Category Archives: Wine for all & all for wine

Because wine deserves its own category, don’t you think?

The white côtes of Burgundy: what Chardonnay was meant to be

Mountain Men and Mountain Wine

Enofaber introduces Vincent Grosjean

Fabrizio Gallino lives in the Piedmont, north of Torino near the Valle d’Aosta, in the land called Canavese. He a family man who works as an editor, and in multimedia and the web, but his passion is wine and food, Canavese, Italian, and otherwise. He’s been an AIS sommelier since 2008 (encouraging me via Twitter before my own final exam), and continues to deepen his knowledge around all aspects of it — a search that never ends, he says.

Fortunately for us, he also writes, maintaining his blog enofaber.com. I like the way he writes about the experience of drinking wines, meeting vintners and other “personaggi” he comes to know (mostly small producers and lesser known wines); it’s not a report or a review, he says; he prefers to relate more “the emotions of the moment,” as he puts it.

I am delighted that he’s given me permission to translate selected articles here. The first is from a visit with Vincent Grosjean of the Maison Vigneronne Fréres Grosjean in the Valle d’Aosta. Enjoy.

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Vincent is a man not much taller than me, well placed with large, calloused hands that make you remember that the earth is low…

Hands like two shovels, that if one slapped you across the face your head would spin for three days.

Vincent who, when I first arrived at the vineyard for a visit, made me wait half an hour because he had other things to take care of. I was also met with some suspicion.

Vincent, arrives now to shakes my hand firmly, give me a pat on the back and smile at me, eyes and mouth. Still maintaining a bit of a “low profile,” but much more jovial now and friendly. Maybe he came to understand that my love for the Valle and his wines is authentic without any ulterior motive.

So much so that he let me taste this wine, retrieved from his personal stock: Pinot Noir 1989, 22 years old. In 1989, I was 16; I did not drink, I did not smoke and I’d just become interested in women (mamma mia, how much time I’ve spent on least two of these activites…).

Well, this wine is like Vincent. It’s of him. Healthy, compact, all in one piece, but richly faceted. The smell of woods after a spring rain, a scent that fills the air once you seek it out.

This is the land of damp woods that crown to Ollignan, the village where Maison Grosjean vineyards are located. But there are also traces of the freshly cut meadow grass that surround the vineyards; of spices, of the herbs found in these mountains. Verticality, in every sense. At the beginning — just like Vincent — it’s rough, surly, calloused. You have to know to wait for it. You’ll then be presented with a truly memorable wine, but only when the it decides. It also has the power to last, last, and last.

Stainless and in one piece, just like Vincent Grosjean.

Merci bien, Vincent

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Grazie a te, Fabrizio…

Leggi l’italiano? Vai all’articolo originale.

Images courtesy of grosjean.vievini.it

Think you know Nebbiolo? O mio babbino caro, think again.

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I’m enthralled by Tri-Veneto wines, and seek to sing their praises whenever I get a chance. They’re made for what we eat around here; it’s only natural we “drink local.” But any wine enthusiast will seek out good wines no matter where they’re produced; and good locales will always offer a wide selection of palate-pleasers representative of the wide-wide world of wine.

That’s what happened the other evening at La Cantina*, when co-owner Andrea ported out a bottle for an impromptu tasting. It was a bubbly, so I was already half way to liking it: métode champagnoise is all to often overlooked as an after-dinner, evening-ending option. So, what do have we here…

A sparkling metodo classico but not Franciacorta? Not Trento DOC? Rose, OK, but, what color is that? Coral? no. Pink? nope. Sort of an intense, mauvish red, as if the dried rose hips you might find in your great- grandmother’s potpourri had soaked for hours in the perlage. Curiouser and curiouser… Lots of floral in the multifaceted nose, and in the mouth? Charming and unexpected. Fresh and sturdy, but not forceful or challenging or steely. People pleasing without being silly or soda-poppy. Just a pleasure.

It’s Nebbiolo in purezza, the same wine of the austere, head spinning Barolo fame, over whose massive calices who-knows-how-many of the world’s problems have been solved, late into the night, by its imbibers. And here it is, flouncing around, singing, lilting, but never leaving far behind its intense complexity, even as a wild rose.

Same grape, whooooole different wine. Grande nebbiolo…

Erik, Paolo, Cristian and Federico are Erpacrife (formed by combining the first letters of their first name), and this is their wine. Nebbiolo harvested early to guarantee the acidity and contain the alcohol, soaked on the skins just long enough, even adding a short stint on wood. Then a second fermentation in the bottle with 24 months on the lees, and at the end, at the sboccatura, when the lees are removed, the wine is capped pas dose, dosage zerò, topped off only with identical wine. Not brut, not extra dry, not saten.

All of this would make little difference if the wine wasn’t, well, just delightful. It’s one of those that will stick, like the first, and still best Piccolit I ever tasted (I don’t think my eyebrows have been raised as high since), the Gavi Soldati La Scolca Millesimato d’Antan Rosè, the color of apricots with a perlage that would have gone on for centuries if I’d been able to resist drinking it, etcetera, etcetera.

I love these ad hoc discoveries; they’re the reason I almost never choose my own wine when eating at a trusted locale — just like ordering dinner, it’s best to ignore the menu and the list and just ask, what’s good today?

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* La Cantina is one of many locales in Venice that offer a great selection of wines by the glass and by the bottle. Located just off the Ca’ d’Oro stop on Campo San Felice, across the bridge in front of the church of the same name. Dinner reservations are essential.

photo credit Altissimoceto.it and Albergo-Ristorante il Cascinale Nuovo