt down a good Vermentino and some fresh focaccia. Pour yourself a glass. Then pour another alongside your pesto alla genovese. Then another with your roasted sea bass with olives, cherry tomatoes, and rosemary potatoes. You’ll swear you can hear the waves breaking.

This article was first published in UNCORKED (April 10, 2012).