VINO
“Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried with fewer tensions
and more tolerance.” – Benjamin Franklin
I don’t do lists. I definitely don’t do ‘to do’ lists. Things will get done, when they get done.
But we do make travel lists. It’s typically a New Year’s Day ‘conflab’, with wine of course. In countries where we’ve worked, it was always the ‘places to go before we leave’ kind of list. Those lists had some sense of urgency as well.
Enter a new list. It’s simply called ‘the Italy list’. For once, there’s no rush, no order, no “we need to go before”. Much of Italy’s heritage across 20 regions, evidence of an ancient civilisation, has been there for a very long time and will be around for a long time to come.
And then there’s the wine. It’s always about the wine.
Each trip within Italy has introduced us to regional dishes and wines. Our first trip north featured fine Prosecco in Venice and Soave with dinner in Padova.
Puglia presented us with intense Negroamaro wines. In Lombardy we enjoyed Risotto Milanese washed down with Pinot Noir. And we’re big fans of Franciacorta. The many wine estates producing this fine, ‘French cut’ wine warrants more exploration.
In Abruzzo we’ve attended ‘Cantina Aperta’ (open cellars) as well as a 4 day festival dedicated to the celebration of the Montonico wine. Montepulcianno has become a favourite red, a dark, rich wine with high tannins, which compliments many Italian flavours. The Ortona wine route and its infamous free flowing fountain beckons.
Rimini introduced us to Rebola, served with warm piadini at a local cafe and again the next day, at a Rebola wine festival. It pairs perfectly with fish dishes, as well as many vegetarian plates. In Torino, the capital of Piedmont we enjoyed Barolo, known to many as ‘the king of reds’.
At an enoteca in Napoli we tried Fiano Di Avellino for the first time. At the foot of Vesuvious we tried Vesuvio from Sorrentino winery. And on the island of Capri, a day or two later, we ordered a bottle of Pietra Calda, which to this day remains a firm favourite.
We recently ventured to Veneto. On this trip we headed for the Euganean Hills near Padova to try local wines. We learned of a new wine varietal, Serprino DOC, only produced in the area. This slightly sparkling wine is made from the glera grape, fresh and pleasantly fragrant. We shared a bottle with friends, who generously shared another Serprino made by their family.
We left Veneto with a bottle of the best quality Prosecco, Valdobbiadene Superiore di Cartizze from Treviso.
There have been many memorable journeys into Italian wine, in Abruzzo, Puglia, Umbria, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Piedmont and Campania.
But there are so many many more wines and their regions to explore; Aglianicos in Basilicata, Chiantis in Tuscany, Pinot Grigio in Trentino Alto-Adige, Sauvignon Blancs in Friuli-Venzia Giulia, Verdicchios in Marche, Grechettos in Lazio, Nero d’Avola in Sicily, Cannonau and Vermentino wines in Sardinia, Greccos in Calabria, and the Petit Rouge and Petite Arvine wines of Valle d’Aosta, the smallest wine region in Italy.
Some good friends and told us about the sea aged sparkling wines of Liguria, produced just outside Genoa. That’s another pending trip.
And we look forward to returning to Umbria to visit friends there and sample more Sangiovese.
There are always more wines to discover.
The only question now is, where next?
