#103- Refosco

On the 11th day of Wine-mas my true self gave to me, a bottle of Refosco!

I have been cleaning my house all day today and on the surface it would appear I am the slowest housecleaner there was. I was pretty ambitious and thought I'd be able to get my kitchen and front hall done. Well, I haven't even made it through the kitchen yet and I swear I've been at this since noon. You do forget how much you have in cupboards and if you're sorting and throwing stuff away, what you thought would take minutes has suddenly become hours. I am mostly done the cupboards and have managed to clean the stove and oven as well. Tomorrow I'll finish the rest and get the sinks, dishwasher, floors and fridge cleaned. And hopefully the front hall as well. I was originally aiming for a January 2nd completion day. But now doubling the time I thought, I'll finish just in time to go back to work.

I keep telling myself this is not my vacation. Today I booked my 10 day vacation to Hawaii at the end of January so this is just my second unpaid job.

That and I'm hosting January's wine club meeting so the house must be spotless. Hard to believe we have been at this a whole year. We're going to be celebrating our one year anniversary and I can't wait.

The last couple of hours have been painful so I made some dinner- some nice spaghetti sprinkled with fresh parmesan cheese. I paired it with an Italian Refosco wine.

The wine is from Fantinel Vigneti Sant Helena in the Fruili region of Italy. The wine is absolutely fabulous! It is quite oaky which I love in a red and it's got a bit of spice to it. One thing I did notice was that it was a bit effervescent on the tongue. I'm not sure if I liked that or not. I didn't have to decant the wine long. It was basically ready to drink right out of the bottle.

The Refosco grape is native to Northern Italy. It is very dark skinned as is the wine. The colour is a deep garnet, almost showing purple hints. It is also known to have a very berry taste and indeed this one does.

I do enjoy this wine a lot and can't wait to finish tomorrow in between cleaning the fridge and floors. Admit, you're very jealous of me right now. Ha!

My last wine of the year is tomorrow-- and guess what? It's a Chinese wine!

#102- Grechetto

On the 10th day of Wine-mas my true self gave to me, a Grechetto from Sportoletti.

First and foremost, a Merry Christmas to everyone. Hope Santa was good to you this year. Apparently I was a good girl as I got some pretty amazing stuff. I have to say though I'm most excited about my new Ninja blender! I'm going to be a smoothie making ninja in no time. I wonder if there's a wine smoothie recipe out there?

So dinner was the usual fixings- turkey, potatoes, turnip, brussel sprouts, vegetables- you get it.  Mom makes a fabulous turkey each and every year. It was just the four of us (mom and dad and the two childless kids- Craig and I) but we enjoyed ourselves and had a lot of fun. Rounds of Family Feud and this Celebrity movie matching game were played and even a dip in the hot tub!

The wine is from Sportoletti in Italy from the Assisi region.

The first thing yo notice about the wine is how yellow it is. It's very dark. Remind me of apple juice. I'm not a particular fan of this grape to be honest. There is some sweetness to it but there's nothing about this wine that stands out for me. It's just rather blah.

The Grechetto grape is usually used as a blending grape and I would suggest that it is a better option. I'm just not a fan of it unfortunately. Maybe it's not cold enough or something but it's just not sitting well with me. The aftertaste is just not great.

So I'd say pass on this one for sure.

But hey it's Christmas- there's lot of other cheer to get into, so have at 'er!

And again, Merry Christmas!

#93- Schiopettino

On the 1st day of Wine-mas my true self gave to me- a bottle of Schioppettino!

So the first day of my 12 days of wine drinking has started off well. The bottle is delicious and the only reason I'm not polishing off this bottle is because I have an 8 hour video shoot tomorrow and I'm directing so I have to be alert and on top of things; not hungover.

So two glasses of this beautiful red wine is all I've allowed myself for tonight. But damn! Both glasses were exceptionally lovely.

