Colli Orientali del Friuli 2011

Posted by: Do Bianchi | April 14, 2011

From winemakers to bloggers: a seminar on how to use social media

Wine on the internet works. It raises consumer awareness and it improves sales. In the wake of a visit by 10 U.S. bloggers to wineries in the Colli Orientali del Friuli, the appellation’s growers association organized a seminar on the usefulness and basics of managing a corporate blog. For this momentous occasion, the association invited Dr. Wayne Young to the lectern. Not only is Dr. Young a world-famous blogger, but he is also the marketing director for the prestigious Bastianich winery. For his first lesson, he taught the numerous attendees how to write a post, how to insert photos, and how to promote and raise awareness of a blog through social media and RSS readers (which aggregate multiple blog updates in real-time). He also spoke about the importance of updating content regularly. During his seminar, “Professor” Young addressed a number of subjects relating to the internet and online marketing and he illustrated the most effective ways to attract new readers and consumers to blog content. “At this point, the internet is a fundamental tool in marketing products and brands,” said Young. “We believe that the future of wine lies in part on the web,” added growers association director Mariano Paladin. “This is why we have launched proactive approach to the internet and its leading figures.” Indeed, the association’s blog, COF2011.com, is still active and continues to be updated.

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Posted in social media | Tags: Bastianich, Colli Orientali del Friuli, Mariano Paladin, Wayne Young

Posted by: Do Bianchi | March 7, 2011

Colli Orientali del Friuli, Eight Days a Week!

—Nicolas Contenta

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Posted in Colli Orientali del Friuli

Posted by: Do Bianchi | February 24, 2011

Flying My Frico Flag

“Oh holy hell….what is that?!”

“Not a flipping clue but I hope to be eating it in the next few days”

A coworker and I drooling over a photo that Jeremy Parzen had posted over at Do Bianchi, a dish that he and his wife Tracie were sharing while staying in Friuli just days before the group was to be meeting him there. I put the photo out of my head, likely replacing it with my usual pre-trip freak out and last minute shopping for underpants….not what you think. I go undie shopping before every trip where I am going to be living out of a suitcase for longer than a week. Oh not for those “just in case” moments, I mean c’mon who am I fooling? No the new undies stay home and all the panties that I no longer care for come along for the ride, this way I can wear them and toss them and not have to stuff used undies in with my clean clothes. A fantastic tip given to me by my mother in-law and a brilliant excuse to buy a bunch of new underpants! So what if my husband says I am behaving like a male cat and marking my territory, it works for me.

At some point once we were all gathered from the Venice airport and bumping along in the minivan that would be our transport for the duration of our time in Friuli Jeremy began telling us what to expect. Laying down the schedule, explaining how the morning tastings were to work and that was when I first heard it, “And get ready to eat a lot of Frico”. Jeremy went on to tell us exactly what that was, or what they were really as there are two primary kinds of this particular Friulian dish, crunchy and soft. I was fuzzy with sleep deprivation and slugging my way out of a Bloody Mary haze but I heard what I needed to, there was to be cheese…..crunchy fried cheese, and sometimes there would be slightly softer cheese with potatoes, and seeing as the people of Friuli were very proud of this regional dish the chances of us being served quite a bit of it were high. All I needed. I sat there fuzzy, hazy and in my less than comfy unders and I knew I was going to be very happy.

We climbed out of the minivan at Il Roncal, the winery/hotel that we were to call home for the next 7 days, everyone a bit sluggish from travel and a little awkward with the not quite knowing each other business. Everyone milled about in front of the doors that enclosed the kitchen/dining/bar room at the estate; I spied an ashtray and slipped away from the pack for a much needed smoke and just a second away to gather my bearings. I took two deep puffs and as I exhaled I felt the weight of travel being lifted from my chest. I was struck by the beauty of the spot where I stood, the terrace above me, the rolling hills across from me and the distant voices of the people that would be my family for as long as I was there….a solitary moment before I was to be flooded with information, places, faces and flavors that were completely new. I noticed before long that I was breathing in far deeper than I was breathing out, I was ready… “Now how about that Frico stuff?”

