Welcome to the 21st century! Valpolicella was one of my first wines, along with Chianti, drunk with pizzas as a student in Milwaukee – the cheaper the better. You can’t really blame the Verona area, home to these wines, for my youthful folly in drinking some of the worst of its products. This was 40 […]
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Sagrantino’s technical tamers
Third in a 4-part series How to make great wine despite astringent tannins If a wine has strong tannins, you cellar it until it becomes drinkable, right? That’s one step, but there is quite a lot more to getting a good wine from grapes with very strong tannins. Sicily’s Nero d’Avola is the grape I’ve […]
Umbrian good karma: rebirth of Sagrantino
First of a 4-part series Montefalco is a relatively new Umbrian magnet for winelovers, thanks in no small part to its intriguing contrasts. Start with the town itself, all hardness cushioned by softness: built on and surrounded by pink-tinged monastic era stone, perched above green rolling hillsides. Shop after shop boasts foods for grandmothers’ recipes and […]