Wines with Seriosity

I sat through the lecture for you. Let's move directly into tasting.

We're still in Northern Italy, because that's where the action is. The Veneto area of northeastern Italy is known for two highly drinkable wines, Soave (white) and Valpolicella (red), and while both of them have suffered from some bad press in the international market, there are ways to ensure that you're getting a good one.The "classico" designation on an Italian wine means that the wine is from a specific geographical area within the named place: sort of like saying "the financial district" in SF: you can narrow it down to a few blocks, or miles. One rule of thumb that Steve reiterates: the more specific the location on the bottle, the better it will be. If you get the name of a vineyard: that's the best.

The Soave is a wonderfully drinkable white: the kind of wine you can drink all afternoon. Unless you prefer a red, in which case you'd head for the Valpolicella, a blended wine with personality but little depth, another "cute" wine that's soft, fruity, and fresh.

Next, as an abject lesson for which Steve apologized repeatedly, we tasted the wicker wine, the main reason why Italian wine has a historic bad rap in the US: Chianti. Bring on the drippy candles. This wine is, well, horrible. The scent was compared to "a damp basement in Nebraska," and that's putting it nicely. It only got worse as it breathed.I realized that the whole of last September's Italian vacation was spent in the Chianti region, and that the grape of Chianti is sangiovese. Chianti Classico has the advantage of being from that particular defined neighborhood, and we tasted a "Riserva," aged for an additional two years before being released, a further sign of quality. To top it off, the bottle had the Rooster Seal on the neck, an indication of the winery's membership in the Consorzio di Chianti Classico, a trade group with even more stringent requirements than those of the Italian government. This was a complex wine, with concentrated cherry flavors, but enough acidity and little enough tannin to make it amenable to pairing with tomato sauce. The perfect marinara wine, in fact.We followed the Chianti with another Tuscan wine, a "Super Tuscan." Contemporary winemakers have been pushing the limits of the prescribed federal guidelines for the Chianti territory, and are producing wines that can no longer be called "Chianti," or use the DOCG designation. These are blended wines, based on sangiovese with the addition of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, or other varietals, and while they can't command an official "guarantee," they do command incredible prices. The Super Tuscan we tasted, the Campaccio from Terra Bianca, was a "wine with seriosity," as Steve joked, and my tasting notes are full of phrases like "bacon/sweet," "new oak barrel," and "antique furniture." It's definitely not the kind of wine you drink all afternoon. It demands your attention.Steve told us to wave the previous five wines goodbye as we moved into the high-potency category: "There's no going back." We tasted two Amarones, wines made from the same blended grapes we tasted in the lightweight Valpolicella. These wines, though, were made from dried grapes, almost-but-not-quite-raisins, and the concentrated fruit brings additional sweetness, or alcohol, or both. The Speri was an immense wine, chewy, with blackberry jam notes, and Steve thought it would go well with an elaborate cheesy moussaka. The second wine, a "more classic amarone," was thick and porty, the kind of wine you'd want with some edgy cheeses at the end of a meal.
Andy and Jordan went trolling at break and came back with a cheese plate and some water crackers: definitely needed if only to wash away the taste of that wicker wine.