Paired with a small Sicilian pizza, this was a beautiful pairing. I can't take credit for making the pizza- it's actually Boston Pizza pizza- I had a business meeting. And now enough about my busy life. I still find time for a glass of wine. I have to add that the wine also goes very nicely with Christmas chocolate. I'm just sayin'

In fact, I'm allowing myself another glass. It just doesn't feel right to be writing about the wine and not sipping on it.

The first thing I noticed about this wine is how purple it is! Maybe I'm wanting to see purple after I was at the Prince concert last night (Purple Rain was aaaa-mmmaaaaa-zing!) or it's actually purple. I could have chosen raspberry (raspberry beret anyone?) but it's definitely too dark to be that.

The wine is fairly light bodied but it's got a kick at the end for sure. Definitely full of red berries- I get strawberries and raspberries on the nose and tongue. It's a bit peppery as well- a nice little kick to it. But there's also a very distinct earthy aroma as well. And mineral like- hints of iron. definitely leaves a metallic taste on the tongue. But it's just so lovely. The wine is very balanced.

I can't find much on this wine and maybe I'm doing a poor search of it but I can't seem to find a website for the winery itself. But the schioppettino grape is a grape that nearly disappeared from the Fruili region of Italy. Thank God it didn't! The name means shotgun or crack and certainly that's how the flavours hit your mouth and surround your tastebuds.

Like I said before, the 1st day of Christmas wine blogging style has started off very well.

#92- Monica

I took one sip of this wine and I knew it was love. Kristin took a swig of it and it was love. I'm heading back to 123rd Street Liquor to buy myself a couple of more bottles; because it was love.

The wine is Argiolas Perdera from the island of Sardinia in Italy.

(but can I just say this- if the owners of the Argiolas ever stumble upon this blog, please please please take this advice- lose the cheesy romantic music and terrible 'tingy' noises any times I click on a link. It's enough to make one go bananas- lose the sound effects ASAP). Oh and that site is not user friendly at all. I couldn't find this wine at all on the site. Not a good thing when one is looking for information. I don't care how pretty the site is...

So aside from their terrible taste in audio and poorly laid out site, their wine is absolutely lovely! And by that I do mean love.

The wine is Perdera and is made from the single grape varietal- Monica. The Monica grape is very hard to find here in Canada so I was very happy to stumble upon it. And with my love affair with the grape, I have no idea why more stores don't carry this type of wine. There isn't much written on the grape other than to say it originated in Spain and is meant to be drunk young. This wine is 2009.

For a young wine, I found this wine to be incredibly complex and full of flavour. They danced all over my mouth. You can't taste just about every berry in there- raspberry, blueberry, blackberry and on and on. But it's very earthy as well. When drunk, it reminded me very much of a Cabernet.

I matched it with a pasta dish I had made- a three cheese pasta with broccoli and a nice peppered beef shoulder (roast). The fullness of the red paired very well with the beef and of course the cheesy pasta. I darn near finished the bottle that night but resisted.

I had it the next night (the night Kristin was able to take a swig) and the wine was just as good the next day.

I really can't say much more about this wine other than if you have a chance to purchase this wine (and i remember it being a very reasonable price as well), to go out and treat yourself to a nice bottle. Especially if you are a fan of full reds.

Well, tomorrow I'm off to see Prince in concert but then I start the 12 Days of Wine. I'm 12 wines away from completing a wine a week and I'm determined to finish on time here so on Wednesday, I start the 12 Days. I'm not sure what my liver will think of me on the 26th of December but it's worth finding out!

Purple Rain....We're gonna party like it's 1999!

#88- Verdicchio

Who cares if it's a Thursday night! As far as I'm concerned, it's always wine o'clock!

Sometimes you feel like you just need a glass of wine and this past Thursday (a week ago Thursday by the time this blog is actually published), I just needed a glass, or three. We're having a great month at my place of work. I work at a progressive and youthful media company and we like to tackle all sorts of projects from cartoon and 3D animation to video production, web design and development and everything in between. I of course harbour none of these talents. I write scripts, web content and manage many of the projects. In case you're interested, check out Avatar Media's website to see what I mean. We love all the projects we're tackling and busy is good. But busy can make you tired when you get home and put up your feet.

