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Leonardo and Patience
#tbt Paolo Scavino
When I win the lottery, I’ll be drinking this stuff daily. Forza Langhe!
Riccardo Sgarra with Paolo Scavino
When I was a student in Boston, I tried to go to as many wine tastings as I could. At a Vineyard Road tasting I ran into Riccardo who works at Paolo Scavino. It is always a pleasure when someone who works at the winery or makes the wine comes to the tastings. It makes it a lot more personal. I met Riccardo again when I was in Barolo last summer, he gave me a tour of the winery and then we tasted some wines. They were as good as I remember.
You can check out their wines here.
Olive Groves
The Wine Media Guild Sicily Tasting: The Red Wines
The Red Roundup: Sgnr Sciocolone’s Follow Up From Sicilia. Long been a fan of the Cusumano (fantastic pizza wine if you’re looking for one) as a go-to Southern Italian red; lots of great wine coming from the southern part of the boot it sounds like.
At the Wine Media Guild’s recent tasting and lunch at Felidia Restaurant, we tasted 12 red wines from Sicily ranging in price from $12.99 to $159.99 for the Santa.Ne from Palari, the only wine in the group not made from native grapes.
Alessandro Dellascenza
Alessandro Dellasenza from Cru Artisan Wines/Banfi spoke the wines of Palari as well as the other wines he presented. I spoke about the remaining wines.
The Red Wines of Sicily
Frappato 2013 DOCPaterno di Vittoria, 100% Frappato Golden Ram ImportsNYC, David Rosengarten Selections, $18. Maceration is for four days with skin contact and temperature controlled fermentation. The wine spends one month in steel and one month in bottle before release. This is a well-balanced, aromatic wine with hints of cherry and pomegranate.
Frappato 2014 Planeta, 100% Frappato Palm Bay $21.99 De-stemming followed by 12 days maceration, after racking, malolactic in stainless steel. The wine should…
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Another Good One From Riccardo: Le mura di Lucca — Riccardo Franchini
When in Lucca, do not miss out on a visit to the walls which surround the city. Atop of the walls there is a thoroughfare wide enough for walking, jogging or cycling and from where you can admire this splendid city, its churches and towers. The route is around 4.5 kms. and along the way […]
Lucca’s Duomo (Cattedrale di San Martino) — Riccardo Franchini
Lucca’s Duomo is very nice.The facede is decorated whith many different columns.They say that when they build it they asked all local maestros to make a column to choose who is going to take the job.When everybody brought his column they kept them they used them and they did pay nothing.There is a small entrance […]
via Lucca’s Duomo (Cattedrale di San Martino) — Riccardo Franchini
The Wine Media Guild Sicily Tasting: The White Wines
Man, I hope Signor Scicolone comes to do a tasting in the Colorado market soon!
Frankly I read a lot of wine blogs and wine interest stuff on the web, and pretty predictably you’ll see a lot of “well, I don’t really like Italian whites, just the reds…maybe that one Soave or that one Pinot is OK” type commentary.
At best, those sentiments are innocently misinformed folks who haven’t branched out much past the jugwines offered up at the local wine store. More likely it represents a form of laziness–there just isn’t really a good excuse any more to be a wine writer who’s missing out on the amazing whites coming from Italy. There just isn’t. Put down that bottle of $8 Pinot Grigio, and slowwwwwly back away folks. Get out there and taste! You’re missing out.
The Wine Media Guild asked me to host a program about the wines of Sicily. Together with Tom Maresca, another member, we lined up 30 wines for the tasting and lunch. The speakers would be Alessandro Dellascenza of Cru Artisan Wines, a division of Banfi, who would present 7 wines. Somehow, I became the second speaker and was more than happy to do so.
I am often asked where a wine can be bought at retail so in this post I have included the name of the importer/distributer of each wine.
At the tasting and lunch, which took place in April at Felidia Restaurant, we had 9 excellent whites ranging in price from $12 to $41.
The White Wines of Sicily
Grillo “Zirito” 2014 Grillo Terre Siciliane IGT 100% Grillo Feudo SartannaCru Artisian Wines-Banfi $12 The vineyards are in Western Sicily; the soil is volcanic of medium texture, chalk and clay…
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Tasting the Wines of Abruzzo at Enoteca Di Palo
Another great tasting from Signor Scicolone. Trebbiano deserves so much more recognition than it gets in the US.
Rosanna di Michele cooking teacher, personal chef, and lover all things from Abruzzo invited me to a tasting of the wines of Collefrisio. Rosanna has long collaborated with this Abruzzese winery and is a promoter of the wines and food of the region.
The tasting was held at Enoteca Di Palo in NYC’s Little Italy. This is the wine store of the famous Di Palo food store, which is right next door.
Amedeo, Rosanna, Lou Di Palo
Amedeo de Luca one of the owners of Collefrisio was there to present the wines. He said that his family has been involved in wine for 3 generations. The winery is located in the hills of Frisa in the Chieti province of Abruzzo. The winery has 35 hectare of vineyards on 3 estates: Tenuta Valle del Moro – 12 hectares where they grow Montepulciano and Trebbiano; Tenuta Morrecine – 12 hectares where they…
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Reblog: Femmes Fatales
Territoriet does a good job of gathering wine people, and this time was no different. Veslemøy, part of the Moestue group, had organized for Chiara and Claudia to come and show their wines. The theme for the night was “Femmes Fatales”, which is fitting as these women are strong characters in Piemonte. Chiara Boschis is […]
Sassi Italy Tours 