Wine & Cheese Tasting
September 22nd & 24th
Thursday 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM, Saturday 12 PM – 5:00 PM
Falesco Vitiano Bianco 2009
Origin: Umbria, Italy
Varietal: Vermentino 50% and Verdicchio 50%
Tasting Notes: Vitiano Bianco is a balanced, delightful and fresh wine with captivating aromas of herbs, citrus lime and ripe Anjou pears. "Falesco’s 2009 Vitiano Bianco is an attractive blend of Vermentino and Verdicchio. A crisp, floral white, the Vitiano Bianco offers lovely balance in a style best suited for near-term enjoyment. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2012. " 89 Points, Robert Parker’s - The Wine Advocate
Food Pairing: Vitiano Bianco is the perfect accompaniment to pasta with shellfish, casseroles, most cheeses and garden salads
Taurino Salice Salentino Rosso Riserva 2008
Origin: Apulia, Italy - Salento area at the very end of Italy’s boot heel.
Varietal: 85% Negroamaro and 15% Malvasia Nera from the Salento area (the very end of Italy’s boot heel). A five day maceration with the skins ensures fruitiness and ideal color extraction. The wine is aged for two years, with 20% of it being refined in French barriques (Allier, Nevers and Tronçais) to add extra elegance, and it is filtered before bottling.
Tasting Notes: A wine of unmistakable personality, Taurino’s Salice Salentino has introduced many Americans to the pleasure of Apulian wine. Intense ruby red in color with orange reflections, its unique flavor profile offers red berries, herbs and black cherries. On the palate, it is dry, well balanced and full bodied with a slight bitterness on the finish. Though not as “flashy” as some of the newer, international-style wines to emerge from Italy, Salice Salentino continues to be a favorite of Italian wine traditionalists.
Food Pairing: This wine is the perfect match for typical Italian dishes with red sauce, pasta, sausages, salami and sharp cheeses.
Tormaresca Neprica 2009
Origin: Puglia, Italy
Varietal: Negro amaro 40% - Primitivo 30% - Cabernet Sauvignon 30%
Tasting Notes: 90 points Wine Enthusiast: "Neprica is an awesome blend of Negroamaro, Primitivo and Cabernet Sauvignon from southern Italy that offers an unbeatable price versus quality ratio. This rising star of Puglia would pair with meats, pasta or aged cheese and offers clean aromas of ripe fruit, spice and leather." Best Buy. -M.L. Antinori moves south! Ripe berry notes, cassis, molasses and cola serve as a preface for the thick texture and smooth density that this wine delivers to the palate. The wine is thick and succulent with smooth tannins and great length.
Food
Pairing: This is an easy drinking fruit driven red wine from
southern Italy that pairs well with most foods from Beef, Pork, and Poultry to
Pasta with red sauces
.
Layercake Primitivo 2008
Origin: Puglia, Italy. Primitivo is from Salento, the “Heel of the Boot” of Italy; specifically the area of Manduria. The wine could be called Manduria DOC, but the DOC requires 14% alcohol. The winemaker found the wine to have better balance at 13.5%; therefore it fell into IGT Puglia for area designation.
Varietal: One Hundred Percent Primitivo (Italian Zinfandel) from 100 Year Old Vines. Primitivo and Zinfandel are genetically identical according to UC Davis grapevine geneticist Carole Meredith. The varietal arrived in the United States in the early 1820’s and made its appearance in California around 1850.
Tasting Notes: This wine exhibits a balance of elegance and power with notes of inky black fruit, spice, white pepper, jammy black cherries, plums, blackberry fruit, truffles, tar, and espresso. Warm and rich in the mouth with a creamy texture; the ripe fruit is well supported by the deep structure of the wine. Fermented in stainless to preserve the fruit character, then more tannic lots see three to four months in two year old French barriques to soften the tannins.
Food Pairing: Grilled, flavorful dishes, spicier
foods and tasty red tomato sauces of southern Italian cooking match its dark
berry and peppery attitude. In fact try
it with anything you like with zinfandel such as a wide variety of pasta, meat,
barbecue and cheese dishes.
Rocca Delle Macie Sasyr 2007
Origin: Toscany, Italy. From Rocca delle Macie vineyards in the Maremma coastal district of southeastern Tuscany.
Varietal: 60% Sangiovese and 40% Syrah
Tasting Notes: Carefully selected ripe grapes are harvested by hand. The two grape varieties are separately fermented at carefully controlled temperatures to preserve color and freshness of fruit flavors and aromatics. 15% of the Sangiovese is aged in French oak barriques for a period of six months. The two varieties are then blended and bottled for release. Wine Spectator - Violet, jam and berry aromas lead to a medium body, with velvety tannins and a smoky berry aftertaste. Score:87. —James Suckling, October 15, 2009. Annuario dei Migliori Vini Italiani di Luca Maroni 2010 - 89 points
Food Pairing: Very versatile; will complement red meats, hearty, robust vegetarian dishes, pastas and risottos with flavorful sauces. It also drinks well on its own .
Cesari Mara Ripasso 2008
Origin: Veneto, Italy.
Varietal: 75% Corvina, 20% Rondinella and 5% Molinara.
Tasting Notes: The “Ripasso” technique has a history of use in Valpolicella, and consists of refermenting the wines of the same year’s vintage or that of previous years on fermented dregs of the dried grapes used to produce Amarone. Essentially, this serves to strengthen the Valpolicella and make it more robust, drawing what is left from these noble dregs. The refermentation lasts 15/18 days
and the Valpolicella wine that has thus been “made over” acquires color, structure, fragrance and tannins, as well as about 1-1.5 percent more in alcoholic level than the original wine. After it is finally racked off in February and March and has undergone its malolactic fermentation, the wine is left to mature for about 12 months in barrels of Slavonian oak (80%) and French oak tonneaux (20%). Ageing is completed by resting in bottles for almost 6 months. Wine Enthusiast 91 points - "This ripasso by Cesari presents a solid wall of black fruit, prune, plum and blackberry on the nose. The wine is dense and luscious with thick layers of ripe fruit and spice. Pair it with barbecued pork ribs."
Food Pairing: Pair this wine with red meat, roasts, seasoned cheeses, hearty pastas, and a variety of other red sauced Italian foods.