Italian Reds Revisited - April 2013

We LOVE Italian Reds.  Oh my, we do.  I could spend a year tasting just Italian Reds and be perfectly happy!  We only tasted 4 this month and nothing got dumped down the drain, which is a really good sign, because we do dump wine.

Sorry for the bad pictures this month.  We were not in our normal location and I forgot my "real" camera so these came off the cell phone.  On the plus side, I now have a better cell phone with a much better camera, but I digress....

We did not have a bad wine.  I could go on and on about each wine and how delicioso it was, but I will give you the basics.  Let me say that there was nothing left in any of the bottles (and there was other wine available, so it wasn't that).  On with the notes!

We learned in the previous Italian Red tasting, that we all preferred the Chianti Classico over the regular Chianti.  Classico refers to the area it is grown, not an aging of the grapes.  This lovely bottle of 2008 Riserva Tomaiolo Chianti Classico was $13.99 at Wegmans and was super yummy!  Great color and a butter & earthy kind of nose.  The Riserva status means that there can be no white grapes at all in the wine and it has been aged at least 2 years in wood and 3 months in the bottle. This one is definitely a "keep on hand" wine!  (Big thanks to my bottle holder!)  This was another 100% approved wine!  We are on a roll.

In an attempt to try wines we had not tried previously, I picked up this 2010 Masciarelli Montepulciano d'Abruzzo.  This is from the Abruzzo region and is the only good wine from the region (the montepulciano - not the vineyard).  While this was not a favorite of everyone, it was yummy on the nose and the tongue.  For $9.99 at Wegmans, not a bad choice if you have a bigger wine drinker coming to dinner.

We headed to the Piedmont region for this bottle.  Piedmont is my FAVORITE growing region in all of Italy because they have the lovely Barbera grape there.  This is from the Grandpa grape of the region; the Nebbiolo.  Nebbiolo is a big grape with a powerful flavor.  This 2006 Travaglini Gattinara is the best known Gattinara in the United States.  It is often referred to as a mini-Barolo and since they both come from the same grape, it is easy to see why.  This was the most expensive bottle of the evening at $28.99.  This is NOT a quaffing wine and definitely needed food to round it out.  Food made it quite yummy and our big wine drinkers (those who love the Barolo) really enjoyed this one.

We had to try a "rosato" or rose.  We really did.  I believe that there is a good rose out there somewhere, I just have to keep looking to find it.  This particular bottle is from Asti and is classified as a dessert wine and it was yummy with the biscotti.  This is a Castello del Poggio Rosato and was $9.99 at Wegmans.  It actually had a little bubble to it.  It would be lovely, really cold, on a hot, summer day.

So we learned that we really, really, really like our Italian reds.  There was talk of a field trip.  No surprise that Italy, the number 1 wine producing country in the world, is the number 3 country for consumption (at 14.51 gallons/person).  So many great wines and so little time.....

Cheer,

Kitti