The 1st DOC wine of Italy: Vernaccia di San Gimignano with food pairing

San Gimignano, Tuscany

One of the star white grapes of Tuscany is called Vernaccia and you will find it around the town of San Gimignano located southwest of Siena. San Gimignano is a medieval hilltop town surrounded in the present day by 13 towers. Back in the 14^th century there were 72 towers in total that were developed by the upper class families to demonstrate their status in society. San Gimignano is a great place to base yourself for traveling throughout Tuscany. You have the Chianti region at your finger tips, along with Pisa and Lucca to the north and the distinguished wines towns of Montalcino and Montepulciano for their Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano to the south.

Throughout all the grapes of Italy, Vernaccia di San Gimignano was the first to be granted DOC status in 1966 and later was granted DOCG status in 1993. About 5 months back I wrote a blog on the 2012 Crete Rosse Chianti D.O.C.G. that the Tenuta Torciano winery from San Gimignano had shared with me. Today I'm sharing with you their 2012 Poggio Aicieli Vernaccia di San Gimignano. 

I looked forward to this sample as I am a fan of Vernaccia. I thought this wine was a great expression of the vernaccia grape. This is a grape that you will be able to locate in many wine shops as it's not as discreet as some of the other grapes. Tenuta Torciano also has some great wine clubs that you can enjoy as well that shares with you 24 of their wines throughout the year including future discounts. The Poggio Aicieli, meaning “hills to the skies”, had a slight tropical bouquet with an almost clear color to it in the glass with a hint of straw coloring. Being a lighter, refreshing wine it was dry with mouthwatering acidity, nice minerality, some citrus and I picked up lots of sea saltiness on the finish.

I paired this wine with a couple dishes over a couple days, both very different. One was a roasted chicken with roasted potatoes and black olives along with a spinach salad topped with goat cheese, cranberries, walnuts and a homemade vinaigrette. I enjoyed at least half the glass by itself before eating as it was the end of a nice summer day and no better way to unwind than with a glass of wine. It paired nicely with the chicken. My next meal was from Frances Mayes new cookbook “TheTuscan Sun Cookbook”. It was stuffed pasta, I used shells, with ricotta and pears covered with a gorgonzola cream sauce and topped with toasted walnuts. Delicious! It was nice how the creamy sauce smoothed out the acidity of the wine and the fruit of the wine was more present. Two different meals that both paired nicely in their own way showcasing the wine slightly different. The fun of wine and food pairing.

Pierluigi Giachi and his family are backed by 14 generations of winemaking. They have an estate that offers a wide variety of activities and a food and wine experience to satisfy your desires. Check them out and seek out a Vernaccia this summer!

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Drink the calabrese wine of champions!

Crotone, Calabria ~ Castello di Le Castella by Revol Web

I know we have many Calabrese Italians in and around the Boston area. Since my journey through the Italian wine world includes all 20 regions in Italy today I cover one we haven't discussed yet, Calabria. Calabria is located at the toe of the boot separated from Sicily by the Strait of Messina. It's surrounded by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian Seas. Calabria is quite hot as you can imagine and the vineyards can be cooled by the breezes off the seas. Even though it's along the coastline it is quite mountainous there. 

Agriculture plays a big part of living for the folks of this region including a wide variety of vegetables, cured meats (especially salami) and swordfish and shellfish is very popular here.

Calabrian landscape by Piervicenzocanale 

The Greeks had colonized this area of southern Italy, along with other nationalities, and the Greeks are known to have introduced wine making to this region. According to Wine Country, the Greeks used the local grapes from a Greek colony today known as Ciro Marina and the wine they produced was called, Cremissa. This wine was served to the champions of the Olympics. So just think, if you can seek out a bottle of this wine you can be drinking the wine of champions! Alot of the wine here is sold off to cooperatives and some is shipped north to be blended in with grapes, but if you love Italian wine and have been to Calabria or want to go you should know about their wine region.

Gaglioppo grapes by Fabio Ingrosso

The majority of the wine production in Calabria is red wine with the most common grape being gaglioppo and for whites, greco. The center of wine production in this region resides in the area, Ciro, which is what the wine is named after. This is one of the 12 DOC's of this region. Most of the wines in Calabria are the IGT, indicazione geografic tipica, status along with the DOC, denominazione di origine controllata, designations, but there aren't any DOCG wines of this region, which was the highest classification in Italian wines until the recent Gran Selezione designation in the Chianti region. 