We were eventually greeted by Martina, the proprietor of Il Roncal who appeared genuinely happy to see us and after slipping a bowl of little cream colored “crackers” before us went bouncing off to get a bottle of Prosecco to kick off the first of our many elaborate lunches. “See, I told you….Frico” Jeremy said while pointing to the bowl of crackers. I tried to be cool, nothing worse than a fat girl throwing elbows and knocking people over to get to the bowl of crispy cheese bits. I took my glass of much needed and damn refreshing Prosecco and pretended that I wasn’t dying to plunge my pudgy digits into the bowl from which my fellow travelers were noshing, was killing me. I let coy win for a bit, waited until someone shoved the bowl in front of me and I could pretend that I hadn’t noticed the crunchy bits of savory want, took only one and popped it in my mouth as if I were just being kind, yeah my bug eyes and unsightly groan blew that cover all to shit.

The second that salty but not too salty chunk of crunch hit my tongue I was a goner. My mouth began watering and my teeth….without my permission; I was still trying to savor the damn thing… came crashing down upon it sending tiny shards of fried cheese around my whole mouth. I let my tongue press the pieces to the roof of my mouth and the most delicious, savory, almost creamy flavor enveloped my palate, that would be when the eye bugging happened and that was when we were asked to come inside and take our seats at the table….but, but…I want more of that!

One piece, I had that one piece of Frico to sustain me to the next place, likely at dinner from the way Jeremy told it, before I would once again…and fuck the shy business, I was gonna be all up in it…have the delight of Frico between my teeth and wrapping itself around my palate. Um yeah, not so much. Days! Days went by and not one Frico sighting, what gives? Sure every morning I drug my sleepy ass down to the Il Roncal dining room to find slabs and slabs of creamy and delicious Montasio, the regional cheese from which the crunchtastic delights were made, it was wonderful and I sure as shit partook but….whimper, Donde the Frico?

At just about every lunch and dinner we were served Montasio in varying stages of age; from the youngest or fresh which is aged between 60 and 120 days, the semi-aged which is 5 to 10 months old, up to the oldest which is 10 months or older, was there, Friuli is very proud of their Montasio of this I can assure you. All absolutely wonderful, mild with a beautiful fruitiness and this luscious creaminess, less sharp and sweet than Parmesan with a clear milky freshness that was sublime with the high acid wines we washed them down with. I adored tasting and learning about yet another cheese but dammit, I was aching to get my Frico on. Guess I wasn’t the only one, at some point Jeremy had to ask about the lack of Frico and I turned out that everyone had assumed that we had been stuffed to the gills with the regional dish so they thought they were doing us a favor by not forcing yet another Frico on us….sigh.

On our final full day our handlers at the Consorzio took pity upon us and made arrangements for us to have lunch at a spot that was known for its Frico and not just any Frico, the soft Frico which much to my elation is basically a semi-crunchy cheese shell with…soft potatoes inside of it. Well friends that right there is better than porn to this Irish girl. Our little mix matched family sat around a picnic style table and cut into slabs of potatoes encased in chewy Montasio, drank crisp and refreshing Pinot Bianco and had a conversation wondering why this dish is not on every restaurant list in the states. Traditionally served with grilled polenta which is great and all I think on a list here in the states, this dish served with a bright salad of tender greens dressed with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, maybe a glug of good olive oil, well what the hell is there not to love?! An absolutely brilliant dish that is astonishingly wine friendly, wicked cheap to make and judging from the groaning and reaching that went on at that table, quite the crowd pleaser. One of the best things I put in my mouth on that trip and a dish that I will be making this weekend to share with friends and family….just so happens my cheese supplier has my newly beloved Montasio, so guess who else now has some…oh yeah, The Wine Country. Gonna be waving my Frico flag for sure….

Recipes Here:
Soft
http://www.bigoven.com/recipe/142138/frico-con-patate-cheese-and-potato-cake

Crispy

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/LYDIAS-ITALYS-MONTASIO-CHEESE-CRISP-FRICO-DI-MONTASIO-50005870

One of my other favorite dishes with this marvelous cheese was served to us at the home of Daniela and Pigi Comelli. A simple but perfect salad of tender greens, (looked liked Mache) topped with grated pears, grated Montasio and topped with a piece of fried San Daniele ham and drizzled with good olive oil. That’s it. No vinegar, no fluff…just the thin shards of pear matched with the creamy luscious cheese. What the Italians do best, let the ingredients speak for themselves…perfection.

