Arriving at Trinoro was like driving across a moonscape, with the rich, clay-filled earth cracked and churned from the recent wheat harvest. Only after cresting the hill from Sarteano into the Val d’Orcia and winding our way down the gravel road did we begin to pass by plots of land filled with vines. Andrea Franchetti, owner of Tenuta di Trinoro, explained to me that, of his 200 hectares, only a small portion is under vine – he’d planted what land he could to which the grapes would take, the rest dominated by the thick clay or hidden under the growth of the thick forests that surround the property.
Category Archives: Wine
A “Fussy” Harvest on Mt. Etna
I spent my first few days in Italy down on Mt. Etna, observing the harvest at Passopisciaro. Andrea Franchetti, its owner, showed me how the color of the leaves and slope of the hills could allow him to predict what would be ready first – the vines with yellowed leaves were already bare, the sugars directed to the grapes on the areas where the soil wasn’t as rich (the deeper the green, the later the ripening goes his approach); and where there were depressions in the vineyard, however slight, those grapes too were still left to ripen, while the edges of the rows on higher ground were already plucked. We tasted from plant after plant, and for the first time I could really understand how much a single vine could vary from its neighbor. Some were just on the cusp of ripeness, with sweet juices bursting in my mouth and the seeds easily falling apart, where as others still maintained a tart, green edge.
Zesty Wines to End the Summer
This has been a strange summer, with its waves of 70-degree days and chilly nights. Not that I am complaining – I hate the stickiness of New York summers almost more than its winters – but it has made it a little less enticing to dip into the racy whites I stocked up on at the start of the season. However, with the last days of August up in the 80s and 90s, I plan on breaking into a few of my favorites over the holiday weekend. Continue reading
Taste: Sparkling Wine from Argentina
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At the end of a long day at Mendoza’s Nieto Senetiner, my friends and I toasted a beautiful evening and the long-term partnership between viticulturalist Tomas Hughes and winemaker Roberto Gonzalez, who have been making wine together for over twenty years. We’d tasted many of their “children” — beautiful malbecs and a vertical of the best bonarda I’ve ever had — and finished the night with a lovely rosé sparkling wine, a pinot noir with a touch of malbec, topped with a bit of grappa in the bottle. Salud!
Drink: Chêne Bleu Rosé
It was a gorgeous day in early summer when I visited the small wine producer Chêne Bleu, based on the edge of the southern Rhône and the Côteaux de Provence in the south of France. Getting to the winery at La Verrière, located atop a mountain amongst the trees of the Dentelles de Montmirail, is easier said than done: Our GPS couldn’t find the address, so we had to do it the old-fashioned way, winding along narrow roads above the town of Crestet, eyes open for small signs and roadside markers, praying we were going in the right direction as we passed by forests and hiking trails until we finally came upon the beautifully restored ninth-century estate, high above the Rhône river valley. Continue reading
Wines Made with Love
If there’s one thing that can really draw me to a wine, it’s discovering a unique story behind the bottle. Not every wine is a labor of love, but for those that are, their points of distinction vary drastically from house to house: Vineyard managers growing international grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon versus native varieties like Portugal’s Touriga Nacional; winemakers who might choose to ferment wines using natural yeast; wines aged in amphorae rather than the more ubiquitous barrels and stainless steel; even technical matters like pressing grapes gently as whole clusters, or hand-picking them from the vines at night. All of these differences—whether grand gestures or subtle attention to detail—come through in the complexity of the final wine, each bottle a love letter from the winemaker to a place, a grape, or a year. Continue reading
A Red for White Wine Drinkers
Living with a white wine drinker, I have a whole collection of red wines I never drink. They’re usually too heavy, dense, or “meaty” as he likes to say. But on a recent date night to New York’s Maialino, I thought I’d make a push for something we might both enjoy, given the chill in the air. I gave sommelier Erik Lombardo my challenge: help us find a light-bodied, acid-driven red that even a white wine drinker could love. He came back with a grape I’d never heard of—Rossesse from Liguria, the thin-strip of land in northwestern Italy that hugs the Ligurian sea and best known for playing host to Genoa, the capital city for pesto-lovers everywhere. Lombardo described the wine as having a briny acidity, and I was immediately intrigued. Continue reading
Beyond Sauvignon Blanc: New Zealand Riesling
When autumn hits, I put away the clean, crisp wines of summer and turn to aromatic riesling, its delicious nectar warming my body and soul against the onset of cold. I’ve explored the unctuous rieslings of Germany and Austria, tasted Eden Valley’s Australian delights, adored Alsace’s bone-dry take. But it was only in the past year or so that I discovered New Zealand’s hidden secret. Continue reading
High-Quality, Affordable Pinot Noir from Chile
During the February harvest season in Chile’s Leyda Valley, a cool-climate winegrowing region located alongside the country’s central coastline, I visited the winery that gave its name to the region.
Viña Leyda was founded in 1998 and has since been focused on developing vineyards in key areas, covering the hillsides that dramatically slope down toward the Maipo river and the sparkling Pacific Ocean in the distance, for grape varieties like pinot noir and sauvignon blanc. Continue reading
Barale Fratelli Dolcetto d’Alba Costa di Rose 2009
My boyfriend’s brother finally got his green card, after 15 years in the US on visa after visa. We decided to have a little celebration at home (a little vegetarian pasta anyone?), but that didn’t mean the wine couldn’t be special. I rooted through my wines, the ones I have tucked away for aging or for special occasions, to find one that I thought could be fun and fitting for the meal. Continue reading