Our wine and food exploration of Italy continued in the Piemonte region and later included a brief, but memorable, stay in Tuscany where we were treated to a delicious multi-course lunch with accompanying wines at a renowned Brunello Di Montalcino producer.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Back at base camp (La Cascina Del Monastero), Velda Grasso and her winemaker husband Pepe (short for Giuseppe) not only provided us with excellent accommodations and spectacular dining recommendations, they also prepared and served us (and eight other lucky guests) a seven - course, seven wine gourmet dinner one evening.

Pepe’s wines, which include Arneis, Dolcetto, Barbera, two Barbaresco’s, Barolo and a delicious Moscato with dessert, were lovely accompaniments to the food. Velda’s menu consisted of:  antipasti with local cheeses and salami, bruscetta with fresh tomatoes and herbs, lasagna with four cheeses, Italian wedding soup, sautéed rice balls with fontina, porchata (roast pork) with porcini mushroom sauce and hazel nut cake with a poached pear.

(Check out the Cascina's website at  www.cascinadelmonastereo.it. You can also get great advice on lodging, restaurants and wineries on your next trip to Italy by going to www.italybestsecrets.com). After dinner, our intrepid group moved to the terrace to watch the stars and sip Pepe‘s Grappa. For those of you unfamiliar with Grappa, it is the Italian equivalent of “moonshine” that is made from the pomace (pressings) of fermented grapes.  While Pepe’s elixir was smooth and (too) easy to drink, I’ve had the misfortune of sipping Grappa that could have been used as rocket propellant. Groggy, but undeterred, we set off the next morning for a visit to one of Piemonte’s most respected wineries, Prunotto.   Prunotto was established by the family of the same name in the 1920’s and sold to the Tuscan Antinori Winery in 1989. Prunotto‘s winery is located in the hub town of the Barolo and Barbaresco region – Alba.

Cellars at Prunotto While Prunotto features the full line of Piemonte wines, two that are worth seeking out are the 2005 Barbera D’Asti and the 2004 Bric Turot Barbaresco.  The former is bursting with bright cherry fruit,  is well balanced and would be a wonderful partner to pasta with a putanesca sauce (featuring tomatoes, garlic, olives and red pepper flakes). The Barbaresco is a single vineyard wine that has aromas of dried flowers and sour cherries with loads of rich, ripe black currant flavors that beg to be paired with roasted pork.

While both Barolo and Barbaresco are made from nebbiolo grapes grown in the region of Langhe in Piemonte, the Italian government requires certain processes to be followed before wines can be called by those prestigious names.  For a wine to be labeled Barolo, it must be aged for two years in oak barrels and one year in the bottle before it can be released for sale. Barbaresco must have one year in oak and one in bottle before it can be sold.

For either wine to be authentic Barolo or Barbaresco, the government seal of DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) which means “guaranteed, must be on the bottle. Generally speaking,  Barolo is a fuller-bodied wine with more prominent tannins than Barbaresco. This is not only due to the differences in aging requirements, but also because of micro-climate and soil differences between the two appellations.

Nebbiolo  ripe and ready to be pickedGenerally,  Barbaresco  matures faster than Barolo, though both have the structure to continue to develop in the bottle for decades.  One way I’ve found to speed up drinkability of the wines is to decant them for extended periods before sipping them.  For wines under 10 years old, I will pour them into a carafe for up to 12 hours before consuming them.

In the past decade, the vintages of  1996, 1997, 2001 and  2004 are considered to be exceptional and produce classic Barolo and Barbaresco that are very age worthy. The vintages of 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003 and 2005 are considered atypical because most were warmer years,  producing wines that are more forward, softer and higher in alcohol.  These also need to be decanted, but are more approachable in their youth.

We ended our trip to Piemonte with a visit to the world-renowned Barbaresco producer, Bruno Giacosa.  Giacosa does produce Barolo as well as the full line of Langhe wines, including Arneis , Barbera, Dolcetto and a wonderful sparkler made from pinot noir. However, the king at Giacosa is Barbaresco.

My familiarity with the pleasure of mature Bruno Giacosa  Barbaresco  is limited,  but one experience was unforgettable. I had purchased a bottle of 1971 Giacosa Barbaresco  to celebrate the birth year of my first born child.  On the occasion of his wedding (some 28 years later), we popped the cork on the bottle and sipped what can only be described as liquid silk.