There are reds, whites and roses produced in this region, but most popular is the red wine Ciro, which contains at least 95% gaglioppo, which is tannic and full bodied. In the Ciro red it is also blended with greco bianco and trebbiano. The interesting part about Gaglioppo is that it's light in color in the glass, similar to a nebbiolo, but don't be deceived by that as there is plenty structure, acidity and fruit behind it to awaken your senses. The white Ciro is made up of mostly of greco bianco. One of the most known producers of wine from this region is Librandi.

I look forward to visiting more of southern Italy myself, including Calabria & Puglia in the future. Has anyone tried the wine of ancient champions?

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My vacation wines deals under $20 from around the world

I hope you enjoyed my first wine event I went too while aboard my cruise in Alaska. That tasting had higher end fine wines. Don't we all wish that we could drink those every day?! The second one that I tasted was more of your every day affordable wines, which we all love to look for and enjoy. 

This tasting consisted of 5 wines from Italy, Washington, California and Chile. You may be familiar with some yourself. This tasting consisted of:

• 2012 Danzante Pinot Grigio
• 2012 Hogue Riesling
• 2012 Woodbridge Merlot
• 2012 Estancia Pinot Noir
• Errazuriz Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc

Personally what I enjoyed the most, besides the dessert wine which who wouldn't, was the Danzante Pinot Grigio. That's not just because I love Italian wines ; ) As you know by now I'm not overly critical about wines. Every one has different tastes and I won't tell you what to drink and what not to drink, but I won't share a wine with you that I don't find enjoyable. It's all about the journey for the grape and the winemaker and I appreciate the different characteristics that shine through the glass.

Danzante Pinot Grigio

This grape was introduced to Italy in the 1800's. This particular wine comes from the Veneto region including Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige and the Veneto. Straw in color, this wine was aromatic on the nose along with tropical fruit and citrus. It was crisp, refreshing, with some lemon-lime. On the finish I picked up some apple and pear. It was lighter in body, but for this time of year I enjoy that. Danzante has some recipes with pinot grigio on their site to try it with including risotto with truffles, frutti di mare or lemon and black pepper grilled chicken legs. Yum! Enjoy this wine young while it's fresh. You can probably find it for about $8-10.

Hogue Riesling

This wine comes out of the Columbia Valley in Washington state. There is a lot of value coming out of this state when it comes to wine. At about $10 this is an affordable, enjoyable wine. Especially for those that don't like the dry style. Also straw in color with a tinge of yellow, this cool climate grape had a very aromatic nose of honey, petrol, apricot, peach and some orange. It had light to medium body with flavors of ripe fruit combined with some citrus and acidity. Rieslings are always a nice pairing with chinese food or thai.

Woodbridge Merlot by Robert Mondavi

I'll start off by saying who doesn't know Robert Mondavi or whom hasn't tried at least one of his wines, so this may already be a well known red by many. None the less, it was on our tasting list so I wanted to share it. It's made of 80% merlot, 15% petit syrah and 5% syrah. It was aged 20 days in stainless steel and 10 months in french oak, which was present through the flavors of vanilla, especially on the finish. The nose was ripe of plums and berries. Lighter ruby in color it had a medium body and was drier in style with ripe berries. I would pair this with a nice Italian dish that includes sauce. You might be able to scoop this wine up for about $7-8.

Estancia Pinot Noir

Personally if I drink red wines in the summer I like to keep them on the lighter side and that is usually something like a pinot noir. This wine is made of 100% pinot noir from the Central Coast of CA. The color of this pinot was a see through ruby color and had nice fragrance of vanilla and raspberry on the nose. There was some spice, vanilla and cherry on the palate. It's aged 10 months in 25% new french oak and this is where the vanilla nuances came through. I would pair this with a pork tenderloin or salmon.  I can say for sure there was no shortage of salmon on my vacation!  Delicious!  You can find this wine for about $15 give or take.

Errazuriz Late Harvest SauvignonBlanc

As they always say, save the best for last and I always eat my meal so I get dessert! This wine is primarily sauvignon blanc with some gewurztraminer and viognier from the Casablanca Valley in Chile. Another place on my travel list! Late harvest is when the grapes stay longer on the vines to ripen more and become more concentrated. This dessert wine had a thicker consistency than your typical sauvignon blanc wine. It spends 11 months in barrel. There is lots of honey and apricots on both the nose and palate. It's very smooth and if you have a sweet tooth you must top your meal off with this. You can probably score this wine for about $18-20.

Lots of deals here to experiment with and for the prices you won't be disappointed. Have a great weekend everyone!

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