2015 San Rustico Amarone della Valpolicella Classico

Happy Sunday!  It's been a slow, rainy day here, though I managed a couple hours between raindrops to remove some fencing temporarily in anticipation of a tree removal tomorrow morning.  But now I'm back inside, finishing laundry and making Sunday dinner.  For tonight's festivities, I've opened a bottle of a perennial favorite Italian variety that I recently bought from Wines Till Sold Out.  The 2015 San Rustico Amarone della Valpolicella Classico is a blend of Corvina and Corvinone (68%), Rondinella (27%) and Molinara (5%), dried for three months before pressing.  So, let's see how this wonderful and interesting wine is shaping up!

The wine is a deep ruby color in the glass, with nice clarity.  A gentle swirl of the glass releases aromas of black cherry, kirsch and warm spices, with undertones of smoke and earthy loam.  Take a sip and your senses make and abrupt turn with a rush of sweet ripe cherry, blackberry and prune that very gradually evolves into some white pepper spice and bit of charred oak.  The tannins are nicely structured for the long, smooth dry finish with a reprise of spice notes on the very end.

Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 9, as it's just a very pleasant drinking wine and it was a great value at just $30.  This wine would be perfect with steaks or game meat, such as bison, elk or lamb, as well as smoky barbecue.  Tonight I've taken a different approach and am enjoying this wine with some bucatini with mussels fra diavalo, as the spice and acidity of the sauce marries well with the up-front sweetness of this wine.  Cheers!

2015 Gran Passione Veneto Rosso

Happy Wine Wednesday!  When I was growing up, there was no "Wine Wednesday" but Wednesday was well know for something else - in  Chicago, Wednesday was Prince Spaghetti Day!  Although I haven't seen Prince spaghetti in the supermarket in years, I thought it would be fun to relive those old spaghetti Wednesdays, which of course calls for a nice Italian wine to go with it, this being the modern Wine Wednesday!  So tonight I've opened a bottle that I picked up at Costco a few months back, the 2015 Gran Passione Veneto Rosso.  This wine is made with a similar method to Amarone, with sun drying the grapes so the dried raisins ferment and provide a much more concentrated flavor.  So let's see what this one has to offer.

The wine is a deep ruby color in the glass, comparable in color to a nice Merlot.  The nose is vaguely reminiscent of a Valpolicella Ripasso, with leather, ripe black fruit, blackberry, currant and cherry with undertones of dried Italian herbs.  The taste is rich at the outset, with blackberry and cherry rushing to the forefront, only to be displaced by some pleasant earthy notes of tobacco and fig.  The tannins are soft, but still provide nice structure to the very smooth and dry finish.

Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 8, it's a very pleasant drinking Italian wine from the northern part of the country, a nice departure from Tuscany.  This wine was also a terrific value at just $9 at Costco (I should have bought more!) and it would pair well with roasts, game, aged cheeses, or hearty classic Italian dishes.  Tonight I'm enjoying this wine with not quite Prince spaghetti, but some Barilla linguine along with marinara with some hot Italian sausage.  Cheers!

Tinazzi Vinum Italicum Opera No. 3 Red Wine

Happy Wine Wednesday!  Tonight I have a special treat, a bottle of wine that was a gift from a former boss, so I've been looking forward to trying it.  This one is a little different as well, as it's a non-vintage red blend from Italy, utilizing grapes from three distinct regions, Veneto, Puglia and Sicily, each with their own specialties when it comes to red wine.  From Veneto we typically see Corvina, Rondinella and Merlot, Puglia is known for Primitivo, Negroamaro and Black Malvasia and Sicily thrives with Nero D'Avola.  With such a blend of grapes, this wine should be a real treat!

The wine is a deep, inky purple in the glass, with bright ruby edges.  The nose is a rich combination of leather, black currant, kirsch, green herbs and black pepper spice.  The taste is just lovely, with a rush of ripe black fruit up front, blackberry, cherry and currant that transitions nicely to some mineral flavors midpalate.  On the finish you're treated to a reprise of spice box notes that bring you right into an Italian kitchen, while the well structured tannins provide for the long, smooth and very pleasing finish.

Overall, I would rate this wine a solid 8.5 as it's a wonderfully pleasing and easy drinking red blend that would be quite versatile with a variety of dishes, from steaks to barbecue to hearty pasta dishes.  Tonight I'm enjoying this wine with a rare grilled Prime ribcap topped with bleue cheese, grilled corn and asparagus, a perfect end of summer dinner.  Cheers!

2006 Sanguineti Caruso

Ok, in celebration of our Independence Day, let's start off with some fireworks!  My wine today was our July office wine club selection and comes to us from our friends at Madwine.com, the 2006 Sanguineti Caruso.  Now we've seen the emergence over the last few years of the "Super Tuscans" those wines that come from the Tuscany region, but do not fit squarely in the DOC(G) classification system.  Well our wine today is being billed as a "Super Italian" as it takes an unorthodox approach of blending wine from grapes grown throughout Italy, and as the label touts, from the Nord, Centrale and Sud.

From an aesthetic standpoint, this wine blends some of the best grapes from the Valpolicella region (think Amarone), Tuscany (think Chianti and Brunello di Montalcino) and Sicily (Nero d'Avola).  From a technical standpoint, this is a blend of 14% Corvina (from the Veneto region in Northeast Italy), 6% Rondinella (also from Veneto and used in Valpolicella and Bardolino), 50% Sangiovese (from Tuscany in Central Italy, the main grape in Chianti and Brunello), 10% Syrah and 20% Nero d'Avola (from Sicily).

The wine itself has a remarkable nose, with hints of leather, tobacco and spice, but a very strong sense of the fruit, exhibited by plum and cassis.  The taste is fairly dry, but with a fruity spice that really explodes on the palate (hence the fireworks!), with fairly robust tannins leading to a long, but clean finish.  Quite honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect from a "Super Italian" after all could combining the great wines from each region even equal the sum of the parts?  Well I was very surprised, as this wine was very pleasant from the first sip to the last, a real taste of a nation with more than 2 millenia of experience making wine.  Overall I would rate this one a solid 8.5, expecially at the $13 price tag we were able to get it for!  So this weekend grab some Italian sausage and some fresh eggplant, zuccini, peppers, and other veggies and grill them out and enjoy them with this wine! "Tutti a tavola a mangiare!"