Sardinia Red: Monica di Sardegna

Today my quest to learn more about Italian wine has brought me to the island of Sardinia. I'm haphazardly skipping around Italy as I find new wines or grapes. I chose Sardinia because I was at Corti Brothers this weekend looking for a local wine when a found a red and white wine from Sardinia.

To learn about Sardinia, I pulled out my favorite reference on Italian wine: Vino Italiano. Sardinia appears to be a scary place to visit because it is so remote from the Italian mainland. It requires an eight hour ferry ride to reach the island and many fugitives and kidnappers take advantage of this isolation. The authors felt the food and wine was worth the trip.

The Monica grape is grown primarily in Sardinia, and more specifically in the southern half of the island around the city of Cagliari. Wines from Monica are supposed to be light wines with the flavor of cherry. The designation Monica di Cagliari means that the wine is 100% Monica and comes from the southern DOC. The designation Monica di Sardegna, however, means that the grapes could come from anywhere on the island and only 85% of the wine needs to be Monica. The remainder can be a blend of Carignano (aka Carignan) and Bovale (a red grape of Spanish origin.)

The Monica I had was a "di Sardegna" using 90% Monica. It wasn't a "light" wine and the presence of the Carignano may be the reason. This grape is high in tannins, acidity and bitterness. Even at less than 10% it brought up the tannins and complexity of the wine. I'll have to try a wine made from 100% Monica to get a comparison. The taste of the wine reminded me of a cross between Merlot and Nero d'Avola, which I recently reviewed. I got a hint of cherry as I drank the wine and the tannin level made it go well with the Tri-tip steak I drank it with.

I think I would enjoy this wine with a spicy spaghetti dish, or anywhere I'd drink a Merlot or Chianti. The wine is different enough to be a nice change of pace. At $13 it's an affordable option too. I'll have to find an unblended example of Monica to get an educated opinion on the Monica grape. I'd also like to taste the wine side-by-side with a Merlot and a Chianti. I recently tried a side-by-side tasting with a wine that reminded me of Syrah. It was cool to be able to contrast the two wines, to help me see why I thought the first wine was like a Syrah and to see how the two differed. Either from an educational stand point or just for drinking enjoyment, I'd like to get another Monica soon. (If anyone has tried both styles, please leave a comment to tell me what you thought of the difference. Thanks! )

Tasting Notes:

2005 Argiolas Perdera Monica de Serdegna (13.5% alcohol)

Color: Dark red

Nose: Cherry

Taste: Cherry with medium tannins

Finish: The tannins lingered slightly with a sour cherry taste, sometimes I got a hint of raisin, but this was very faint.

( Click on the bottle to see the winemakers notes. )

A Change of Pace: Côtes de Provence Rosé

I've been drinking quite a few Italian wines in February as I've been reading through the first selection of the Wine Book Club, Vino Italiano, so I thought I'd drink something different last night. We were having "Swiss-Cheese chicken" (breaded chicken baked with swiss cheese on top), rice and zucchini so we chose something light: 2006 Domaine Fontanyl Côtes de Provence Rosé.

According to Terroir-France.com, half of the rosé wine made in France comes from Provence and 80% of the wine made in Provence is rosé. This area of France is on the French Riviera coverings an area from the cities of Marseille to Nice (Click on the map to the left for a bigger map of the region. Used by permission from Wikipedia, created by Marmelad.)

This area of France has a Mediterranean climate, characterized by hot, dry summers, mild winters, little snow, and lots of sun. The soils vary across the region. The main grapes grown in the Côtes de Provence are Carignan, Cinsaut, Grenache and Mourvedre; typical Rhone varietals. Rosé wines made out of grapes grown here are dry and full of fruit flavors.

The Domaine Fontanyl was a nice rosé to me. I was a little leary when I first sniffed the wine because it smell just like a white Zinfandel. I don't like sweet wines at all, so I was pleased that this rosé was very dry (it reminded me of a rosé I had last year that was made out of Malbec that had no hint of sweetness.) I couldn't really detect much fruit other than cherry on the nose or when I the tasted the wine (I'm beginning to wonder if cherry is the only fruit I can detect!) The tannins were very light in my mouth, but lingered with a sour cherry flavor after I swallowed. I didn't feel any heat ftom the 13% alcohol level. The wine went well with chicken.