Next time, I’ll relate our brief, but exceptional trip, to Tuscany and the wines of Brunello Di Montalcino.

One of the small pleasures of my life is conducting wine tastings. I really enjoy imparting information to eager learners, and wine lovers are perfect students. You ask good questions, are usually very attentive and truly want to learn more about the wine you drink.

My tastings go something like this: I’ll usually give you a short history of wine and then demonstrate how to get the most out of the tasting by teaching you how to use your senses to fully appreciate wine.  

Think in terms of the ‘five S.’s of wine appreciation: (1) sight – observe the wine and judge its clarity, color, etc; (2) swirl- rotate the wine in the glass to unlock the flavor and aroma; (3) sniff – place your proboscis deeply into the glass and smell and try to describe what you are smelling; (4) sip – my favorite part of the tasting where you roll the wine around in your mouth allowing it to touch all the surfaces; (5) swallow – judge the impressions the wine leaves when you swallow it.

Generally, a wine tasting will consist of examining six or seven wines beginning with lighter and sweeter wines and moving to fuller-bodied and dryer ones. Tasters should receive about one ounce of each wine so the total amount you drink over the course of the tasting approximates one full glass of wine.  

Tasters are encouraged to critically examine the color as well as the aroma and taste of each wine, and to render an opinion as to what they liked or disliked about a particular bottle.

After years of conducting these tastings, I have compiled a list of the most commonly asked questions and today I would like to share them, along with my answers to them, with you.  

White wine is best served from 45F to 55F except for
Champagne or sparkling wine which should be served around 40F. Red wine should be served between 58F and 65F. I usually put my reds in the refrigerator – particularly in summer – for about 15 minutes to cool them.
How do I know which wines will benefit from aging?

Most of the wine, both red and white, that is on the shelf for purchase is ready to drink now. Certain full-bodied reds such as cabernet sauvignon,  Bordeaux, Barolo, Brunello Di Montalcino, can benefit from bottle aging in exceptional vintage years. To determine which vintages and wines warrant aging, research them on the internet or read wine magazines or periodicals to find the information. A few whites such as Sauternes and other late-harvest sweet whites along with some chardonnays can benefit from extended bottle aging too.

Does the old axiom of white wine with fish and red wine with meat hold true?

Sometimes, but there are exceptions. For example, grilled tuna and salmon along with spicy grilled chicken are better accompanied by red wines. One rule I follow is the lighter the food, the lighter the wine and the fuller flavored the food, the fuller –bodied the wine. Vinegar based salad dressings are a no –no! Wine, with perhaps the exception of Sparklers, clashes with acidic dressings destroying the taste of both the wine and dressing.

In my opinion, all wine, white and red, benefits from the aeration that decanting provides to wine. Exceptions are very old wines (those over twenty years old).You’ll also need to be careful to pour slowly and watch for sediment in the last few ounces of red wine.    

Sulfites are used sparingly in the wine making process to prevent oxidation and assist in keeping the wine clean. People who have hyper-sensitivity to sulfites should speak with their physicians. By the time commercially produced wine is bottled, there should be no or only trace amounts of sulfites present.

Color in wine comes from the pigment in the grape’s skin. If you remove the skins from the juice of red grapes, the resulting wine will be white. For example, Champagne is made from the blending of two red grapes (pinot noir and pinot meunier) and one white (chardonnay) yet the resulting wine is white.

I’m sure you have many more questions about wine and I encourage to post them at the end of this blog and I’ll get back to you with the answers.

When I was growing up, one of our faithful family traditions involved enthusiastic discourse around the holiday dinner table. To the rare outsiders who were infrequently invited to our large family repasts, the decibel level of this “enthusiasm” must have been a bit disconcerting.

No subject was too grand, obscure or off limits. We would debate everything from presidential elections to the color of Aunt Agnes’ moustache, and those who prevailed usually did so through din rather than  eloquence.

So in keeping with family tradition, my brother and I have debated for decades the best wines to pair with Thanksgiving dinner. After exhaustive and sometimes heated discussions, we have come to the conclusion that almost every wine can marry nicely with some part of the Turkey Day meal.   Why? Listen up.