—Samantha Dugan

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Posted in Colli Orientali del Friuli, hospitality, pairings

Posted by: Do Bianchi | February 22, 2011

Tasted any Ramandolo lately? I have…

Northeastern Italy’s rich tradition of dried-grape wines stretches back to the height of the Roman empire, when the acinaticum of today’s Soave, Gambellara, and Valpolicella reigned as one of Western Civilization’s earliest “celebrity” wines.

With all of today’s talk of and favor curried by so-called Natural wines and their “back-to-our-heritage” ethos, we often forget that the earliest paleo-European wines to emerge with celebrity cache were among the most manipulated of that era. The purposeful desiccation of fruit intended to obtain a more concentrated wine with higher alcohol content and greater levels of residual sugar cannot avoid (however obliquely) reminding the informed observer of the “dropped fruit” and “hang time” employed by the Californian chemists who produce Ovaltine-inspired grape-flavored beverages with 17+% alcohol.

The roughly two dozen (yes, that’s it, count ‘em) producers of Ramandolo cannot trace their roots back to Roman times but they can point to documents scribed in the high middle ages when their sweet, dense wines were coveted and praised by at least one Roman Pope (Gregory XII). Centuries before the villages of Cialla and Corna di Rosazzo would earn their fame for the production of fine white wine, Ramandolo (which only recently joined the Colli Orientali del Friuli consortium) was renowned for its unique confluence of warm maritime ventilation, a natural shield from inclement weather (the Alps), chilly winters that naturally and gently stabilized the wine, and a sturdy and industrious townsfolk who express the hardships of mountain living in perseverance and patient enology.

On the last day of our Colli Orientali del Friuli blogger project, we traveled to the appellation of Ramandolo (in the northernmost, isolated subzone of the appellation) and got to taste 12 wines by 12 producers (roughly half of the entire body of wineries), all wines I had never tasted before, of which none (to my knowledge) has representation in the U.S. market.

Production levels are extremely small here. Eyeballing the anecdotal figures given to us, the average surface area planted to Verduzzo (the main grape variety) per winery is 4-5 hectares, with most weighing in with 1-2 hectares.

What sets these wines apart from their relatives in the Veneto (or their very distant relatives in Tuscany) is the fact that Verduzzo is an intensely and uniquely tannic white grape. While the majority of labels we tasted that day were dominated by invasive toasty oak (imparted from barrique aging), the best wines allowed the bitterness of the tannins and the sweetness of the residual sugar to play a gorgeous counterpoint harmony in the glass. Where I often find even some of the best dried-grape Moscato to be one-dimensional (think Sicily, think Piedmont), these wines — when done right — show depth and seductive character.

My favorites of the 12 wines tasted were Daniele Gervasi (my top wine), Maurizio Zaccomer, and Andrea Comelli, who also tasted us on an experimental botrytized Ramandolo (in one instance accidental and in another induced by wetting the grapes and covering with cellophane).

Like Rumpelstiltskin, the producers of Ramandolo seem to have awaken only recently to discover that the globalization of wine and globalized tastes might afford them a space in the market to sell their wonderful wines for the high prices they demand. They’ve got a long way to go but our experience on the ground there seemed to indicate that they are working together toward a shared goal of launching the Ramandolo “brand” on the international market. With such small production and such a tightly knit small community of winemakers, their solidarity is surely the only path toward that objective. I hope they make it because the wines can be stunning.

Tasted any great Ramandolo lately? I have…

—Jeremy Parzen

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Posted in Colli Orientali del Friuli, Ramandolo, Verduzzo

Posted by: Do Bianchi | February 21, 2011

COF2011: Day 3, friends in high places (amici in Terre Alte)

Terre Alte is one of those archetypical wines that define a place. I remember tasting it for the first time at VinItaly in 1998, with Elda Felluga herself. I immediately developed a crush on both Elda and her Terre Alte…

Made for the first time in 1981, it is a white blend of 3 Varieties: Friulano, Pinot Bianco and Sauvignon Blanc. There is a category of absolutely first class white blends coming out of Friuli that get way-too-little attention, dubbed “Super-Whites” by myself and Joe Bastianich many years ago. There are a number of these wines made here: Vintage Tunina, Terre Alte, Broy, Braide Alte, Blanc des Rosis, Flors di Uis, Molmatta, Ronco delle Acacie, Breg, Vespa… and for me they represent an attempt to emphasize the character of the Friulian terroir instead of the character of a single grape.

