Common Italian Reds - Guided Wine Tasting

Hello everyone, this is Jennifer Simonetti-Brien, Master of Wine here at The Weekly Tasting, and this week we're in Italy. We've got four great, great varieties for you here in Italy, and Italy is the largest producer of wine in the world with 42 and a half million hectoliters. What does that translate in bottles? Well, it's about five, almost six billion. Yeah, like with a B, six billion bottles. So that's a lot of wine, that's a lot of wine. And they know what they're doing, you know. So we've got four incredible grapes here for you to try, so let's go through them. The first wine we have is from Chianti. Now Chianti is synonymous with wine. It's the only other word, other than the word Bordeaux and maybe Champagne, that people associate automatically with wine. And it's the name of a region, not the name of a grape. The name of the grape is Sangiovese. Now the name of the grape, where it comes from, I mean, it's called different things all around Italy, just like Temparanio in Spain is called different things. But in Italy, Sangiovese, where the name comes from, actually comes from the worshipping of a god. You know how they have like the father of gods in Greece, like his name was Zeus? Well, in Italy it was Jove. And so this had to be the blood of Jove, so Sangiovese. So that's where the name comes from, so I thought that was cool. But this incredible grape variety has a lot of red fruit in it, so it's at the red fruit end of the spectrum, as opposed to the black fruit of, you know, blackberry and plum like Merlot. It's more towards the Pinot Noir end of the spectrum in terms of flavor profile. But there's, in central Italy and in Tuscany, there's so much sunshine, and it's warm, and it's beautiful, and the grapes and these Sangiovese grapes just eat it up. And you can almost smell that in the wine, where you can almost taste the Tuscan sunshine, because it's very ripe and you've got a little bit of herbaceousness in there. That is very classic for Sangiovese. It's about medium body, but it's also got high acidity, so if you're a Pinot Noir lover, you really may like this wine. And it's also got a bit of a grip to it, which makes it an incredible food wine as well. I wrote a book on food and wine pairing with a certified master chef, so what a great project that was. And what we had ended up pairing this with was a white pizza, which was amazing, that had taleggio and truffles on it. Oh my god, it was so good. But I think if you had pizza with it, it would be amazing, or a calzone, which has lots of cheese inside, which would go really well with this as well. That acidity and that grip is going to cut right through all of that, so you can enjoy this even longer. The second wine we have is from Abruzzo. Abruzzo is a region on the east coast of Italy, and the name of the grape here is Montepulciano. Montepulciano, in terms of comparison with Sangiovese, they're both about the same weight, and depending on if it's oaked or not, it can vary, but we're middle of the road here, medium body. But it doesn't have the acidity that Sangiovese has, and so that is a little bit softer for your palate. So if you like fruity merlots, you may like this wine as well, because it's got some plumbiness to it. So we're moving towards the black fruit end of the spectrum, as opposed to the red pinot noir end of the spectrum. So I got a lot of plush plumbiness in here, it's got a soft structure, and it's got a really good length to it. In terms of pairing, in the region of Abruzzo, they're known for their lamb. They're known for lamb, and then you can get mutton there as well, but this goes extremely well with lamb. So I recommend some grilled lamb with this, and it'll bring out a lot more of the blackberry in this wine. It'll just make it pop. The third wine we have is from Piemonte. Piemonte is the region in northern Italy, in northwestern Italy, that means at the foot of the mountains. Here, literally at the foot of the Alps. So we have, it's a cool climate area, and we have two great varieties here, Barbera and Dolcetto. They're from the region of Alba, you know, the village of Alba. And there's also one close by called Asti, so that you may know, whether it's Muscato d'Asti, or Asti Spumanti, or Barbera d'Asti. Those are from Asti, these are from Alba, so a neighboring village. And Barbera is a great variety there, which is also in the kind of red fruit kind of area, but it's more like black cherry. And it's got some acidity to it, but it's not as high as, let's say, Sangiovese. So it's a little softer in its, and rounder in its character in comparison to Sangiovese, and also in comparison to Barbera d'Asti. So Barbera d'Alba is a little rounder and fuller than its sister in Asti. And on the palate, it doesn't have too much bitterness at all. In fact, it's very soft on the palate. It's, it's, and it goes well with so many different dishes. In fact, the best meal I've ever had in my life, outside of my mother's cooking, is, was in Alba. And it was this little butter, I'm sorry, these little raviolis in a butter sage sauce, and they put some white truffles on top, because Piemonte is known for its truffles. And I mean the mushrooms, not the chocolate. So it was to die for. And the wine we had with it was a Barbera d'Alba. The, the, the flavors of the dish really matched and complemented the wine, and actually made the fruit stand out even more. So it was an incredible pairing. So if you get a chance, go get some little raviolis, make a butter sage sauce, and maybe just a drop or two of truffle oil, and you're going to be, oh, you're going to be in heaven. The fourth wine we have comes from Alba as well. And the grape here is Dolcetto. Now Dolcetto in Italian means little sweet one. And while this is a dry wine, meaning it's not sweet, so it's a dry wine, I always think of this as a little sweetheart of a grape, because you rarely see expensive, expensive Dolcettos. Not because it's not a good grape, but I think some other grape varieties have just kind of nudged it out a little bit, like Nebbiolo, or Barbera, and Super Tuscans, and stuff like that. So Dolcetto, not that it's forgotten, but I think it's got some more ambitious grape varieties that are vying for attention. But Dolcetto is a wonderful little grape variety, little sweet one. It's got some blueberry and blackberry kind of aroma. So we're on the black end of the spectrum in terms of fruit. And it doesn't have very high acidity, particularly not in comparison to Sangiovese or Barbera. And if you like Merlot, and you like that plummy, or Malbec, and you like that plummy, and dark, and blueberry kind of notes, you're going to love this wine. But it's medium bodied, and it's quite soft. In terms of food and wine pairing, I think I might pair this with a meat loaf. One of the things that really brings out some of the flavors, it's probably because it adds acidity, is tomatoes or tomato sauce. So I always have a tomato sauce on top of my meat loaf. So whether you have this with pasta, or marinara, or with a meatloaf, it's going to really add some acidity and bring out the flavors of this wine. So I think you're going to enjoy that one. Well, that's it for this week. I hope you get these wines. I love these wines, and I hope you get out a book and taste these wines, and point to them on a map, and be able to say, I saw that, I know what that tastes like, and look up some pictures in Google of these regions, because they are absolutely stunning. I hope you've enjoyed this little trip to Italy, and until next time, cheers!