Wine Archives - Page 3 of 15 - Hungry Travelers

Wine

Reviving Istria’s ancient winemaking tradition

Posted on October 15, 2021October 13, 2021 by Pat and David

Greek traders brought wine grapes to Istria roughly 2,900 years ago, yet quality modern winemaking in the area didn't really start until after the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991. Politics always seemed to get in the way of making premium wines in this crossroads region on the northeast coast of the Adriatic. ‶My grandfather was born in Austria,″ pioneer winemaker Ivica Matošević (pronounced ee VEET sa - ma TOE she vitch) told us. ‶My father was born in Italy and I was born in Yugoslavia. My children were born in Croatia.″ He pauses for effect. ‶And the family has never moved.″ Matošević is one of a handful of visionaries who put Istria on the viticultural map in the 1990s, releasing his first imitation of a...Read More

Boccaccio’s ‘Decamaron’ and the solace of stories and wine

Posted on March 21, 2020 by David

The news from Italy, especially in the north, is nothing short of horrific. So quickly has the COVID-19 pandemic moved that everything was transformed in a manner of weeks. As I write this post in mid-March, it's hard to believe that just three weeks ago (February 25), a few hundred representatives of mostly northern Italian wineries were in Boston for the annual Slow Wine presentation. That's the irrepressible Roberto Bava of Cocchi (cocchi.it) in the Piedmont at the top of the post. Italy has seen such horrors before. The Decamaron by Giovanni Boccaccio is one of the foundational books of Italian literature. The frame story is set in the summer of 1348 as the bubonic plague was ravaging Europe. Three young men and seven young...Read More

Honoring the past, Rocca di Montemassi aims for the future

Posted on December 14, 2019December 11, 2019 by David

About 20 minutes southeast by car from the marvelous stone town of Massa Marittima with its 13th century Romanesque cathedral (above left), the Rocca di Montemassi estate celebrates the Maremma farming heritage all the way back to the Etruscans. It is only a short distance from Rocca di Frassinello (see previous post) but its style is lovingly retro. The Zonin family—famed for winemaking in the Veneto, Piedmont, Friuli, Tuscany, Lombardy, Sicily, and Puglia—purchased the land in 1999. Vines of Sangiovese, Vermentino, Viognier, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Syrah, and Petit Verdot cover about 15 hectares (37 acres) of the 20 hectare (49 acre) farm. “Farm” is the operative word. Not only do the Zonins produce wine here, they also keep pigs and Maremma cattle, a...Read More

Rocca di Frassinello balances Bolgheri and Scansano

Posted on December 12, 2019December 11, 2019 by David

Draw a line on the map between Bolgheri and Scansano, and Gavorrano is right at the mid-point. Featuring soils comparable to those found in Chianti and Montalcino, the home of Rocca di Frassinello (Località Giuncarico Scalo, Gavorrano; +39.0566.88400; roccadifrassinello.it) has one significant difference. Ambient temperatures range 4–6°C warmer, allowing grapes to mature three to four weeks earlier. That climatic difference also suits Bordelais grapes better than other regions of Tuscany, making a Franco-Italian collaboration seem inevitable. The wines hint at Scansano's traditions with Bolgheri's innovations. Seeking to replicate his extraordinary success of Castellare di Castellina in Chianti in the 1970s, Paolo Panerai joined forces with Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) in a grand experiment to harness Panerai's expertise with Sangiovese with the Rothschild mastery of...Read More

Emerging winery points to Maremma’s future

Posted on December 3, 2019December 2, 2019 by David

You can't quite see the ocean from the winery at Fattoria di Magliano (Località Sterpeti 10, Magliano; +39 0564 593 040; fattoriadimagliano.it). But if you turn southwest and close your eyes, you can smell the salt air rising from the coast 10 miles away. That maritime influence combines with well-drained soils to produce intensely flavored grapes. Founded in 1997 by footwear magnate Agostino Lenci, the winery embodies the expanding possibilities of the Maremma. While the traditional varietals of the region, Sangiovese and Vermentino, represent 80 percent of the vineyards, the winery also has extensive plantings of Syrah, Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as significant amounts of Petit Verdot and Merlot. From the outset, the winery embraced French grapes and technique as a complement...Read More