So I was excited when we arrived at the Livio Felluga winery to eat and visit with my friend Matteo Burani, Felluga’s export manager, and taste some old Terre Alte.

“The best wines are blends,” Matteo said as he poured. I agree completely. We were treated to a mag of 1997 and a mag of 1996. The ’96 was the last year that Terre Alte was made completely in Stainless Steel, and was quite possibly the vintage that I fell in love with at VinItaly with Elda back in 1998…

I found this mag of ’96 slightly advanced with deep golden color, and that nutty, spice-cake sensation that belies a little oxidation. On the palate the wine was sexy and sleek. Full and almost nervous at the same time.. Very long finish of spices…

The ’97 was a different animal. This was the first year that 20% of the Friulano was aged in new wood, but you couldn’t tell… The nose had that awesome old white wine petrol/gas thing goin’ on, very muscular, almost tannic on the palate with creaminess and creme brulee and some great nervous energy still backing it up with acid and minerality….

That’s me and Nico makin’ off with a couple mags… both Terre Altes, of course. We retasted them the next morning and they were still magnificent, more open and opulent, but not at all tired or washed out… Truly special Old SuperWhites…

—Wayne Young

The Babbo effect and a visit to the Bastianich winery

Above: My friend Wayne Young, whom I met in 1998 in New York when he had already been working within the then-expanding Bastianich empire for three years. In the photo, Wayne is standing atop the amphitheater growing site where the top wines for the Bastianich winery are grown in the Colli Orientali del Friuli.

Babbo changed everything. It was “a fine-dining Italian à la carte restaurant below 14th St.,” as Joe Bastianich put it when I first met him in 1998 (when I was working as an editor at La Cucina Italiana in the City).

Ruth Reichl’s watershed New York Times review of the place in April 1998, “A Radical Departure with Sure Footing,” marked a point of no return for pseudo-Italian restaurateurship in the U.S.

I remember that Wednesday in August 1998 well: it was the day that Italian gastronomic irony died and the newly minted craze of Italian regional cuisine took firm hold in North America. Whether you liked Babbo or not (and who didn’t want to get a table at Babbo?), from that day forward, if you cooked Italian food in the U.S., you had to do it earnestly: your food was only as good as the authenticity that stood behind it.

Above: Alfonso tasting with the COF2011 blogger team and winemaker Emilio del Medico and winery GM Dennis Lepore.

Wayne Young and I first met back in those heady days of New York’s Italian food scene. We all knew a revolution was taking place even though, from the eye of the storm, we didn’t realize its portent. Today, Wayne — who has worked as a sommelier at Bastianich outposts Becco and Babbo — serves as the Bastianich winery’s “special ops” man on the ground in the Colli Orientali del Friuli (the blogger project there was his idea). He is involved in every aspect of the operation, from winemaking (a wasp in his pants is what gave him the idea to call the winery’s flagship white “Vespa”!) to sales (ask him what it’s like to sell wine in Serbia!) and marketing (he is the only Friulian winemaker to author a winery blog).

Wayne is a remarkable man, with great generosity of heart and a warm gentleness. I’ve never heard him say a nasty word about anyone and I admire him for the way he lives his life perfectly integrated into Friulian society where he is welcomed and beloved by all we met. Despite his nordic locks, everyone calls him “a local” up there in northeasternmost Italy.

Above: In our tasting last week at the winery, my favorite wine was the 2009 Sauvignon Bianco. Fresh and clean, with balanced aromatic character and that bright acidity that I want (and need), it should retail for under $20 in the U.S. The Bastianich Sauvignon has a screw cap, a feature that allows the winemaker to add a smaller amount of sulfite to the wine, because the screw cap allows less oxidation (where a cork, an organic substance, would allow more).

Like Wayne, the Bastianich family has been welcomed in the Colli Orientali del Friuli as winemakers. President of the COF consortium Pierluigi Comelli told us the story of how Joe and mother Lidia came to him asking for advice on where to buy property and set up their facility. Ultimately, on his advice, they revived a winery that had abandoned after the owner’s untimely passing. And they bought uncultivated growing sites where they cleared the woods themselves to make way for vineyards. After a week in the COF, I had a clear sense that winemakers there appreciate the expanded exposure and bandwidth that the Bastianich brand brings with it. “Everyone rises with the tide” seemed to be the consensus.

