Italian Wine Tasting in Caracas
Yesterday night, i went to a wine tasting over at The Hotel, which is one Boutique Hotel in Caracas, and was organized by the people of ALNOVA, a distributor of wines coming from France, Italy, Chile, Argentina, and many others.
The event that took place yesterday was exclusively dedicated to Italian Wines, specifically it was all about 3 of them: a spumante, a white non-spumante wine and one chianti.(All of it became my dinner for the night!)
The presentation was done by Mr. Luis Ginori (on the left photo), Manager of Commerce Development and by his assistants(right photo): Maria Francia Trillos (on the right) and Valeria Blanco (on the left).
First we had a presentation about Italy in general and its wine history as well and then we had some info on terroirs and wine making techniques of today in Italy.
Then we went onto the wine tasting per se: First we had a Carpene Malvolti from the Veneto region in Italy. It's a wine spumante made with 100% Prosecco grapes with a V.S.Q.P.R.D. (a warranty of quality). The wine was very tasty, had a very pale yellowish tint with green facets and it was shiny and clean. The aromas ranged from green apples to soft butter, and the taste was soft and very efervescent , sweet with a little acid note, which was very nice.
Notice how the bubbles are, very tiny and they lasted a long time.
It was presented with a cold Oyster with zafron sauce (not too strong) and a bit of celery.
Next we had a white wine from Veneto, Italy from the Cantina di Soave:called Soave Villa Rosina. (D.O.C.G) .
This white was made with Garganegay grapes. It was very fresh, with a soft yellow color with golden tones, shiny and clean as well. Its untuosity was of medium range i thought. It had aromas of fresh fruits like peaches, pineapple and also some almonds were present. The taste was soft a little dry and a mix between sweet and salty with mineral notes.
It was presented with a Peruvian Ceviche with fried green plantains:
Next we had a tinted Chianti, from Tuscany, Italy, from the Coltibuono called Cetamura, from 2003, made with 90% sangiovese and 10% canaiolo grapes. (D.O.C.G. Chianti).
The color was reminiscent of garnets, with brick tones, shiny and clean too. The viscosity was high and its aromas were of mineral note, caramelized fruits, prunes and others. It aslo had hints of Alage.
The taste was dry, lightly bitter and sour, just a hint salty and very smoky, which i thought would go wonderfully with something like Duck breast and some other kind of fatty meat. It was presented with a Beef carpaccio with a light mayonnaise sauce and some cheese:
and our hostess:
Cheers!.
Comments
a great post; looks like a wonderful evening. was the audience well-behaved. often tastings can encourage hecklers, particularly after the 3rd, 4th glass if there is not a spittoon. the food/wine pairing was interesting, some great tips to take away. loved the oyster with saffron (not sure about the celery on top). prefer my celery in a vodka bloody mary. more seriously, i did a search on jancis robinson's site (www.jancisrobinson.com) for comments on soave wines, instead i spotted something on Italian sweet wines which may be of interest ...
"....Italians may only recently have managed to produce a wide range of dry white wines with fruit as well as zest, but they have been making truly great sweet whites, often from part- or fully dried grapes, for decades, centuries, probably even millennia. There is rarely a struggle to achieve sufficient natural sugar in the grapes (unlike many a Sauternes, Barsac and Loire sweet white which relies on sugar added in the winery) and they tend to have a delicious tang of dried fruit - whether apple peel in the case of fine Recioto di Soave or a cassata-like mixture of citrus peel and spice as in the many southern Italian amber nectars. Tuscany's Vino Santo is often distinctly nutty.
Dried apricot backed by a certain nuttiness is characteristic of Torcolato, Maculan's superbly reliable sweet, liquid gold from Breganze, north-east of the land of Soave and Valpolicella - for long famous almost solely for the efforts of Fausto Maculan. Vespaiolo and Tocai grapes are deliberately dried to concentrate the sugar and botrytis/noble rot is encouraged. Acininobili is the fully rotten version and arguably Italy's most serious sweet white. The beauty of Torcolato, which is also aged in small oak, is that it is delicious both young and a few years old and is not excessively expensive. Nor is it difficult to find...."