Wine Archives - Page 2 of 4 - attheitaliantable.com

May 19, 2017 by Gina Stipo Leave a Comment

Nebbiolo grape and the wines of Piedmont

Wine has been made in Italy since before the Romans, who were responsible for spreading viticulture and wine-making throughout their empire. Due to political and social isolation, many grape varieties that make excellent wines have remained isolated in their specific regions and are rarely found outside of it. One excellent example is wine made in Piedmont and Lombardy from the Nebbiolo grape. Long considered the king of Italian grapes, with a deep and rich history, nebbiolo is high in both acid and tannins and makes wines that are delicious when drunk young but also have immense potential for aging. Barolo and Barbaresco, both made of 100% nebbiolo, are two well-known wines that carry a hefty price tag. But nebbiolo is also in other wines of the region such as Nebbiolo d’Alba or d’Asti, Gattinara, Ghemme, Roero and Nebbiolo Langhe. Valtellina Superiore is an excellent 100% nebbiolo wine made around Lake Como in the neighboring region of Lombardy. All these wines take their names from the towns or geographic area where the nebbiolo is grown, aged and bottled.

Nebbiolo is notoriously picky about where it grows, which is a big reason it’s not common in other wine regions around the world. The main flavor components are described as “tar and roses” and the nose will have hints of cherries, violets, sometimes truffles in an aged wine. Its color is purple ruby when young and tends to show orange tones as it ages.

Floral: rose, violet	Terroir: coffee, earth, truffle
Fruity: blackberry, cherry	Oak: oak, smoke, toast, tar, vanilla
Spicy: anise, cocoa, licorice, nutmeg, white pepper	Bottle Age: leather, cedar, cigar box
Mouth feel / Texture:	heavy, rich, tannic, chewy, alcoholic

Nebbiolo wines pair well with the elegant cuisine of Piedmont and stand up to wild game and truffles, but also pair well with the pastas and meat dishes of the area, such as rabbit or meat filled ravioli in sage butter. I hope you’ll try them and expand your Italian wine knowledge!

November 7, 2016 by Gina Stipo 2 Comments

The noblest of wines: Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

In our newsletter we usually talk about food, what we’re making and what’s in season, but this issue I’d like to talk about our favorite Tuscan wine, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG. We just returned from touring two culinary groups through the area and had some wonderful cantina tours and tasted excellent wines when we were in the beautiful town of Montepulciano.

An old walled city high on a hill just to the west of the A1 to Rome, Montepulciano was an important Etruscan town in the times before the Roman Empire. The city sits on a hill of tufo, a yellowish sandstone that is easy to burrow yet strong enough to support large structures and palaces. From ancient times, the people who inhabited the city dug caverns and tunnels under the buildings to use for storage and to make wine, and most of these tunnels are still in use today. The city’s close proximity to a main artery going into Rome meant that it was a stopping place for travelers and pilgrims. The city’s reputation for making excellent wine was reknowned and the wine was served on tables of nobility, aristocrats, cardinals and popes from medieval times. Most of the elegant palaces built by nobility still stand today and date from the 1500’s.

A noble wine with a long history, Vino Nobile is made with a 70% minimum of the prugnolo gentile clone of the sangiovese grape (there are many clones, including sangiovese grosso used for Brunello di Montalcino), as well as a blend of other grapes indigenous to the area around Montepulciano and Tuscany. These can be a combination of malvasia nera, ciliegiolo, colorino, canoiolo nero or mammolo.

Don’t confuse Vino Nobile di Montepulciano with a wine of lesser heritage, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo DOC, which is from Abruzzo, not Tuscany. The grape in that wine of simpler breeding is montepulciano. The story goes that they chose that name for the grape because the word ‘montepulciano’ was already associated with excellent wine and they thought it might help this wine from Abruzzo sell. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened and on wine lists and in wine shops all over the US you find many options of the lesser wine from Abruzzo, and very few examples from producers of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.

According to the laws governing the making of Vino Nobile, it must spend 18 months in wood barrels, large or small, which helps it improve with age. It drinks best when it has at least 5 years on it, so hang onto it if you do find it!

The wine is worth seeking out so be sure to ask about it at your local shop or restaurant. If you have a great wine shop, like Wine Rack in Louisville or Total Wines, they may even be able to order something in for you!

