This wine is a rusty red color in the glass. The nose carries a strong aroma of sweet cherries, leather and a bit of cedar and cigar box. The palate shows a darker side, with heavy mineral notes draped over the cherry flavor. The wine’s acidity is fresh and the finish is savory. I bought it for cooking a pot roast, but very much enjoyed sipping a glass.
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Crossing The Rubicon For Sangiovese
Wednesday, November 3, 2021
Lambrusco Time
Now he is offering a Lambrusco - a first for the Cameron Hughes label, I believe. Lambrusco is typically a fizzy red wine which can be cloyingly sweet from the wrong producers and deliciously dry from the right ones. Whoever made the Lot 841 Reggio Emilia Lambrusco got it right. It comes from the heart of the Emilia-Romagna region, made from Lambrusco Salamino and Lambrusco Marani grapes. Alcohol is quite low at 8.5% abv and the retail price is only $15.
This wine pours up with a slight frizzante, with the little bubbles clinging around the edge of the glass. It is colored deep purple, with a deep and dark nose as well. Aromas of earth, leather and that Lambrusco grapiness are luscious. The palate shows some of the fizziness as well as a nice crisp acidity. The wine is labeled as "dolce," but it has a dryness built into it. It's no dessert wine, and it pairs quite nicely with some good Italian parmesan cheese.
Friday, September 7, 2018
Not Your Grandpa's Lambrusco
Long after Grandpa's passing, she told the story at a family dinner of how she sneaked down the stairs as a child and drew off a sample to taste. It was forbidden, and so much more desirable as a result. Grandpa was her hero, and she held him at the highest esteem. He could do no wrong. She sipped the liquid and spewed it out onto the floor immediately struck dumb by the acidic liquid. She held the secret for decades, the secret that Grandpa made bad wine.
At this point in the story, Grandpa’s son Uncle Joe interrupted to say, "Grandpa didn’t make wine, he made vinegar!" A round of laughs ensued. Relieved, my wife could put to rest the awful thought that Grandpa had failed at something. It may have been crappy wine, but it was the best vinegar they all had ever had.
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Why I like the wine list at Terroni |
It's a good wine, a slightly fizzy wine with a dark color and that wonderful, grapey Lambrusco aroma. On the palate it's completely dry and carries a gentle acidity. The taste takes me back to childhood, to those grape icicle pushups that were so good in the summer. The wine, of course, has none of that sweetness but it harkens back to that deep flavor. It's no Riunite. It's a very good wine which stands on its own merit. And when you want a good Lambrusco, nothing else will do. It goes great with eggs and sausage, by the way.
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Monday, October 17, 2016
Leisurely Lambusco
Bell'agio Rosso Dolce is made by blending two grapes of Emilia-Romagna, Lambrusco Grasparossa and Lambrusco Salamino. The vineyards are in the province of Reggio Emilia, located between the Po River and the hills of the Apennine mountains.
The wine is fermented in stainless steel and given a second fermentation, which imparts a bit of frothy fizz to the wine. Alcohol is incredibly restrained at just 8% abv. It sells for about 10 bucks, less in some places.
This is a very purple wine. It looks purple, it smells purple and it tastes purple. The nose is grapy and earthy, with not a whole lot of complexity. The palate is also rather simple, - pleasant, though, with gentle tannins. It's like a wine with training wheels, something to put in your glass until you're ready for the hard stuff.
That shouldn't be taken to mean the wine is not worthy. It is, quite, in fact. Its simplicity is its grace. It's a classic bistro wine, the stuff to drink when the person across the table is of greater interest that the bottle on the table.
You can pair this wine with very spicy foods, as the tannins and acidity are rather tame. It goes well with pasta, burgers, cheese or even pastries.
Friday, April 8, 2016
It's A Lambrusco Day
Denise and I had a nice lunch recently at a restaurant we had been meaning to try for quite a while. La Buca Osteria L.A. is way east on Melrose and has a sign in front intimating that it might be time to stop looking at the sign as you drive by and stop in already. So we did.
We like to celebrate Fridays with a nice lunch together under, hopefully, perfect conditions. That’s not an unreasonable request in Southern California, where you can probably count the less-than-perfect-weather Fridays each year on one hand. It was a gorgeous spring day when we sat down at the table, covered with butcher paper decorated with an ink stamp of a motorcycle.
I like the way Denise fills me in on the details of our dining experience. She digs a lot deeper into the L.A. food scene than I do, and she always has an interesting tidbit or two culled from her personal research. It appears, she told me, that the original chef left the resto in a dispute over meatballs. A scene from “Big Night” immediately comes to mind. There are no meatballs on the menu now, and I guess that’s one way to work it out. “Chef Out In Meatball Beef.”
The wine list had some nice options for a beautiful day - a rosé,a Chenin Blanc… wait, what’s this? A Lambrusco? Perfect. I'm inspired.
The Barbolini Lambrusco is just that - a perfect Lambrusco. Italian journalist Curzio Malaparte wrote in Lambrusco and Freedom, "A good drinker of Lambrusco is not only a proud, warm and generous man, but he is above all free. Therefore what is it, if it isn't Lambrusco that gives the Parmesan people that bright, sincere and dominant air; that sparkle in their eyes, that loud voice and tough expression? It is the wine of freedom and of the free man."
The wine comes from the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, perhaps better known for its cheese. This Lambrusco has beautiful purple bubbles, the result of a secondary fermentation, and it comes bottled like any other sparkling wine. Please don’t confuse an artisanal Lambrusco like this one with the jugs in the grocery store. They are nothing alike.
The Barbolini Lambrusco has a wonderful frizzante, or bubbly character, and it holds a chill extremely well. The earthy grape flavor has plenty of minerality and almost no tannic grip. It’s a great sipper, but it goes very well with food, especially cured meats. I had it with La Buca’s fabulous grilled octopus and it was even better with their rustic and incredible cacio e pepe pasta dish.
So perfect was this Lambrusco that we immediately went and bought another one to take home.
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