The Not Another Pinot Grigio! Issue
Dearest subscribers,
Did you know that there are somewhere between 5,000 – 8,000 unique grape varieties used for winemaking, roughly 1,300 of which are commercially viable at scale?
Still, despite being home to literally thousands of indigenous and international grape varieties there’s a shocking lack of diversity of Italian white wines available at the LCBO which often has me lamenting, “not another Pinot Grigio!”
I tasted seven wines for this issue, three of which I would not recommend as they were flat, flabby, prime examples of the kind of overproduced, irredeemable wines that represent everything that’s wrong with large-scale, volume-minded, commercial winemaking today.
For that reason, this issue in itself is not very lengthy or diverse. But should act instead as a PSA: look out for and try lesser-known Italian white wines when you see them. Some of my personal favourites include:
Greco di Tufo
Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi
Kerner from Alto Adige
White wine blends of Etna DOC, made of Carricante, Catarratto Bianco and sometimes Trebbiano
For my readers in Toronto, I highly recommend Terroni’s Spaccio for by-the-bottle Italian wines. Their niche is indigenous grape varieties and they always have really helpful staff available to answer your questions and provide pairing recommendations.
Val delle Rose ‘Litorale’ Vermentino
Wine: Val delle Rose Litorale Vermentino
Origin: Tuscany, Italy
Vintage: 2019
Grape(s): Vermentino
Style: Dry, aromatic, elegant
Price: $17.95
Alc./vol: 13%
This is the kind of wine you’ll want to stock a case of for the summer. Youthful, lively, with clean, tantalizing, aromas of under-ripe pear, lemon zest, and orange blossom.
A lovely salinity comes through on the palate along with crushed rock, oyster shells, and that familiar note of lemon zest to match the nose.
Simple, elegant and fresh, fresh, fresh! This wine smells and tastes like spring.
Pair with: Fresh summer salads like Mediterranean orzo, a classic Niçoise, or even potato salad with pink radishes and fresh dill.
Pandolfa ‘Battista’ Chardonnay
Wine: Pandolfa Battista
Origin: Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Vintage: 2019
Grape(s): Chardonnay
Style: Dry, unoaked, aromatic
Price: $20.95
Alc./vol: 12.5%
Unoaked Italian Chard will forever remind me of my friend Sarah. As a sommelier, I love it when I can prove someone wrong! Wrong, that is, in their assumptions about what they like. Professionally speaking, there are few things more thrilling to me than that look in a wine drinker’s eyes, when they discover something new, or when they surprise themselves by drinking every last drop and then order another bottle of a wine they swore they’d tired before and hated.
German Riesling and, more broadly speaking, Chardonnay, are two such wines that consumers feel very strongly about. Chardonnay in its natural state is actually quite neutral tasting. It’s winemaking techniques that add complexity, flavour, and aroma - everything from the fermentation process to the employ of oak. Along the way, something got lost in translation when California producers and other New World producers began over-oaking their Chards, producing loud, bombastic, heavily oaked wines that lack the delicacy, finesse, and indeed richness, albeit restrained, richness of Old World Chardonnay.
So overwhelming are some of these wines that it has turned people off of the Chardonnay grape entirely! So, a few years ago, when suggesting a bottle of Italian Chardonnay for the table, it was not at all a surprise to encounter resistance. And it was a pleasure, as always, to prove my friend wrong, to show her how elegant, expressive, and clean tasting Chardonnay can be.
While this is not the wine we drank that night, it is a sterling example of just such a wine. Rich, and round with a plush mouthfeel, this wine exhibits green apple and underripe pear, white florals, and a pleasantly weighty waxy note on the finish.
Dry, with fresh acidity and wonderful aromatics of green apple, underripe pear and white florals, that move into a rich, round, plush mouthfeel with a pleasantly weighty waxy note on the finish.
This wine is available by the case from The Vine Agency.
Pair with: Creamy mushroom pasta or grilled pork chops served with apple sauce and roasted fingerling potatoes.
Bisci Verdicchio di Matelica
Wine: Bisci Verdicchio di Matelica
Origin: Marche, Italy
Vintage: 2019
Grape(s): Verdicchio
Style: Dry, araomatic, elegant
Price: $23.95
Alc./vol: 12%
Robert Parker Jr. has said of Verdicchio, “[It] is one of the joys of Italian oenology that rarely gets the respect it deserves, and few producers do it better than Bisci.”
A favorite of sommeliers, chefs, and restauranteurs alike, you’ll find Bisci’s Verdicchio on such famed wine lists as that of Thomas Keller’s three Michelin-starred, French Laundry.
Lemon, freshly squeezed lime, highly acidic but with a perfectly constructed balance of acidity and alcohol content. Vibrant, buoyant, and yet elegant to the last!
I recently picked this bottle up at Dags and Willow cheese shop in Collingwood. Although it’s more widely available through The Vine Agency, by the case.
This wine is truly one of the secrets of the sommeliers. I could not recommend it more highly.
Pair with: grilled or fried calamari or gnocchi tossed with pesto.
Comparini Tenuta di Poggimele Chardonnay
Wine: Comparini Tenuta di Poggimele Chardonnay
Origin: Tuscany, Italy
Vintage: 2017
Grape(s): Chardonnay
Style: Dry, full, complex
Price: $38.35
Alc./vol: 14%
Unlike the previous Chardonnay, this one, from Tuscany, has spent 8 months in oak barrels, with that, imparting a generous richness along with a complex array of nutty aromas and flavours.
In the glass the wine is a rich, deep golden colour. It’s intensely aromatic but in the most elegant way.
If tasting this blind, I would have thought it was a dry Sherry! Stewed apple, walnut, honey, Brazil nut, hazelnut skins and beeswax leap from the glass.
The palate is grounded with refreshing acidity, an almost sour note of granny smith apple and a touch of lemon curd.
This is nothing like your typical oaky California Chardonnay - although it does have the alcohol to match! This is a fine, round, layered and complex wine that offers more of itself with every sip.
Pair with: Pear, gorgonzola and walnut flatbread drizzled with honey or pan-seared salmon and grilled seasonal vegetables.
Like what you read here? Have a comment or queston? I’m at your service! Post in the comments box below or send me an email @ ashley@sommwinepicks.ca
