Last night, I called into my friend Rachel’s welcoming and well-stocked wine shop here in the heart of Santa Croce. I needed some suggestions about which Italian wines I should put on my Christmas dinner table to both please and impress my guests. I was more than happy to accept her recommendations as she is an expert who has spent many years in the wine industry and who was, before opening her own company, Director of Gastronomy for Antinori Wines.
After discussing my planned menu, we got down to business beginning with the aperitif. What better way to start, according to Rachel, than with a glass of Bellavista’s Curve Brut. A Franciacorta wine, it is 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Nero and Pinot Binco. In the mid 1980s, a construction magnate, Vittorio Moretti created his Bellavista wines, making them a real success story of Franciacorta wines.
Having set the festive mood, it’s time to sit down at the table and for me to serve our ‘primo piatto’ (appetiser). Here, the candidate wine is a white, a Cerraro della Sala from Castello della Sala in Umbria. A combination of Chardonnay and Grechetto, a local grape, this Antinori wine maintains the buttery notes of oaky Chardonnay but with a unique freshness and intensity. It truly, at least to me, caresses you palate.
Then to the ’secondo’ (main course), it’s time to move onto red wine. Firstly, in honour of Tuscany, a velvety smooth Chianti Classico Reserva called A-101 from the Principe Corsini vineyards. Then to Puglia, in Rachel’s opinion the up and coming area for fine wine production in Italy, for a bottle or two of Bocca di Lupo from the Tormanesca cellars. It is 90% Aglianico, another local grape and 10% Cabernet-Sauvignon, well-rounded and savoury.
Now, if any of us are still able to lift a fork, I have to bring on the dessert with ‘panettone’ (Christmas cake), ‘torrone’ (nougat), nuts, dried fruits and chocolates. This time the choice is Ben Ryé Passito di Pantelleria of Donnafugata. Made 100% of Zibibbo or Muscat of Alexandria grapes, this is definitely a dessert wine but it is neither cloying nor sticky. Instead, the grapes capture the Sicilian sun and the hot winds blowing in from North Africa and translate them into a perfumed golden nectar, difficult to forget and impossible to substitute.
Happy holidays and chin chin……
William Posey
2 months, 3 weeks ago
I am an American living on Pantelleria. Donna Fugata has had great success in commercializing some Sicilian wines, as well as the Passito of Pantelleria. Ben Rye is rather good, if not a quite commercial product made in Sicily. True Passito is made on Pantelleria, which is a culture unique and separate from Sicilian culture, a small island closer to Africa than Sicily. The true Passito is similar to but much more detailed than Ben Rye but impossible to find in the USA. the local population would be horrified to hear Passito called a Sicilian wine, as it is not in any way a Sicilian wine. Best regards.