Welcome back to Grape University, Varietals 101. Today brings 3 different grapes from Italy, France and Spain. It’s a little Euro tour with a trio of lovely wines. Here we go!

What: 2008 Durin Ormeasco

Where: Liguria (the “Italian Riviera”)

Grape: Ormeasco- very similar to the grape dolcetto found just north of Liguria in Piedmont. It makes wines that are characteristically light bodied, very low in tannin and with bright red fruit and violets.

What: 2007 Domaine de Monpertuis Cuvee Counoise

Where: Southern Rhone (in the land of  Chateauneuf-du-Pape)

Grape: Counoise- one of the 13 grapes permitted in Chateauneuf-du-Pape blends. Here winemaker Paul Jeune bottles it alone. And it is delicious! Counoise tends towards higher acidity, dark berry fruit and a little pepper.

What: 2008 Vinedas de Ithaca “Odysseus”

Where: Priorat, Spain

Grape: Garnatxa Blanca is Catalan for grenache blanc. Not so confusing once you know that. Although this wine is a super interesting and complex version of that popular Rhone varietal.

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Now, most importantly- which one am I gonna drink tonight? And after hearing about these grapes/wines- which bottle would YOU most want to try?

All wines available at Rosso Wine Shop

I had my first tintilla experience the other day.  Tintilla, you say? Why yes…tintilla.

I think I just like saying tintilla….

It is an indigenous grape to the Canary Islands and is the star of the show in this bottling from Tenerife- the 2007 tintilla from Vinatigo, a Jose Pastor Selection. It was my first time tasting wines from the Canary Islands and I am very intrigued and ready to go back for more.  Here is a link to a post from Alice Feiring about her recent CI tasting experience.

Also take a look at my dear friend  and London wine presenter Christina’s recent post on her visit to the Canary Islands (jealous. Why can’t I have a husband that gets to travel for a living and take me with him?)

The Barbera 7 did in fact get to venture outside the world of all things barbera. We had the pleasure of visiting Valter Fissore at  Elvio Cogno in Novello right next to the town of Barolo. After the obligatory cellar tour, which can be more or less humdrum depending on the producer, we settled into our seats in the tasting room. Cogno produces some solid Barolo and a classic Dolcetto (and a barbera without the oak overdose.) But, we didn’t know we would be in for a little close encounter of the white kind.

There is a Piemontese grape called Nascetta, which I tried for the first time just a few days prior to this tasting at Cogno. Valter told us that they were the first producer to ever bottle the nascetta back in 1994 and single handedly fought for that little engine of a grape that could to rise from vino di tavola (table wine) status to a Langhe Bianco DOC. It will soon bear its own Nascetta label. We tasted the most recent vintage as he spoke of how nascetta is an age-worthy wine and can stand up to 10 years in the bottle. He had just completed a vertical tasting of all their nascetta wines going back to the late nineties. With our eyebrows raised, he sensed a challenge. Did we want to try the 2001 Nascetta he had in the cellar? Um, yes please.

Valter returned to the table with a single bottle in hand. He informed us that it was the last bottle. The last bottle. Ever. A crazy concept for me to wrap my head around although I know that the last bottle of something is being opened somewhere every day. It’s just rare that I am the one enjoying its opening. There may be someone out there in Italy that purchased a bottle back in 2001 and decided for whatever reason to hold on to it, but I seriously doubt it. The wine was a rich golden color and slightly saline and savory in the mouth. It reminded me of vitovska(!) and vermentino (of which it is thought to be genetically linked.) Cory brought up the fact that this wine could be done in an oxidative style much like a Friulian vitovska and I completely agree.

What a treat! Thanks Valter for cracking open the bottle for the sole purpose of geeking out. Our eyebrows are no longer resting in their upright position.

The Grape of the Day: vitovska!  I feel as though the word vitovska must be followed by an exclamation point at all times. Not only because of the sound of the word, but how excited I am to drink it. Vitovska is a varietal found in the region of Friuli and more specifically the Carso, a stone’s thrown from Slovenia. I spent a day at Zidarich exploring the incredibly rocky soil of the vineyards and the incredibly interesting vitovska(!) in my glass.

Benjamin Zidarich, the man behind the label, is a member of the Vini Veri group. Yes, at this point, I am basically a Vini Veri groupie. They support biodynamic wine production and vinification in the most natural way possible. And in the most traditional way for the region and the grape. Benjamin does the first fermentation and maceration on the skins for 2 weeks to 1 month in Slavonian oak vats, instead of plastic vats or steel. The wine is then separated from the skins and left in tonno (double sized oak barrels) or larger botti for up to 2 years. All of these processes are done without the use of temperature control and with only wild yeasts. It helps that their brand new cellar built deep into the ground naturally remains at 11 degrees celsius. The wine is left unfiltered and then bottled, where it rests for another 6 months to a year. In Friuli, you often find winemakers vinifying their white wines like red wines and that is why I love this region so much. The grapes have a ton of character already and they are extracting as much of that as possible. My glass of Zidarich vitovska contained all of the elements of the earth and surrounding land I could see out the window of the tasting room; the saltiness of the sea and the minerality of the land.

Vitovska! It’s the new “cheers!” You heard it here first…

The Autumn brings us many good things here in Italy. Grapes, olives, truffles, porcini mushrooms, chestnuts…and ribolla gialla? Standing outside the osteria Sbarco dei Pirati in Udine, I saw a sign reading “E Arrivata. La Vera Ribolla.” The true ribolla has arrived? And for only 1.30 Euro a glass? I think this would be a must-try situation! I’ve had ribolla on a few other occasions back in Los Angeles, but always in the, you know, fully fermented and bottled stage.

Ribolla gialla is a grape found exclusively in the region of Friuli (and also Slovenia). Is the wine in its best form in the “nuovo” stage?  I think not. But, it sure is a tradition around here and people like it. Maybe it began when everyone got too impatient to wait for this yummy white wine to finish fermentation, “It’s still a bit too sweet, cloudy in appearance, kind of like juice-y wine…..but, who gives a hoot! Let’s drink it anyway. And better yet, eat some of those perfectly in season chestnuts while we drink it.” I didn’t have any chestnuts, but I enjoyed my  glass outside with two drinking companions; a life size statue of a pirate and an older woman taking a smoke break and drinking her ribolla on ice. Tradition!