#80- Dolcetto

It was the only red wine of the whole camping weekend. And it didn't disappoint! After a full day of hiking and hitting up Old Fort Point (next post), we were ready to enjoy a quiet evening at the campsite. It was a beautiful evening in Jasper with daytime temperatures in the mid twenties so the evening temperature was just perfect.

We'd hoped that we had burned enough of Owen's energy off during the day and doing the climb but no such luck. While Craig got the fire going (so I could make us dinner), I had to entertain the kid.

I threw a ball in the air. I played bocce ball. I wrestled with him. I played I spy. I played jump over the wood logs. I played hide and seek....you get the idea. I'm not sure how people do this "parenting"  thing full time. It was time to drink.

The menu that evening included fresh potatoes (from my sister's garden), some side salad and good old AAA Alberta beef steak. They'd thawed during the day so they were spiced up a bit and once the potatoes were done, the steaks were put on and grilled to perfection.

The wine is a Dolcetto, very obviously an Italian wine. The wine is a midweight wine and not very acidic. It is often drunk very young. This was an absolutely delicious wine and both Craig and I gave this wine a two thumbs up. I thought it was a great compliment to the juicy and flavourful steak- didn't take away any of the smoky flavours of the food that had infused itself into our grilled dinner.

The dolcetto grape is grown in the Piedmont region of Italy and is known as "little sweet one" which it was. Coming off a month of drinking ports, sherries and dessert wines, it's all relative so I wouldn't call this necessarily a very sweet wine. It is actually a dry wine- this world is sometimes full of mystery and confusion.

In this wine I could definitely taste licorice and cherries and would classify this as a very balanced wine.

The winery is the Poderi di Luigi Einaudi and based on the beautiful pictures on its website, I would very much like to go there. It's exactly how I picture a vineyard to be- beautiful and romantic and mysterious. Oh, who wants to buy me a ticket? If you can read Italian, you can read more about the wine.

I still have some of the wine left so the debate tomorrow while I do some of my classroom work (yes,I'm taking a wine class- maybe one day I'll actually be able to write something intelligent about wine) and drink the bottle or leave some for Kristin and mom to taste on Sunday. Choices....