Pinot Bianco from the Alto Adige

This month I'm getting to know the wines of Italy's Trentino-Alto Adige region. Tucked up in the northernmost part of Italy, the wines from this part of the country are quite different from the lush southern reds and crisp seaside whites that you might be more familiar with.

My first wine was a Cabernet Franc from the southern part of the Trentino-Alto Adige. My second wine is an aromatic white from the north: the 2007 Alois Lageder Pinot Bianco from the Dolomites. ($9.39 on sale in my local grocery store; available elsewhere for $13-$17) JPK from The Italian Cellar blog recommended "anything by Alois Lageder" in the comments when I announced my regional focus for June, and all I can say is: JPK's got good taste. The wine had terrific aromas of salty, wet stone that practically screamed out for seafood. There were salty and yeasty flavors, that turned citrusy and a nicely bitter lemon pith note in the aftertaste. Excellent QPR, even if you don't find it on sale like I did.

This bright, bracing wine was excellent with this recipe for smoky citrus shrimp with parsley. The shrimp calls for chipotle powder--which I couldn't find for love nor money up here on the Sonoma Coast. So I substituted a mixture of chili powder, smoked pimenton from Spain, and cayenne and it gave a similarly smoky-spicy kick. Because we were having the shrimp with a hunk of bread and some salad, I also enriched the sauce by whisking a tablespoon of butter into it when it was finish. The wine's salty and yeasty notes were great with the shrimp and bread and the citrus in the wine and the citrus in the sauce were perfect partners, too.

Thanks to JPK for the excellent suggestion of Alois Lageder. That's a name that's going on my short list of "go-to" winemakers.

Cabernet Franc from Italy's Trentino DOC

One of my favorite things about setting the goal of drinking wines from every region in Italy--a process that began in 2008 and will continue through 2009--is that I buy wine I wouldn't taste otherwise. These are often the wines I remember months later because they were unexpected treats, wines that caught my imagination even though I often have low or no expectations and no real frame of reference for what I am tasting.

That happened last week when I opened up the 2005 De Tarczal Cabernet Franc. I purchased this in April 2008 from Garagiste in Seattle, received it in November, and promptly put it in the back fo the cellar for the month I finally got around to Trentin0-Alto Adige. ($16.90, Garagiste; available elsewhere for $19)

When I opened it, I was greeted with promising aromas of bell pepper, sour cherry, earth, and minerals. It struck me as less weedy than Cabernet Franc from the Loire, with a depth to the cherry aromas that made me eager to taste the wine. Flavorwise, the wine had a lovely, satiny texture wrapped around earth, leaf, and sour cherry notes. This was a really lovely, well-balanced Cabernet Franc from a region that (perhaps in my ignorance) I don't usually associate with Cab Franc. Excellent QPR.

Mushrooms go beautifully with a wine with this kind of flavor profile. Make yourself a portobello burger slathered with pesto mayonnaise and topped with roasted peppers and arugula--your tastebuds will thank you.

Feeling the Heat? Cool Off in the Italian Alps

Last month was a bit of a whirlwind in terms of work, and I never got myself organized for the next stop in my tour of Italian wine regions. This month I'm back on track, and pointed in the direction of Trentino-Alto Adige. (photo by bobferdon)

Tucked up against Austria, this wine region is known for its snowy ski resorts, craggy peaks, and its belief that bread and wine is the stuff of life. One of the region's proverbs is Pane e vino fanno un bel bambino or "bread and wine make a beautiful baby." The area's dedication to wine is all the more remarkable given the fact that only 15 % of the land is arable, and vineyards often are planted in terraced vineyards on mountain slopes.

