Italian Rosè

Pink is the new white. Last night’s rosè tasting was a lot of fun, and an eye-opener for many who had always associated rosè with the cloyingly sweet versions of the wine. Quality rosè in Europe though has always been dry for the most part, and is a wonderful choice this time of year.  Warm weather has finally arrived in Rome and mother nature seems to be making up for lost time by blasting us, and it has had me reaching for the rosè! Big red wine sounds so unpalatable, but sometimes you want more than a white. With rosè, you can get the body of a red with the thirst-quenching quality of a white. They often bring a spiciness to the palate that is a wonderful accompaniment to the peperocino-laced fish stews that abound along the Italian coasts, or the fiery foods of Calabria like ‘nduja sausage. Not too many whites out there could hold their own against all of that flavor and heat, but a good rosè will cool you down without being overpowered. 

Quality pink wine is made not by blending white and red wine together, but instead by allowing a limited skin contact time. (The one exception is pink bubbly, rosè Champagnes and other quality sparklers do indeed blend white and red together, which is just one component of the complicated assemblage  process involved.) Red wine derives its color from the skins, which is extracted during the fermentation process. Those skins also contain tannin, but the color is extracted first. Reds might spend weeks macerating with their skins, but depending on the grape variety you have and the type of rosè you want to make, a pink wine will spend somewhere between 12 and 48 hours. This usually  means tannin has not been extracted, so with rosès you rarely get the astringency that can accompany young reds. Colors can range anywhere from peach (made from white grapes) to bright cherry reds. The aromas are usually of bright fruit, sometimes with some spiciness with cinnamon or floral notes.

Tonight we looked at five Italian rosès, all from the south. I love northern rosès as well, but I wanted a more focused tasting this time. Overall we were very happy with the wines, especially when you consider the prices. Only one wine was 20 euros, and the other four all fell between 7 and 9 euros. The first two were a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Cerasuolo and a Salento Rosato from Puglia. They were quite similar in color and aroma, despite being from distinct regions. Both were a bit muted in their flavors but presented a nice, refreshing acidity, with the second wine perhaps being a bit more thirst-quenching. The Salento wine is one of the more famous Italian rosès, the Rosa del Golfo. This bottling didn’t quite seem to live up to its reputation. 

The next three wines were the clear favorites of the evening. The third was actually the oldest wine, a 2007, from Sicily. Often in a tasting you go from youngest to oldest, but I felt confident that the other remaining wines would be more complex and concentrated and I didn’t want it to be overpowered.  It turned out to be a wise choice. The wine was a blend of nerello mascalese grapes without the skins, together with the skins of nero d’avola grapes- a rather unusual method. It had wonderful citrus flavors of grapefruit  along with peach and hints cinnamon. On the palate its substantial acidity was well-balanced by the alcohol. Our next choice is perhaps the most famous of Italian pink wines, the Five Roses from Leone de Castris. Also from Puglia, this wine was a much more expressive example than the Rosa del Golfo. It had wonderful spicy aromas of cinnamon and orange zest and felt full and balanced on the palate. The final wine of the evening was a medal winner, the Grayasusi from Calabria. Made from the gaglioppo grape, it was the most complex of our wines. It had distinct aromas of red cherries and a smoky, buttery character to it. The last two wines were the favorites, and the Five Roses at 7.50 a bottle versus the 20 euros for the Grayasusi, offers the best value for money by far. Both though are excellent examples of the “pink stuff”, and are destined for different uses. The Five Roses is a classic rosè with bright acidity and primary aromas of fruit. The Calabrese wine has the complexity of a red, but a price to match. If the weather is as hot where you are as it is in Rome, think of rosè the next time you’re looking for a change. You just might be converted.

The line-up:

1. Montepulcianod’Abruzzo Cerasuolo 2009 Cataldi Madonna

2. Salento Rosato Rosa del Golfo 2009 Cantine Rosa del Golfo

3. Sicilia Le Rose 2007 Regleali

4. Salento Five Roses 2008 Leone de Castris

5. Val di Neto Grayasusi 2009 Roberto Ceraudo

Wine of the Week

The other day I met up with my girlfriends for a much needed catch up session. These are always fueled by wine of course, but for one of us (not me obviously!) who had just spent two weeks in the field in Africa, a glass of good red wine was just what she needed. As we’ve been friends for quite some time, I know her palate almost as well as I know mine. She prefers reds, but they must be soft wines, with smooth tannins, light acidity, and lots of fruit. Luckily we were at Cul de Sac, a great little wine bar with a huge wine list, so there were plenty of choices to suit her. Since this wine bar is  one of the few places in Rome with a good selection of foreign wines, I chose a red wine from the Douro region of Portugal. The area was made famous by one of the great fortified wines of the world, which is Port. Though I personally am a big fan of the rich, inky, chocolatey deliciousness in a glass that is this iconic dessert wine, its reputation has suffered with modern wine drinkers, perhaps because of the images of stuffy British gentlemen’s clubs the drink conjures up. At any rate, what has wine industry people buzzing lately are the dry wines from this area. Based largely on the same grapes that go into Port, they offer excellent value with the fruit and concentration of the fortified wine, without the weight and sweetness. We drank the Duas Quintas 2008 from Ramos Pinto. Over 100 grapes are officially sanctioned by the governing body for winemaking in the Douro, but the Duas Quintas blends together three that are considered amongst the best: Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo) and Touriga Nacional. The wine is reminiscent of young Port, with spicy and black fruit flavors and silky tannins. Only 20% of the wine is aged in oak, the rest in stainless steel, so the wine feels modern and sleek without being overpowered by the wood. For those of you in Rome, this wine can be had for less than 20 euros at the bar, less if you take it away. For those of you elsewhere, if you can’t find Ramos Pinto, ask your favorite wine shop or restaurant for their favorite Douro non-fortified wine. And if you’ve got a sweet tooth, give Port another try too.

Cin Cin!

Gewurztraminer

For last week’s wine club, I wanted to do another comparison between France and Italy. While we are still plagued by torrential rains and I have yet to see the beach this year, in the spirit of positive thinking white wines were on the menu once again. Alsace is a region that has always fascinated me, and the natural choice for the Italian counterpoint was the Alto Adige. Both regions are well known for the German and French grapes Riesling, Pinot Bianco, Pinot Grigio, Sylvaner, and Gewurztraminer, among others. Though native to Germany, the Gewurztraminer grape is most famously grown in Alsace today. Literally spicy grape in German, it is known for its very strong aromas, most notably lychees and roses. It i one of the most full-bodied white wines, and Alsatian versions are known for being the biggest and with the strongest aromas.  In Alto Adige you will also see Traminer on labels, and this is indeed the original version of the grape, native to the village of Tramin or Termeno.  With good Alto Adige examples you can get the classic Gewurztraminer qualities, but they are generally much more restrained. Our tasting tonight largely bore that out. We tasted two wines from Alto Adige followed by two wines from Alsace. The revelation for the night was the incredible quality and value in our first wine, from Coltereznio. At less than ten euros, it was subtle on the nose but had an amazing texture and balance. It was definitely the best value of the evening.  The powerhouse of the evening was our last wine, from famed Alsatian producer Zind Humbrecht. Their 2005 was most recognizably Gewurztraminer, with strong aromas of lychees, rose petals, and grapefruit, very full-bodied but balances by a good level of acidity with a long, lovely finish. Our third wine of the evening was our Grand Cru, and was perhaps the poorest showing, with a level of sweetness that was unbalanced. It was three years younger than our other Alsatian wine, so perhaps with time it will improve. Our other Italian offering was from the high-quality co-op San Michele Appiano and was pleasant, but considering it was 10-15 euros more than the Colterenzio, didn’t seem to justify the higher price with its subtle flavors and short finish.

The lineup:

1. Gewurztraminer 2009 Colterenzio

2. Sanct Valentin 2009 Gewurztraminer Alto Adige San Michele Appiano

3. Wineck-Schlossberg Gewurztraminer 2008  Meyer-Fonné

4. Gewurztraminer Wintzenheim 2005 Domaine Zind Humbrecht

Tuesday Night Out

When you are bored and trying to diet on a Tuesday night, and your partner suggests going to the gourmet restaurant up the street, the answer of course is let’s do it! We had been driving past this lovely place on the top of the Janiculum hill ever since we moved into our new neighborhood in February. The Antico Arco has an extremely tempting tasting menu, but since it was Tuesday and  I was supposed to eat light after all, we opted to try out just a few dishes and return another day for the menu. Now, when you order crispy buffalo mozzarella, salted tuna roe, and tomato confit to start, followed by homemade tortelli pasta with guinea fowl ragu and black truffle and cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper) pasta with crispy zucchini blossoms, what wine could possibly complement this diversity of flavor?  Luckily Antico Arco has an incredible wine list (and excellent service as well) so there was plenty to choose from. I immediately thought of Riesling, one of the world’s most food-friendly wines. Its crisp acidity and bright fruit flavors make it a perfect match with any number of dishes. I chose the Geheimrat “J” Riesling Spätlese trocken 2005, a dry wine from the Rheingau, which is actually a blend of the estate’s best first-growth vineyards. It had lovely aromas of grapefruit and ripe pears, a hint of flowers and a whiff of the petrol aroma that Rieslings sometimes take on with age. It had a pleasing, bright acidity and managed to stand up to all those strong flavors. It improved every dish that we tried. I can’t wait to go back for the tasting menu!