For years, I have written about the culinary versatility of turkey to be successfully paired with white or red, as well as light or full-bodied wines. The reason is this bird is blessed with meat that has different flavors, colors and textures. Add to this the way it is cooked - from traditional oven-baking, to deep frying, to grilling, to smoking (with hardwood such as apple)  -and you have even more wine choices from which to select.    

When you add stuffing to the turkey, you add a whole other flavor dimension which, depending upon the nature of the dressing, opens up even more wine possibilities. One year, for example, I stuffed a charcoal grilled turkey with cornbread, ancho chili peppers and chorizo sausage. What wine, you might ask, did I serve with this non-traditional turkey and stuffing?

Well, I started with Domaine Carneros sparkling wine as an aperitif, proceeded to open a bottle of Pierre Sparr Pinot Gris for those who preferred white wine, and a Ridge   Zinfandel for those who wanted a big red. And guess what, it worked. For dessert, I chose a bottle of Joseph Phelps Late Harvest riesling to accompany the  pumpkin pie, and then plopped on the couch to watch some team beat up on the Detroit Lions.

Here are a few wine-pairing suggestions, based upon cooking methods, for your Thanksgiving Day:

The traditional oven-roasted turkey with a mild dressing is very nicely accompanied by whites such as pinot grigo, sauvignon blanc or chardonnay, or reds such as pinot noir, Chianti Classico, or sangiovese. Older wines such as Bordeaux or California cabernet sauvignon go nicely as well. On the other hand, if you smoke or grill your bird, try full-bodied zinfandel, shiraz, cabernet sauvignon or even Brunello Di Montalcino.   

So what about my approach this year? Well, I plan to oven bake the critter and then stuff it with bread dressing flavored with Italian sausage, chestnuts, onion and celery.  I’ll start with a bottle of  Domaine Chandon Rose Sparkling Wine $20) for the aperitif, followed by a  2006 Montinore Estate Gewurztraminer from Oregon ($17) as well as 2005 Domaine Serene Evanstadt Reserve  ($60) (both of which will be poured with the main course). We’ll accompany the pumpkin pie with a sip or two of  Scrapona  Moscato ($22) and then let the tryptophan kick in.

Since Aunt Agnes shaved her moustache, the only thing left for me to decide is  the Thanksgiving dinner debate topic.    

Bon Appétit!

After rummaging around my very disorganized cellar for a suitably mature wine to pair with a celebratory meal, I came upon a bottle  which had obviously been lying in repose for quite some time. After blowing the dust off the label, I was incredulous to discover that the wine was a 1947 Borgono Barolo!

Say what?  That’s older than … Howdy Doody! (By the way, there is no truth to the rumor that Howdy Doody was the illegitimate result of a union between Little Orphan Annie and Pinocchio).

Anyway, it turns out my brother, who had prompted me to look in that particular area of the cellar and with whom I share a passion for the fruit of the vine, had years before slipped the Barolo into a nook instead of a cranny, and I was unaware I possessed this museum piece.   

I had actually consumed one other wine from that ancient vintage and, according to the  wine cognoscenti, it is perhaps the greatest Bordeaux ever produced. The 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc was undoubtedly the best wine I had ever consumed, but I wasn’t expecting this wine (from the Piedmont region of Italy) to be anywhere near the quality of that legendary Bordeaux.

However, my recollection of Borgono Barolo is that I had uncorked a 1978 version of the wine a couple of years ago and had been surprised by its youthful flavors and amazing aging potential. But this wine was more than 30 years older than that wine. 

Since the wine actually belonged to my brother, I magnanimously sought his advice about when we should open it, knowing full well that we would need to stand the wine in an upright position for several days to assure that decades of sediment would settle to the bottom of the bottle. 

In its youth, Barolo is a purple monster with huge dollops of mouth-puckering tannin and searing acidity which can completely mask the earthy, rich flavors hidden underneath. There are some Barolo producers who are now making wines which are more approachable in their youth, but wines produced in the old-world style like the Borgono can improve for decades.  And so I had some hope that there would be something more than vinegar left in the bottle.

On the appointed day, I began to gingerly open the bottle with a traditional waiter’s corkscrew.  Mistake! Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the cork began to disintegrate as I attempted to pull it from the bottle. In fact, I was forced to push a hole through the cork so I could get to the wine. 