At $11 I'll have to look for this wine to enjoy as a sipper for warm summer evenings. I can't wait to get back to exploring Italy, but this rosé was a pleasant break.

Tasting Notes:

2006 Domaine Fontanyl Côtes de Provence Rosé

Color: Light rose

Aroma: Almost like white Zinfandel, cherry

Taste: Dry! Cherry and light, light tannins

Finish: Light but lingering tannins with sour cherry

Wine Book Club #1: Vino Italiano

When I was growing up in the 1960's, one of my favorite shows was "The Wild Wild West"! James West and his trusty side-kick Artemus Gordon would fight old West criminals for an hour my TV screen. My favorite part of the show was right before a commercial break when the scene would get smaller and smaller and become one of the pictures that made up the show's graphic, similar to the one on the left. It was fun to remember what scene each picture was from.

Vino Italiano by Joseph Batianich & David Lynch uses a similar technique at the beginning of each chapter (though I may be the only one who sees it.) The authors relate a story about a trip to the particular Italian region. For example, eating a meal with an Italian class that is learning English and sharing all the curse words they've learned with the authors, or shooting cannons into clouds over a Piedmont vineyard to ward off hail stones, or finding the best gelato shop in Sicily. Each of these little vignettes gives me a mental picture to hang the region on; a mnemonic devices to aid this highly graphic oriented reader.

This book has been invaluable to me as I am learning about Italian wine. I could find out most of the information in the book on the web, but I wouldn't know how to put it all together. The authors cover each region in a way that appeals to me. They cover the soil, the grapes, the wines and even the foods of each area. Each region is broken up into Sparkling Wines, White Wines, Red Wines, and Sweet Wines. This format not only helps to compare and contrast each region, but it makes it easy to skim through the book if you're looking to find information on, say, the red wines of Sardonia.

The end of each chapter is both education and delicious. There are chapter summaries that show the regions production, grapes and wines. There is then a list of top producers of the wines. What I like best about these lists is that I have actually been able to find the wines listed as good examples of the wines. In other references, the wines are either not in any local store or Internet source or they are WAY too expensive for me. The final entry in each chapter is a recipe for a dish from each region and a wine to pair it with. I may be coming back to these sections if I ever learn how to cook.

I've only made it through half the book, but even after I finish reading each chapter I'm sure I won't be finished with this excellent reference. I don't feel like I have to read the book from first chapter to the next, as each section stands on it's own. As I have bought a new wine from a different Italian region, I've read that chapter in the book. This has been a great read. Thanks, Wine Book Club, for suggesting such a great book for our first selection. I can't wait to find out what picture develops for the Tuscany region!

( It's uncanny how much the maps in the book look like WineCountry IT's maps. Does anyone know if there is a relationship between the authors and the website? )

Open That Bottle Night: # 9

Apparently this has been going on for a few years and I'm just learning about it. It makes sense: I've only been into wine for 15 months now. When I found out about Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher's Open That Bottle Night from reading Farley's post in her Behind the Vines blog, I knew which bottle I would be opening. The two writers, who share a wine column in the Wall Street Journal, have designated the last Saturday in February as a day to open and drink a wine that you've been holding on to because it's too special to drink.
My bottle has been on hold for 6 months. I bought it on the last day I worked at a local BevMo store. I had read about this wine in The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil. She was writting about Rhone wine and described this one as a wine that made her understand how great wine can be. I had also been to a Rhone wine tasting the previous winter but none of us had brought a Northern Rhone. I really wanted to know what the Syrah grape would be like in a French wine. The wine cost almost $70 and that was the main reason I couldn't bring myself to drinking it.
So, after a little debate in my head, I decided to open the bottle and see if Gaiter and Brecher had a good idea or not: they do. Their event helped show that now is the time to enjoy wine. I'm not sure what kind of occasion would have come along to cause me to open that bottle, but it wasn't going to happen any time soon. The mystique of that bottle would have grown with each month I didn't open it. As it was, I was disappointed when I first tried the wine. My first reaction was, "I paid THAT much for this wine!?! Why isn't it making my tongue dance?"
I did enjoy the wine after I got over the first disappointment. I let the wine decant for an hour while supper was being cooked. When we drank the wine with our meal, it had opened up a little and reminded me of why I like the Syrah so much and gave me a deeper appreciation for Rhone wines. It was a sublte wine. It had the fruit flavors of cherry and what I can only call a Syrah. It had nice tannins that stayed on my tastes buds after I had swallowed. There was a sour cherry flavor that mixed with the tannins and it paired well with our meal. I definitely want to get more Syrahs like this, but I don't want to have to pay so much next time.
I think the best thing to learn from this little exercise is that wine is only grape juice. Really good tasting grape juice, but still, only fluid squeezed from Vitis vinifera. I don't know if I'll have a wine that qualifies for OTBN next year. Almost every bottle I purchase is gone before thirty days go by. Maybe someone will give me a great bottle as a birthday present. Otherwise, I'll just have to read everyone else's posts. If you have a bottle that's waiting for some special moment that never seems to get here, why not open it tonight? I'm sure you'll enjoy it and you'll make this evening a little more special.