Sauvignon Blanc

When I was planning last night’s wine club three weeks ago I thought for sure it would be time to celebrate the warm weather with our first white tasting of the year. Alas winter seems to have returned to Rome but the wines tasted great just the same.  One of my favorite things to do is to taste different expressions of the same grape, so last night we looked at French and Italian Sauvignon Blanc. One of my favorite grapes, sauvignon blanc is one of the parents of one of the world’s most popular varieties: cabernet sauvignon. It dates to the 18th century and like its progeny, its home is Bordeaux. Since then it has spread throughout the world and is now successfully grown in California, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile...the list goes on! My idea was to take two of the most representative areas from the most accessible countries, Sancerre from France and Fruili Venezia Giulia from Italy. The Sancerres turned out to be a bit too pricey for the purposes of this tasting so instead I went with four wines from Friuli, a wine from Pouilly-Fumé (not far from Sancerre) and one from Bordeaux. We had an interesting lineup in terms of vintages; they ranged over nine years. Three were from 2008, one from 2007, one 2009 and one from 2000. I wanted to taste the six wines blind to see if we could figure out which ones were French. A great idea; unfortunately I completely forgot about the Bordeaux in the vegetable crisper (the only space left in the fridge!) so this one was tasted on its own at the end. (Note to self: while owning a mini fridge I might have to give up my sourdough starter and various other kitchen experiments that take up all the space!) The other five wines were disguised and tasted blind. The good news was fellow sommelier Sarah and I both correctly identified number two as our Pouilly-Fumé ! All the others (with the exception of the wine that was clearly 10 years old) had the tell-tale signs of Friulian sauvignon blanc: lots of citrus, lemons, grapefruits, crisp acidity, medium body. The big clue about number two was the pronounced stony, steely quality it had that for me marks the biggest difference between Italian and classic French sauvignon blanc. Friulian wines tend not to have this characteristic. The 2000 was a bit of an anomaly, having not only a good few years on the others, but it was also the only one to have been aged in oak. While the wine was still very much alive, too much of the fruit had faded away and we were left with an overpowering sensation of the oak with lots of buttery, smoky, toasted hazelnut flavors, which, while pleasant, were a bit unbalanced.

The line up for the evening:

1. Collio Sauvignon Blanc Marco Felluga 2009

2. Pouilly-Fumé Les Pierres de Pierre 2007 Domaine Masson-Blondelet

3. Colli Orientali dei Friuli Sauvignon 2008 Livio Felluga

4. Colli Orientali del Friuli Sauvignon Ronc de Juri 2000 Dorigo

5. Sauvignon Venezia Giulia 2008 Jermann

6. Bordeaux Sauvignon Blanc 2008 Château Reynon

My favorites of the night were one and two. Happy drinking!

Vigneti delle Dolomiti

For Easter weekend we drove up to the Dolomites, the Italian Alps.  We stayed in the Alto Adige region and on our way up we stopped at a few wineries in the Campo Rotaliano area. Here the native grape Teroldego is king, and it is one of my favorites. (Though I do say that about all the wines!) Even though it is very far north, the red grape Teroldego does very well here. The sandy plains of the Rotaliano help the grapes to fully ripen and the tarry, berry fruit to come through. Since it was a holiday weekend, we weren’t able to visit too many places, but the highlight of the day was Foradori. A family estate run by Elisabetta Foradori, they are known for making THE Teroldego, called Granato. This is their flagship wine and a bit pricey at 38 euros at the winery, but it is worth it with seductive  berry and spicy notes and a strong yet balanced structure. It can also be aged a long time. The entry-level wine, called simply Foradori, is much more affordable at only 13.50 at the winery and still has plenty of finesse.

We had no appointment but we were lucky to happen upon La Signora Foradori, la mamma di Elisabetta. She could tell we were wine lovers, so she was kind enough to show us around their beautiful winery, including the new cellar where Elisabetta is experimenting with amphora! Having practiced biodynamic techniques for awhile, she is following a few maveric producers such as Gravner by returning to the way wine was very likely first made in Ancient Gerogia. While the Georgians would have fermented whites and reds along with their skins in clay amphora buried up to their necks as a form of temperature control, at Foradori the amphora are kept in a cool room (above ground!).  While it seems unlikely she can to improve upon the Granato, I always appreciate experimentation and it will be interesting to see the results.