Friday Pizza

As per usual, Friday Pizza is served. 

The wine for today is:  

Massolino Langhe Nebbiolo

#tbt: Summer 2013

 

UNESCO

The vineyard landscape of Piemonte has been added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
The are covers 29 towns and over 10,000 hectares across 5 regions in Piemonte. Barolo, Barbaresco and Barbera d'Asti is within the area.

Ettore 'Sergio' Germano

Ettore 'Sergio' Germano produces wine in Serralunga D'Alba in Piemonte, Italy. At a tasting this summer, I had the pleasure of tasting both his reds and his whites. My personal favorite was the Herzu riesling, a refreshing white wine that is a recurring one in Cantina Granveien, also know as my home. I don't have much experience with his reds, but from what I can remember, they were quite good. I met Sergio for the first time this summer, and will be sure to return again soon.

Sergio Germano, current producer of Ettore Germano

Susage and Barolo

Another tradition at Cantina Granveien: Sausages and Barolo.

An assortment of sausages and a magnum Barolo, different producer each time. 

Today: Andrea Roberto, Barolo 2006.

Pizza Wine with Friday Pizza

Friday Pizza is served @Cantina Granveien. 

We try to serve Pizza every Friday, always home made, with fresh mozarella and prosciutto. With the wine, we usually serve a Dolcetto or Barbera-- a strange combination maybe, Pizza and Wine, but PizzaWine has become a well know term in Cantina Granveien and it's guests.

 (For those of you who don't know, Cantina Granveien is our house) 

Today's Pizza Wine: Bartolo Mascarello's Dolcetto. Divine. Superb. Wonderful. 

Summer 2014

The calendar is filling up, mostly with wine visits. Earlier, Italy has been the only place on the agenda, but this year I am expanding my horizons, and the adventure continues in France. The whole family is renting an apartment in Beaune, allowing me to experience wine there as well. 

I believe we are visiting Louis-Michel Liger-Belair, and attempting to visit a few others. One of my favorites, Matrot, is high on my list of wineries to visit. 

foto: piemontegirl

elio altare, summer 2012

And, of course, Piemonte is on the agenda. As previous years, Altare is first on the list. Bartolo Mascarello, Vietti, Cavallotto and Ettore Germano are also on the schedule. We are trying to add some new wineries to the list, since we rarely visit new ones, but I love seeing old friends again. 

With the vacation fast approaching, the excitement is growing and growing. I can't wait!!

Vadio

Last semester my friend Julia and I popped open a bottle of Vadio Sparkling Wine. We also had Vadio red, 2009. Vadio is produced by her sister, Eduarda Dias. Vadio is from Bairrada, Portugal, and they produce white, red and sparkling.

What's interesting about this wine is that it is made with Baga, a grape that is found primarily in Bairrada. However, it's "related" to Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo.

I have not had a lot of Portuguese wine, so I don't have a lot to compare it to, but I thought it was very good. And it's fun when you drink wine where you know the producers!

You can read more about their wines here: http://www.vadio.pt/

#tbt: Dalla Terra Wine Tasting

May 9th I experienced my first official wine tasting. The event was closed to the public, but since my Dad has some connections, I was able to attend. I brought a friend, and the two of us had no idea what we were doing. So, we dove in head first. Glass in hand, with our booklets, we started tasting under the pretense of working for a restaurant. The first two stations were Adami and Cleto Chiarli. My friend and I made the mistakes of drinking a little too much at the firsttwo tables, so by the time we reached the third, Aia Vecchia, I had to respectfully declinetasting the red wines. 

We ended up staying at Aia Vecchia for a while. We learned the representative. Elia Pelligrini, used to be a professional soccer player, for Livorno. He was taken out of the game due to an injury to his leg, and he is now in the wine business with his family. Elia was a wonderful person, so passionate about the wine, and excited to tell us about his family and their wines.

The next visit was with Casanova di Neri and the representative Luigi Bonari. There is a funny story attached to this particular wine, a story I did not know until after I had met with Luigi and tasted the wines, which were phenomenal by the way. I learned the story once my Dad arrived. Many years earlier, on a wine trip in Italy, my Dad had been 4 meters away from visiting and tasting Casanova di Neri wines, but due to the large number of people, my Dad decided to get back in the car and go. It was not until later my Dad realized he had made a huge mistake, because the wines, as you may know, are superb. So at this wine tasting in Boston, my Dad told the story to Luigi, and added that he would never again make the same mistake: never judge a vineyard by the number of tourists. You never know what you may be missing.

The second to last wine we tasted was Marchesi di Gresy. It’s maker, Alberto di Gresy, is commonly known as the count. This visit can best be described as hilarious. The count and his younger family member were wonderful. The younger representative, whom we dubbed Count Jr. was engaging, passionate and full of energy. My friend accompanying me told him he was graduating, and it turned out so was Count Jr. A special connection was formed as we talked about wine, about Italy and about family, and at the end we were invited to visit this summer. And I think we just might.

Last, but not least, we have Vietti. Previously I have met Elena, or should I say Mrs. Vietti. She was not there at the tasting, but her husband, Luca or Mr. Vietti was. And let me tell you, they are both incredible. Luca showed deep passion whilst «promoting» his wine. I use quotation marks because he was not really promoting. He was simply talking about his wine. However, interestingly enough, Mr. Vietti spent more time discussing his children and his love of beer and burgundy wine. We talked about his daughter’s success with skiing, how he makes his own beer, and how be prefers putting that beer in glass bottles (so he can open them with a knife like you would a bottle of champagne). It was truly amazing. His passion for what he does was inspiring to watch.

To sum it up: wine tasting rocks.

Rejoice.

The World Atlas of Wine

I had to buy The World Atlas of Wine for my wine class. It's by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson.
It covers all the important wine regions, the types of grapes, and is a great book to read if you want to learn about wine.
And that is exactly what I am doing tonight. I opened a bottle of Barbera D'Asti 2010 by Oddero, and will enjoy a glass while reading about wine.
Look out for a more detailed post about the book later.

The Beginning

Summer 2011, I went to Cinque Terre, Italy, with my family. There I met Elio Altare, the winemaker behind Altare wines, and it was one of the most memorable moments in my life. Señor Altare showed me the love he has for his wine, and it sparked something in me. Interest, curiosity, passion, love; call it what you want, but this initial meeting has started me on a sort of journey, a journey that evolved the next summer.

Cinque Terre

Summer, 2012, I had the pleasure of experiencing a wine tasting for the first time, in Piemonte, Italiy. My Dad has long been interested in wine, and finally I had the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. Because to me, wine was just wine. Alcohol. Some tasted good, some tasted not so good. But in the end, to me, it was just a bottle with alcoholic content. After last summer, I no longer see it that way. And I will tell you why.

I am not sure where to begin. But I soon figured out that the bottle sitting in front of me had more to it than first meets the eye. The people I met, the farmer who produce the wine, they are some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. Their passion for what they do is contagious. They tell their story, using their whole bodies, explaining and elaborating on the long process behind the bottle sitting in your home. These people care for their grapes, they care for their wine, and they treat the whole process with lots and lots of love. They light up when talking about their wines, and it is clear they really love what they do.

After meeting some of the winemakers in person, it makes all the difference, at least to me. When I open a Vietti wine, not only do I enjoy the taste, but I recall all those incredible moments I had with Elena, one of makers of Vietti wine. And I think maybe that for me, that is the point. I’m not that interested in all the details of the actual process of making wine. I am interested in the people, the story, and the passion.

Rejoice.