The writer of the Avenue Vine wine blog did a great review for of this wine for Wine Blogging Wednesday #19. If you're interested in finding out more technical information about this wine, click here.

Tasting Notes:

2002 Côte-Rôtie Brune et Blonde de Guigal

Color: Medium red with pink edges

Nose: Cherry and band aids (there is often a rubber aroma when I smell Rhone wines!)

Taste: Sour cherries and gentle syrah flavors, not like a fruit-bomb, but just as enjoyable

Finish: Sour cherry and light tannins that go well with food.

Another Italian White: Soave

I finally got to try another Italian white wine: Soave. I bought a bottle of this last year, but traded it before I drank it for a Hungarian wine at a wine tasting. I've read several things about Soave that made me think this was going to be a hit or miss wine (it's developed a reputaion for being a mass produced table wine.) Reading through "Vino Italiano" gave me the impetus to get another bottle.

Soave is made in the Veneto region of North-Eastern Italy. (Click the map for a link to a much more detailed description of the Veneto. Map used by permission from Loris Scaglarini of WineCountry.IT. Thanks!) The famous city of Venice is located in the region, too, but the Soave zone is on the opposite side located close to Verona. This is a narrow band of hills that once were volcanos. The soil is mineral rich, but basically poor well drained soil that causes grape vine roots to have to tunnel deep to find nutrients.

Despite the great potiential for producing grapes full of flavor and balance, this region has the reputation for growing bland, mass produced wines. This is a result of growers maximizing harvests for production. The makers of the Soave I tried used to contribute their grapes to the bunches that went into the regions wines. The brothers who own Tamellini vineyards decided to produce a better wine from their own grapes. They hired a renown Italian wine maker and by 1998 started producing their own Soave. From reviews I read after I tried the wine, theirs is one of the better Soaves.

Soave's main grape is the Garganega grape (picture courtesy Hillary Stecbauer via Wikipedia.) When given the proper treatment Garganega can produce light wines with hints of wild flowers, lemon curd and nuts. Often the ratio in Soave is 70% Gargenega and 30% Trebbiano (aka, Ugni Blanc.) The Tamellini's wanted to make a Soave that showed off the Gargenega grape, so theirs is 100% Gargenega.

I have had no other Soaves to compare with, but the brothers did a great job. I couldn't detect any specific aromas, just the smell of a Chardonnay or even a beer! The flavors were more like a Chardonnay mixed with a Viognier, but I couldn't detect individual fruit flavors. There is a definite hop flavor, which is probably why I thought this wine smelled like a beer. This discription doesn't do the wine justice, because the flavor is nice: distinct from a Chardonnay, not like a beer at all. Maybe it's the minerality that makes it stand out from a Chardonnay. There was no oak (the tech sheet from the winery states that the wine is "100% stainless steel fermented and aged.) I'm not sure what food this wine would go with, but it's interesting that the tech sheet says it is the best wine to have with asparagus. Come to think of it, this wine would go great with a lot of Chiniese food dishes, especially asparagus beef.

Like I said earlier, this is my first Soave. I'm glad I got to try one that was 100% Gargenega and such a pleasant wine. It reminds me a lot of the Gavi wines I had several weeks ago. Next time we have Chinese food take out at my house, I'm going to try this wine. Let me know if you've had any Soave and what foods you like to drink it with. (Gargenega makes grape #47 in quest to join the Century Club!)

Tasting Notes:

Color: Golden yellow

Aroma: Chardonnay, beer

Taste: Chardonnay / Viognier cross, hops, a suggestion of nuts. Medium mouthfeel.

Finish: Slight tannins with almond like flavors and bitterness, but in a good way.