Wine from a stone: Sassotondo thrives on tufo

Posted on November 27, 2019November 26, 2019 by David

Stone cities, stone Etruscan tombs, and vineyards bursting from soil of broken stone. The slightly porous gray rock known in Italian as “tufo” (“tuff” in English) consists of compressed ash from a long-extinct volcano. It is the stone that pokes through the ground throughout the highlands of the eastern Maremma. The monumental medieval cities of Pitigliano (above) and Sovana are either carved from tufo or built from blocks of it. Near Sovano, Etruscans left impressive tombs carved into a tufo hillside. Winemaker Carla Benini embraces the red volcanic soils, crafting wines of surprising depth from some of the grapes indigenous to this corner of the Maremma. She and her husband, documentary filmmaker Edoardo Ventimiglia, settled on this land outside Sovana in 1990 and have spent...Read More

Maremma Toscana DOC: Tuscany’s next great wines

Posted on November 25, 2019December 11, 2019 by David

Every wine lover knows Tuscany. Most of us cut our teeth on Chianti Classico, grew up to relish Brunello and Barolo, and pad our birthday wish lists with Bolghieri's “Super Tuscans.” But while everyone seems to know Tuscany, until recently only the Tuscans seemed to know the southwestern coastal region of the Maremma. That's changed in a big way, as some of Italy's most powerful family wine empires have taken a stake in the Maremma in the last few decades. Even local winemakers refer to the Maremma as the “California of Italy.” They continue to respect tradition, but they also prize innovation. Of Tuscany's patchwork of 40 DOCs, or named wine regions, none is more dynamic than the Maremma Toscana DOC (www.consorziovinimaremma.it/en/), established in 2011....Read More

Fomenting a wine revolution close to the Liberty Bell

Posted on November 11, 2019November 11, 2019 by David

Serious modern winemaking took root several decades ago in Pennsylvania, but a handful of small wineries just outside Philadelphia's western suburbs are expanding well beyond the presumed limits for Keystone State wine. This third post takes a quick look at three wineries a short drive from Philadelphia. One challenges conventional thinking about Italian grapes for Eastern Seaboard winemaking. Nestled in a suburban neighborhood, another proves that “backyard winery” is not just a California phenomenon. And yet another is systematically proving that Pennsylvania can produce wines that age beautifully into a voluptuous maturity. Vineyards speak for themselves at Vox Vineti Ed Lazzerini refers to Vox Vineti (Latin for “voice of the vineyard”) as a nano-winery because it produces 200-300 cases per year. But the vines are...Read More

Fine wines in horse-and-buggy Lancaster County

Posted on November 7, 2019October 3, 2019 by David

While you're as likely to get stuck behind a horse-drawn buggy as a tractor on Lancaster County's rural roads, the region is more than straw-hat and gray-bonnet country these days. Historic dairy and row crop farming is giving way to vineyards and hop yards as farm wineries and craft breweries pop up in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Traditionally, this has been a region of fruit winemaking, followed at the end of the 20th century by a reliance on French-American hybrid grapes. Slowly but surely, wineries focused on traditional European wine grapes have begun to prove that Lancaster County is fertile soil indeed for well-made classic wines. In the quest to look at the future of Pennsylvania winemaking, I was able to visit a pair of very...Read More

Pennsylvania wine begins to hit its stride

Posted on November 4, 2019October 1, 2019 by David

William Penn must be smiling somewhere. With more optimism than horticultural knowhow, the Quaker son of an English admiral planted a Philadelphia vineyard of French wine grapes in 1683. They soon died off, and what wine Pennsylvania made until the 20th century was largely vinted from native labrusca grapes. There are accounts that some Pennsylvania wine was well-received in London in the 1760s, but the correspondent might have been merely polite. There's no longer any need to cut Pennsylvania wine special slack. I spent part of a week in September touring nine outstanding wineries in eastern Pennsylviania. While these nine represent just 3 percent of the Keystone State's wineries, they demonstrate that Pennsylvania has the potential to make major league wines that can compete with...Read More