Price supports rarely benefit small farmers.
Why Italy?
Back in the mists of time, there weren’t so many options for sourcing reliably great wines. Go back in time 100+ years, and you’d be limited to some of the classic French regions (Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne), plus Port, Madeira, Sherry, and German Riesling.
Now ? Now we buy wine from all over: California, Washington State, and Oregon. Every possible region of France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. But also Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, and Moldova. Greece, naturally. With all that choice, why do I keep circling back to Italy and Italian wines?
With apologies to E B Browning, how do I count the ways?
Diversity of grape varieties (they currently have ~2,000 native grapes, but constantly ‘discover’ more.)
Diversity of terroir. From mountains to foothills to plains, and lakeside to seaside, Italy runs the gamut. So do the wines.
The wines pair incredibly well with the local cuisine. (in other words, after 2,000+ years, they’ve perfected this aspect.)
The wines are just so interesting, always something new being ‘discovered’: a new grape or a recovered one, a new technique, a new taste.
But even with all that history and tradition, Italian winemakers are some of the least-tradition-bound, and most-innovative in their profession. They’re unafraid to push boundaries and create new styles.
All of which doesn’t take into consideration the joy of visiting wineries in Italy. Unless you are visiting some enormous brand, a winery visit in Italy will be less winery employee waving at Vaslin presses and nattering on about brix at harvest, more family member loaning you boots to tromp through the vineyard, followed by tasting from various barrels and dinner in the kitchen. Added, of course, there’s the incredible beauty of these places.
Is it any wonder we love these wines?
But…we want you to love them, too. And sometimes, all the unfamiliar grape and place names get in the way of that. So…come to Taste of Italy on Saturday. Taste and discuss the wines with the people who import them. Unless you can fly to Italy and visit the winemakers, this is the single best way to learn about these wines.
We dare you not to love them.