I should have used an “Ah-So” which is also known as a  “Butler’s Friend” to remove the cork.   The Ah-So is a twin-pronged device that is placed on either side of the cork and then rocked back and forth until the prongs grip the cork along the sides of the bottle. Once inserted, you pull and twist the Ah-So until the cork is removed.

Pouring the 1947 Barolo through a coffee filter!

 My unsatisfactory solution to the cork debris problem was to insert a coffee filter into the decanter and then pour the wine through it.  The problem here is the filter just might also strip out any flavors left in the wine. Also, as I poured the wine ever so slowly through the filter into the decanter, I was immediately concerned by the brownish-orange liquid that came out of the bottle.

I quickly poured myself a few ounces of the wine and put it to my nose.  At first, the Barolo had a pungent, almost unpleasant raisin/beet nose that slowly- over 15 minutes - morphed into an aroma redolent of earth, mint and prunes.  In the mouth, this amazing wine still had life with layered flavors of cola, caramel and spice with a solid acid backbone.  It was also silky smooth and continued to develop over the next hour that it took us to savor and consume the wine.

What a remarkable experience and one that I’ll always remember. It also reminded me of the reason we age wines from great regions in exceptionally good vintages.  In the meantime, you can enjoy that glass of ready-to-drink wine while both you and your special bottles mature.    

Well, here we are again faced with that most enjoyable of all dilemmas: what wine to get for that loved one, friend or you this holiday season.

Normally, the pressures of holiday shopping are both frustrating and exceedingly difficult for me, but not when it comes to wine gifting!  Why?  Well, for me, securing a quality selection of top wines for the holidays is a labor of love and today I’ll share my top picks that should meet just about every budget.  

Let’s start, though, with some non-vinous gift recommendations for those in need of wine accoutrements (that’s French for “stuff”), or other goodies that are not liquid.   

I just finished reading and really enjoyed ”The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine” by Benjamin Wallace.  This real life mystery story  (which is still raging) recounts the alleged fraudulent sale of several bottles of 200- year old Chateau Lafite Rothschild to a billionaire who is bent on exacting pain from those he feels are responsible for the sham.  

The other book I suggest for your reading pleasure is “Wine and War:  The French, the Nazi’s and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure” by Donald and Petie Kladstrump.  This book recounts numerous stories of how individual French wine makers and their families fought to save their vineyards and wines from the invading Nazi’s. 

Both books are available in paperback and hard cover and can be found at local bookstores or ordered online.

There is nothing more pleasurable than sipping good wine from crystal stemware. You can spend a lot of money on wine glasses from renowned companies such as Riedel, or you can get similar quality by purchasing your wine glasses and crystal decanters right here in West Virginia. 

Masterpiece Crystal in Jane Lew  (96 Trolley St.) produces magnificent handmade lead-free crystal wine glasses and carafes.  Buy right from the showroom or go to masterpiececrystal.com and get them online. You may also place your order by phone (800-624-3114).   

Now to the good stuff.  The following wines are among my favorites and should be available in wine shops around the state.

White Wine  (under $20 a bottle):  07 d’Arenberg The Hermit Crab; 07 Pertinace Roreo Arneis; 06 Domaine Patient Cotat Sauvignon Blanc; 2008 Alexander Valley Chardonnay; Montinore Estate Almost Dry Riesling; 07 L’Ecole 41 Semillon; 07 Cakebread Chardonnay ($50); 07 Beringer Private Reserve Chardonnay ($35); and 07 Talley Arroyo Grande Vineyard Chardonnay ($30);

Red Wine (under $20 a bottle) 07 Martin Codax Rioja; 06 Las Rocas Vinas Viejas Garnacha; 07 Ancient Peaks Zinfandel; 07 d”Arenberg The Stump Jump; 08 Castle Rock Pinot Noir (Mendocino); 07 Guenoc Petite Sirah; 07 Falesco Vitiano Rosso; 06 Monte Antico Rosso; Delas St. Esprit Cotes Du Rhone; 05 Geyser Peak Cabernet Sauvignon; 06 Domaine Serene Yamhill Cuvee ($45); 05 Falcor Sangiovese ($35); 05 Silver Oak Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($65) and 01 Banfi Brunello Di Montalcino ($67).

Here’s wishing you the happiest of holiday seasons, Cheers!