Barolo in Serralunga d’Alba

Just back from a trip to Italy: from Gavi to Valpolicella.

Great wheater over there. This combined with great wines, fantastic food and a fire in the woods we were able to extinguish and you can imagine that this was another unforgettable excursion to funky Italy.

More about this trip later, but I just want to give a short round up of some wines we had. Place of crime: Centro Storico in Serralunga d’Alba. A great winebar run by Alessio who is a passionate wine lover and huge fan of…Champagne. Not really a wine you would expect in the beating heart of Barolo. And he has a great selection.

We were there together with Franco Massolino, the wine maker and fun guy of Vigna Rionda di Massolino. This is one of the wine makers in our portfolio.

Just a brief look at the Barolos we tasted that afternoon (yes, we tasted a lot of other wines also).

Have a great Barolo today!
bart

If you enjoyed this post, make my day and buy me a glass of wine.

July 23, 2007 | Filed Under Tasting wines, Italy | Leave a Comment 

Wine is so much more than wine…

I was browsing a bit through a book that I received as a present from Franco Massolino (ZANFI, A., “Piemonte…noblewoman of wine“), when I reached the part which describes himself and his winery, Vigna Rionda di Massolino.

And here I just got touched by this small paragraph that for me explains that wine is so much more than wine. Read it, preferably with a glass Barolo at your side, and let it sink through.

“When I’m in the vineyards and have finished “resetting” my ideas, it’s with a feeling of satisfaction that that I let myself be carried away with the thought that this land I’m walking on is the same land my father walked on all his life, like his own father before him. This sense of belonging regenerates and stimulates me. I often wonder how many times this land has been turned up, the land which I myself have turned up, and just how much it has occupied the men and women of my family, each one of whom certainly thought of making a contribution, with their own work, to maintaining the land for future generations.”

Have a nice moment with your wine today!
bart

If you enjoyed this post, make my day and buy me a glass of wine.

July 16, 2007 | Filed Under Quotes, Italy | 6 Comments 

A of Amarone: a V12 engine wine

Introduction

Where better could you start a WinePhabet than with the letter A? That was an easy one, but then the difficult part comes. Which letter A-subject to start with, since the choice is enormous…?

That got me thinking. Well, I like to pull of in pole position, so obviously a lot of (horse)power is a good thing to get that first starting grid. So, I started wandering a bit through the narrow streets of my mind. Here I ended up at a crossing and saw miraculously this sign showing me the way to “Power Wines”. That was the street to take, heavy bold wines with loads of (horse)power. I got eager and started running down this street. Out of breath, I ended up at a this great square named Amarone…Taking into account the speed of Italian sport cars, this just is the wine to start with, this just is the fuel necessary to get me into that pole position, wouldn’t you agree?

A of Amarone

And indeed, Amarone, or in full Amarone della Valpolicella, is a V12 engine wine. Just take a look at the label and you will notice stunning alcohol degrees of 15% and more (14% being the legal minimum). Just put your nose in a glass of Amarone and you will get an abundance of smells.

The desert treatment

Where does Amarone get this power from? A special production process called “appassimento” does the trick. The harvested grapes will undergo what I call the “desert treatment“.

The “desert treatment” you might ask? Ever been into a desert without water? Indeed, you get dehydrated. The same happens with these grapes. They are put on straw mats or in small casks in a heated room or warm attic and they dry out, shrivel into something raisiny.

This mummification process might take several months and has two major impacts. First, the water is naturally extracted out of the grape and thus the sugars are more concentrated. And as you might know sugar ferments into alcohol. Secondly, also the flavors are more concentrated, just think of dried fruit flavors like plums, raisins and figs. And so a V12 engine is created.

Grapes

The main grapes used in Amarone, and for that matter also the simpler Valpolicella, are corvina (the leader of the pack), rondinella and molinara. Next to this threesome, also other grapes are allowed, but only in seasoning quantities. So you could sometimes encounter in your Amarone blend a tiny quantity of grapes such as sangiovese and barbera. If you would like to discover these wines in Italy, you need to head to the Veneto region, the north of Italy.

A dictionary approach

If we take a closer look at the word Amarone and grab our Italian dictionary, the word amaro meaning bitter can be discovered. And when an Italian adds “-one” to a word, it just gets bigger. So the translation would be something like “heavy bitter”. But do not worry, in your mouth you will only get a slight tartness in the final counterbalanced by dried fruit and often a little sweet edge. I guess that by now you understand that this type of wine could easily turn into an irresistible temptation.

Come on and try it

So if you would like to try out one, here are some renown (and less renown) producers worth trying but better see that your wallet is filled to the brim because these are not cheap wines (on average around 30-35 EUR and for the first two you pay a lot, and I mean a lot more): dal Forno, Quintarelli, Allegrini, Masi, Corte Sant’Alda, Tedeschi, Ca Bionda and many others.

Have a nice wine Amarone today!

If you enjoyed this post, make my day and buy me a glass of wine.

June 14, 2007 | Filed Under Italy | 2 Comments