Above: On Friday evening, the last of our trip in the COF, we took time out to celebrate with a beer in Cividale del Friuli. You can’t really help but smile when you’re around Wayne — it’s contagious. That’s Nicolas, David, and Alfonso to the right.

Spending the week tasting and comparing notes with Wayne (who, as a local winemaker, shared a lot of interesting insights with the group), I couldn’t help but think back to 1998, when we first met and none of us really understood what was about to happen. As Eric the Red recently pointed out to me, it was a time of Italian gastronomic “innocence” (it is Eric whom Mario Batali’s father Armandino credits for having “discovered” his son’s talent in 1993).

I’m glad to know that the fame and the celebrity hasn’t changed my old friend Wayne.

—Jeremy Parzen

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Posted in Colli Orientali del Friuli, Sauvignon Blanc

Posted by: Do Bianchi | February 17, 2011

Ring My Bells

Church bells, I’m sitting here back on my little couch perch feeling the jet lag finally settle in and I hear the church bells ringing from the Catholic Church down the street. I’ve lived in this spot for close to thirteen years and cannot remember even once hearing them before. I just got back from a place where the bells rung often, being there experiencing, seeing, tasting….feeling things for the first time….aware of each tiny nuance and now here I sit, in a place I know so well that I can damn near navigate it with my eyes closed, with the bells of my own place awaking me to what I’ve been missing….well by navigating through my daily life with my eyes closed.

These trips are always like this for me, always this kind of awakening of sorts, a breathing of new life into a soul that yearns to experience new things but sadly too often lets that get tucked aside or buried beneath the stacks of return emails, magazines to read, blogging…planning and making dinner. All the little tasks that make up my daily life, the one I shamefully, all too often navigate with my eyes closed. Even when it comes to picking wine for the night, I have this remarkable world of wine at my fingertips, wines from Piedmont, Marlborough, Dry Creek, Savigny-les-Beaune, Alsace, Muscadet and yet more often than not I wrap my fingers around the neck of a bottle of Francois Chidaine Touraine as I am running out the door. Sure it’s a fantastic wine, be willing to go so far as call it an astounding value, familiar, delicious, food friendly….but, I missed those bells. Eyes closed.

I like to fancy myself a fairly wine savvy chick, been lucky enough to have some of the most sought after wines in the world fall upon my palate, kicked up dust in the cellars of wineries whose wines many people never even see a bottle of. Not sure how it all happened but happen it did and when I think back upon those moments I feel lit up, tingly and profoundly lucky but let’s be real, not about to pop Lafon Montrachet for a tingle. The thing I can do is recall those moments at will; picture the winemaker, the cellar walls, the kind of glasses we drank from, the way the wine rolled across my palate. Those memories are part of me and my wine education and I have them with me always, with me on my drive to and from work, in my heart when I blog, part of my sensory system when I taste anything but, well there is only so far a memory can take you and the one place beyond its reach, is forward.

When Jeremy Parzen first asked if I would be willing to join he and a handful of other American wine bloggers on a trip to Friuli the first thing that raced through my mind was, “Me?! I don’t know anything about Italian wines beyond Pinot Grigio and Langhe Nebbiolo.” The next thing to come was, “Of course I want to go, I don’t know anything about Italian wines beyond Pinot Grigio and Langhe Nebbiolio” and knowing that The Wine Country could spare me this time of year I shot back the, “I’d love to!’ email. I instantly began walking the Italian section at the shop, eyeing the bottles, trying to pronounce the winery names and testing myself on regions and what grapes grow there….just as I thought, I knew almost nothing. Sure I knew a bit about Tuscany but truth be told, don’t care much for most of the wines from there. Piedmont I could wrap my head around a bit better, Nebbiolio being an aromatic variety much like my beloved Pinot Noir and Dolcetto often being grapey and a tad softer in tannin like Beaujolais on steroids but, for the most part Italy and Italian wines were a complete mystery to me.

The first few hours of my Friuli immersion course were spent speaking English, sipping Prosecco and trying to shake that, “What the fuck am I doing here?” feeling. Just trying to gear up and take in as much as my tiny melon could process. Once we were released to check into our rooms and take a look at our itinerary I found myself awash in utter panic and desperate excitement, on the sheet detailing what we were to taste and the estates we were going to visit there was maybe three things I had heard of before. Friulano, heard of that but never without Tocai in front of it, (and as I would learn the Italians too had to remove the word Tocai, just as the French had to with Tokay for their Pinot Gris. The Hungarians had a hissy and won and now Tokay is a protected name and only they can use it) Pinot Grigio of course and Sauvignon but what the hell are Pignolo, Picolit and Schioppettino?! Wasn’t sure I could even say them let alone taste them. No frame of reference, no memories to look back on, just me in this strange place for the first time tasting things that I had never even heard of….are those bells ringing?

