Avoid the Trap

Wine buying is full of traps for the unwary.  Take Pouilly Fumé and Pouilly Fuissé for example.  Easy to confuse but two very different wines, one a Loire Sauvignon, the other a Chardonnay from Burgundy.  Or, how about Chinon and Chenin: a French wine region and a white grape variety respectively.  Talking about grape varieties, the same one can have different names depending on where it is growing – Syrah/Shiraz is just one of many examples of that.  And even wines with the same name can taste very differently to one another; the familiar Côtes du Rhône can come from a vast area of vineyards and producers can blend from more than 20 grape varieties depending on their preference – so, if you find one you like, stay with it, others may not be to your taste!

But perhaps the prize for the biggest trap of all goes to Montepulciano.  The same name is both a red grape variety, grown mainly in Eastern Italy (you may know the easy drinking fruity red Montepulciano d’Abruzzo) and a village in Tuscany which, just to add to the confusion, uses an entirely different grape for its famous wine.  The austere and ageworthy red Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is made from the Sangiovese variety, beloved of devotees to Chianti. 

The village of Montepulciano also makes a 2^nd, more approachable (and significantly cheaper!) red wine, also using Sangiovese and we opened a bottle recently.  Duca di Saragnano’s Rosso di Montepulciano (DBM Wines, £11.99) is deeply coloured with berry fruits and spice on the nose.  The palate is quite intense and rich with flavours more reminiscent of dried fruits and sweet spices leading to a long, dry finish.  The well-integrated tannins of the 2021 vintage indicate drinking now or in the next year or so, rather than a wine for keeping.  Interestingly, the label suggested pairing with roasted white meats – we decided on braised lamb shanks instead, which my wife and I think worked really well.

So, next time you see ‘Montepulciano’, look very carefully at the other words on the label – it’s one of the easiest traps to fall into and if you buy the wrong one, you’ll open a very different wine to the one you were expecting.

Italy Comes to Bath

I have been to many wine tastings over the years.  But, for me, food and wine are meant to go together, so the tastings I enjoy the most – and get the most from – are almost always when the wines are shown as part of a dinner, accompanying well-chosen dishes.  A short trip across to Bath recently delivered this to perfection when our favourite restaurant in the city, La Terra, hosted an evening of wines from Umani Ronchi served alongside some of their own delightful dishes.

Umani Ronchi have extensive vineyards in the eastern Italian regions of Abruzzo and Marche and specialise in wines made from native local grape varieties, principally Verdicchio and Montepulciano.  After a welcoming glass of fizz, we settled down to a delicate smoked salmon mousse with generous glasses of Casal Di Serra Verdicchio alongside.  This is, perhaps, Umani Ronchi’s best-known wine – fresh and herby with some richness from brief lees ageing but completely unoaked.

In true Italian fashion, a pasta course, a raviolo filled with meltingly tender duck leg, followed.  I might have teamed this with a red, but instead we had another Verdicchio, this one from old vines and matured in old concrete vats, rather than stainless steel.  Softer and more savoury than the first and an interesting match.

Our one red of the night, Cúmaro Rosso Conero, a 100% Montelpulciano aged for 12 months in old oak barrels, was the ideal partner for the main course guinea fowl – the breast roasted and the leg meat slow cooked in a small pie.  An innovative, delicious dish and one that showed off the wine really well.

All too soon, we arrived at our final pairing.  Dessert was an orange posset with white chocolate.  I don’t recall tasting many sweet wines from this area but Umani Ronchi produced a botrytised Sauvignon, Maximo, from the Marche region.  Grown on north facing vineyards with high humidity, this had all the intense marmalade flavours that come from nobly rotted grapes and, of course, the link with the orange of the pudding was marked.

A wonderful evening where food, wine and the convivial atmosphere we always find at La Terra all came together perfectly.

Beyond Malbec

Argentina may be thought of as part of wine’s ‘New World’, but grapes have been grown there for more than 400 years, planted by European settlers, originally from Spain.   Wine production started soon afterwards.  Later immigrants from France and Italy also brought their native vines with them and today, Argentina is the world’s 6^th largest wine producer, with a diverse range of different grapes in their vineyards.  But that’s not how most wine lovers see it: mention Argentina and they will tell you about its chunky, food-friendly Malbec-based reds.  Hopefully, a recent tasting organised by Rachel of Corks of Cotham (also of North Street and Cargo) on the theme ‘Argentina beyond Malbec’ may have changed a few minds.  

The first of 2 whites, the unusually named Geisha Dragon del Desierto (£22) was an early candidate for ‘best wine of the night’ with its rich flavours of peach, pear and spice.  A blend of Viognier, Marsanne and Criolla Chica, this could easily be taken for a high-quality white from France’s Rhône Valley from where, of course, the first two grapes mentioned originate.

3 of the 4 reds tasted showed another side of Argentinian wine – all were fresh, with plenty of juicy fruit and not at all heavy.  Aguijon Abeija’s Bonarda (£14) started with lovely coffee aromas on the nose and a complex spicy palate of bitter cherries, blackberries and damsons.  A year in old oak barrels simply rounded out the flavour without imparting any obvious oak flavour.

Delicious as that was, Durigutti’s Las Compuertas Cordisco (£19) just pipped the white as our favourite of the tasting – unusually, my wife and I agreed on this.  Bags of red fruits – raspberries and cherries with lovely refreshing acidity and excellent length.  But it reminded me of something else that I couldn’t quite identify until Rachel explained that Cordisco was a local name for the Italian variety Montepulciano.  Lovers of that grape should certainly try this – you will not be disappointed.

And so, with a Malbec to finish (delicious but how did that slip in?), the tasting came to a happy close showing, if there was any doubt, that Argentinian wine is definitely worth exploring beyond Malbec.

Italy for Value

Many who enjoy their wine simply ignore Italy; ‘it’s too complicated’, ‘too many unpronounceable names’, ‘too many unfamiliar grape varieties’ are just a few of the comments I’m familiar with – and those are from consumers who have actually thought about Italian wines.  Sadly, many don’t even get that far.  And those that do, usually look to the famous names like Chianti and Barolo, where prices reflect familiarity (and dare I say it, not always quality).

But look further afield and Italy is an excellent source of good value and very drinkable wines.  The South (especially Puglia and the hills above Naples) and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia are particularly worth considering – see some of my earlier blogs for recommendations – but, perhaps even less well-known are the regions overlooking the Adriatic coast.

Marche is home to delicious dry, herby whites made from the local Verdicchio grape as well as attractive fruity reds labelled Rosso Conero and Rosso Piceno.  You should find reasonable bottles of any of these in good supermarkets for less than £10.  Marche’s neighbour to the south is Abruzzo, which, to my mind, produces one of the most reliable easy-quaffing reds that I know – Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.  Montepulciano is the grape variety and it looks like a mouthful to pronounce but is actually very easy:  Monty – pull – chee – arno with the stress on the ‘arno’.

The Wine Society list offers an example from Contesa Vigna Corvino, a deeply coloured red with intense aromas and flavours of damsons and blackberries, soft tannins and fair length.  It’s fresh and fruity enough to drink on its own or pair it with grilled lamb chops or Spaghetti Bolognese.  The wine is not especially complex, but very drinkable and a bargain at £8.50.  Look in your local supermarket and you may find a bottle of another producer’s ‘Monty’ for even less money.

And, if you hear someone say that Italian wine is just too complicated, lead them to the nearest wine shop (after getting them to read this blog, of course!)