Roll Wine & Spirits
Dreaming of La Dolce Vita
by Timothy Buzinski & Mei Ying So | Artisan Wine Shop
Five-Course Tasting with Italian White Wines
First course: sliced meat and cheese plate. Wherever you travel in Italy, you’ll find local, region-specific meats and cheeses. In many cases, they are simply called salumi (generally, cured or preserved meats) and pecorino (generally, sheep’s milk cheese), but locals know they mean the specialty salumi and pecorino from the region they’re in. In FRIULI, you’d break open a bottle of tocai friulano to go with the salty richness of the plate; the Azienda Agricola Livon Tocai Friulano Collio DOC 2006 would be a superb choice. Or maybe you’d like to start your trip further south in one of Italy’s newer hotspots, the MARCHE, where you’d be sipping verdicchio, perhaps the Casalfarneto Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi DOC Fontevecchia 2006.
Second course: grilled calamari. Just a whiff, and you’ll be seaside in a second — quickly grilled calamari doused with lemon, with a smattering of fresh herbs. You’ve taken a jaunt towards the coast of LIGURIA where, made nearby, the citrusy and nutty La Battistina Gavi DOCG 2005 picks up the char on the tentacles nicely. Or maybe you’re dining under the warm UMBRIAN sun with a glass of Orvieto (a blend predominantly of trebbiano di toscana and verdello) in hand. The Palazzone Orvieto Classico 2007 is perfectly dry, but its floral notes highlight the briny flavor of the squid.
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