So you know when you step foot in a new restaurant or even fondle the menu of the one that makes like your favorite pot pie or whatever and you are thinking of trying something different? The way you hover a bit, that little pang of “what if I don’t like it?” the fear of the unknown keeping your feet just above the pond, afraid to plunge….yeah well I told that fear to blow me and jumped in with both feet. Splashed around in the sound of a language that made no sense to me, felt my teeth tug at the flesh of San Daniele prosciutto, (giving Parma a run for its money) got my Frico on, (this I will explain in my next post) found that I have a slightly dangerous love for Grappa and discovered that Schioppettino, a grape literally saved from extinction by the people of Friuli, can be as diverse and sexy as my much adored Cabernet Franc.

I came home exhausted, thrilled, spun, craving, full of adoration and passion and now….I hear those bells ringing and can feel mine vibrating as well….

—Samantha Dugan

Ain’t no sunshine when they’re gone…(and Schiopettino galore)

Here's the weather today, much like it has been since the Magnifici sei left on Saturday:

I’ve written before of the “Friulian Gloom”, and this week we’re getting a little bit of it.

Last week, however, when the bloggers were here, this was the weather for FIVE STRAIGHT DAYS:

Blue skies, warm days, chilly, star-filled nights. More than one producer asked if the bloggers could come back to Friuli in September, if this was the kind of weather they carried around in their luggage.

The week continued with what might have been the group’s most unanimously positive visit: Ronchi di Cialla. The Rapuzzi family single-handedly cultivate the only winery and vineyards in the Cialla subzone, specializing in native grapes, but most of all Schioppettino…

(Jeremy sniffin’)

The ’05 started the tasting with red fruits, elegant balance, a hint of rust and a fresh apply finish…. the ’01 was almost smoky with a hint of charcoal, more bass notes, a little of that funk and silky Tannins… The ’95 was still fresh-colored with plenty of mineral and hints of warm orange peel, delicate and feminine with some spicy cherry on the finish… and then the ’85… all poise and balance, color almost indistinguishable from the 10-years-younger ’95… sexy texture on the palate with a long peppery finish. Awesome…

See all thise bottles up there with 13.5% and 12.5% on the labels? Well the exact opposite of Cialla is the Schioppettino from Moschioni…

(That’s Nicolas, Francesco, Michele Moschioni and Dr J.)

Here are my notes from Moschioni’s ’06 Schioppettino: “16.4% alc., 20 days natural appassimento (drying grapes in shallow cassettes); big and rich, ripe nose, warm going down but not hot, very velvety tannins with cherry, licorice and pepper”… Maybe not as elegant as the Cialla wines, obviously very different, but I enjoyed both for what they were.

Later in the evening we had the privilege of eating at the Petrussa winery where we tried 3 vintages there: ’04, ’03 and ’99. I found these wines a bit of a synthesis of the Cialla and Moschioni wines: A little riper, fleshier and oakier than Cialla, but not as BIG as Moschioni. The ’04 was still very young, the ’03 had more leather and tertiary aromas, but “smoothed out and sexy” according to my notes, and the ’99 was lush with the epitome of “velvety tannins”.

Finally, I’d like to mention some other Schioppettini that I liked from the large tasting: 2008 Giorgio Colutta, 2008 La Viarte, and the 2006 Dri-Il Roncat.

SO what’s the final word on Schioppettino? Like so many wines in Friuli and in COF, we have different interpretations, different points of view… But the key is that this native grape has been rescued from oblivion, extinction, literally… Thank goodness (and the Rapuzzi family, or the Nonino family.. or whatever)

What’s cool is that one of these Schioppettini will turn you on. If you’re into the big Cabs or you’re into fine Burgundy, somebody makes a Schioppettino you’ll like.

And that’s what will spur others into keeping these local grapes alive…

—Wayne Young

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Posted in Colli Orientali del Friuli, Schioppettino | Tags: Wayne Young

Posted by: Do Bianchi | February 15, 2011