Viticulturally, Trentino-Alto Adige has been influenced by Austrian, French, and German traditions as well as Italian. The region's winemakers make racy whites from varieties like Pinot Bianco, Riesling, Traminer, Sylvaner, and Gruner Veltliner, for example. And if you're looking for a red from Trentino-Alto Adige, expect to see bottlings of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot as well as Sangiovese and Schiava. (photo by John Shave)

As the wine goes, so goes the food. In the northern part of the region (Alto Adige) the food has a Germanic flavor and the people are predominantly German speaking--so lots of sausage, cabbage, and dumplings are eaten with hearty reds and acidic whites. In the south, around the city of Trent where Italian is the most common language, polenta and pasta are popular foods, often served with mushrooms.

Have you had many wines from Trentino-Alto Adige? If so, what are your recommendations? Check back here for mine over the next few weeks.

Warning: These Wines May Change Your Mind About Pinot Grigio

When Pinot Grigios are good they are very good--but when they are bad, they are horrible.

Overproduced Italian Pinot Grigio flooded into the US market some years back, and much of it was thin and tart. If you chilled it to near freezing and served it on a hot day in place of lemonade no one made much fuss, and soon people who didn't like Chardonnay could find Pinot Grigio on restaurant and bar menus and started ordering it by the glass. More overproduced Pinot Grigio came pouring in to meet the new demand. At cocktail parties, women were offered Pinot Grigio as soon as they entered the door, as if our genetic makeup demanded we receive a glass of the stuff a day or we'd shrivel up and die. Today, the poor grape has joined Merlot and Chardonnay as Varieties Most Likely to Be Dissed in polite wine society. Had Miles of Sideways been a woman, the most famous wine line in movie history may well have been "I am NOT drinking any f&#*ing Pinot Grigio!"

Pinot Grigio--or Pinot Gris as it is called in places outside Italy--is a grape that is capable of making a wide stylistic range of wines. In Alsace, the grape produces wines that have body, intense floral and honeyed notes, and citrus. In Italy, the grape makes wines that are light bodied and acidic, often with a touch of spritziness. Here in the US, Pinot Grigios/Pinot Gris range from the full and melony to the bright and citrusy. And I'm here to tell you that these wines can be excellent.

I've got a pair of very good QPR Pinot Grigios to recommend that should warm the heart and quench the thirst of even skeptical wine lovers who have avoided this grape for the past 10 years.

The first is the very good QPR 2007 Altanuta Pinot Grigio. I received this as a sample, but you should be able to find it near you for between $9 and $15. What I liked most about this wine was that it was well-made and wasn't trying to be something else. As a result, what you got was a tasty, straightforward Pinot Grigio at a very attractive price point. Light aromas of lemon, flowers, and stone accompanied the characteristically pale straw color of this Italian wine. The flavors were citrusy and smooth, with no bitterness or tartness. This was a great summer wine, with a refreshing, light body--and it tastes like an Italian Pinot Grigio should taste with a light, but not watery, freshness. It is a natural partner for shrimp or clams--we had it with linguine alla vongole and the clean citrus flavors were lovely with the briny clams and the sharp garlic, providing a contrast of flavors and textures.

The second is the 2006 Esca Pinot Grigio from the Russian River Valley ($17.99, WineQ). This was one intense wine, with aromas of lemon oil, lemon peel, and a mineral nuance that I simply couldn't place. One of my fellow bloggers, MonkuWino at One Wine Per Week, described this wine as "steely" and that corresponded to what I was smelling in my glass. The flavors are fresh and zesty, full of lemons that turned slightly bitter on the finish. I enjoyed this very good QPR wine immensely, in large part because of those in-your-face lemon oil aromas, and it is one of the better domestic Pinot Grigios I've had. We had it with a pasta dish that was sauced with chicken, spinach, mushrooms, a bit of cream, and orange zest and this really brought out the intense, concentrated aromas and flavors of the wine.

Whether you prefer your Pinot Grigios light and refreshing or steely and intense, there are good choices out there in the market that don't cost a fortune and are a far cry from the anemic wines being poured by the glass in some restaurants. Give one a try and remind yourself that Pinot Grigio--like Merlot--isn't all bad.