And if you get a chance to go to Tuscany, be sure to spend a day combing the ancient cantinas and cellars of the town, tasting the excellent wines of the area!

May 16, 2016 by Gina Stipo 2 Comments

Mary and Gina are Ecco la Cucina, offering culinary adventure tours in Italy!

Our spring trip to Tuscany is just a few weeks away and we are both excited to get back to Italy! Our June culinary week is based in our favorite villa on an historic estate south of Siena and we have an exciting week of food and wine events planned for our group! June in Italy means cherries and apricots, new onions and garlic, and an explosion of roses and poppies covering the countryside and towns with color. The season begins for outdoor food festivals and we’ll take the group to our favorite sagra celebrating pasta and grilled meats.

While we’re in Italy, we will also be visiting Piedmont and Emilia Romagna to put the finishing touches on our 2017 culinary tours to Alba, Asti and Bologna for next spring and fall. Think truffles, Barolo wine, balsamic vinegar and Parmigiano!

Our tours are all inclusive: we stay in lovely villas that become your home for the week, all meals and transportation to excursions are planned to help you relax and we’re there every step of the way to show you the best each region has to offer.

One of the things that rate our tours above our competitors is the attention to detail and personal service we offer and we consistently hear that our value for cost is exceptional. We lead small groups of 8-12 people where everyone stays together in a beautiful villa and excursions are carefully thought out to entertain and educate, introducing you to local people who love to share their vineyard or city or farm with you. It surprises us when we read itineraries of other tours that leave their guests at the hotel “on their own for the evening”, supplying them with a list of suggested restaurants to pick from. On our tour, when the culmination of the day arrives, we are there offering cocktails and wine before we all enjoy dinner together at a favorite restaurant! We’ll guide you through the menu and help you order and enjoy the best the season and locale has to offer.

When you travel with us, Mary is there from the beginning to help you pick the best airports and to plan things to do and see before and after you join our culinary adventure. Gina’s knowledge of the area and fluent Italian from her years living there, helps ensure that the week goes smoothly and you are able to immerse yourself in the culture, history and culinary delights of Italy without worry. Our guests also receive our comprehensive guide on traveling to Italy and have access to our local guides to maximize your touring experience, wherever you go.

We hope you’ll allow us to show you Italy! Check out the Ecco La Cucina website for more information

July 16, 2015 by Gina Stipo 1 Comment

Cold Summer Wines

I love cold rose’ wine in the summer. It’s beautiful to look at, those peach and pink tones swirling around the glass, shining through the drops of condensation.

And when rose’ is made the traditional way, it’s a brilliant business strategy too.

Good quality rose’ wine is never a mix of white wine and red wine but is made with 100% juice from red grapes. Because wine gets it’s color from the skin, rose’ is made by pressing red grapes, like sangiovese in Tuscany or nebbiolo in Piedmont, and leaving the skin in contact with the just-pressed juice for just 8-10 hours.

Then some of the juice is removed and goes to a separate stainless steel tank to ferment for a few months and be bottled as rose’. The remaining juice will go to make a bigger and more aged red wine, like Chianti or Barolo, and the additional skins in the tank from the juice that was removed adds more tannins and color, resulting in a better red wine. In Italy and France this process gives the winery a fresh, young wine to sell while their big reds are still aging in the barrels. All in all a brilliant business model.

My other summertime favorite is cold Lambrusco! Famously imported into America in the 70’s under the Riunite label, lambrusco is the main wine of the Emilia Romagna region, home of some of the best food in all of Italy. Think prosciutto di Parma, parmigiano, balsamic vinegar. Lambrusco is frequently dissed as bad wine or unimportant and the 70’s ad “Riunite on Ice, how Nice”, did nothing to help that image. Lambrusco is inexpensive and not as important as other Italian reds such as Barolo or Chianti Classico or Amarone. But it goes beautifully with food of the region, the bright sharpness and light fizz cutting through the fattiness of local mortadella or prosciutto.

And it has the most brilliant color with a head like purple Coca Cola when you pour it into your glass. Look for one that isn’t dolce, or sweet.

Enjoy the heat of the summer with some cold wine tonight!