So I needed a wine to go with the very inexpensive, lazy and cheap dish I was making. I wasn't too hungry but knew I couldn't drink on an empty stomach. I had done that the night before and drank 6 wines at my wine class. Enough to know that food is always a friend to wine.

My pasta dish was from a package- herbed pasta to be exact. It took me 30 minutes to make start to finish and that includes the 10 minutes it took to boil the water and the 8 minutes I let it stand to thicken. If the saying is true- the way to a man's heart is through his stomach-- I have now identified my problem!

30 minutes of a chilled white wine is plenty. I grabbed one of the white wines I have left to try. I grabbed a 2009  Villa Bucci Classico wine from Italy. The wine is exported by Empson.

It is an oaked wine and 100% Verdicchio grapes. Now I'm not huge fan of oaked whites but this one is okay. I'm not a huge fan of this wine but I'm not dissing it either. Compared to the other wines I've had of late, this one is just a tad boring. I don't find it particularly aromatic and the flavours are hard to pick out, even the oak.  It says to pair with cheese. Well I had cheesy pasta- does that count?

Yeah, I can't say much about this wine. I am sipping it right now as I write and I'm left disappointed. I can barely discern much at all. I do not hold the same opinion of many people as a quick google of the wine will find you rave reviews and 90+ ratings of the wine. It just goes to show that wine drinking truly is a personal experience and preferences certainly do play into how you rate the wine.

The Verdicchio grape is grown in the Marche region of Italy. There is lots of information on this grape as it's a very popular grape to grow. Ah well, you can't like them all.

#83- Vernaccia

Our weekend was coming to an end. The next morning we'd be packing up and heading home, this camping trip likely our last one for the season. The September long weekend was beautiful  and was a great overall first time camping with us experience for Owen. Alberta weather is unpredictable so it was possible to get another weekend in but not likely (and as I write this October 3, a definitive no).

That night after our hike, Craig and I had one last wine to try- the Vernaccia wine (again, being as this was an Italian wine weekend, is from Italy). It is from Azienda Agraria Le Rote Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Yeah, say or write that five times fast!

We headed back to the campsite and took to our usual positions. Craig got the fire ready, I started to make supper and in between the two of us, keep Owen occupied. He loves to play so it was a constant shuffle between duty and keeping the kid happy (we couldn't stand the prospect of him telling his mother that he hated camping with us. No, we wanted to make this weekend so damn good for him that there'd be no competition as to who his favourite Aunt and Uncle were. Exhaustion be damned!)

I decided to make chips to go along with our burgers rather than just a potato. I'm not a huge potato fan so I was up for the challenge. It was a lot of work but I'm happy the effort was worth the result as our potatoes turned out splendidly. As did the burgers. From the picture, you can see we had all the fixin's to go with out grilled AAA beef. It was such a perfect supper and ending to a magical weekend.

And while most would pair a red with the hamburger (so yesterday....) we decided to pair our remaining white with it, and to good results. The vernaccia is a light wine that for us, completented the flavourful dinner and didn't try to compete with it. I'm sure a red would have done nicely but it was great to have a light, crisp and fresh wine that evening. The vernaccia grape is acidic and usually citrus based. I did notice both, again, complimenting the dinner quite nicely.

I know there may be some hardcore wine drinkers out there shuddering at the fact that I made this wine and food pairing but all I have to say is: shut it! Life is about being real. Not all of us have the ability to spend a lot of time dissecting our wine and determining the perfect wine pairing. Especially when camping. To me, wine is about being real. Taking changes. Experimenting. Hating wine. Loving wine. Discovering new tastes. This is why I do this blog- it's not about pretending to be a wine expert which I am far from. But I do drink lots of wine and I like trying new wines so for me, this is indulging a passion and love. Nothing more, nothing less. The worst thing that will happen is I make a terrible wine-food choice. Oh well, guess I'll just have to try again!

And no one is attacking me about this. In fact, I find the wine community quite supportive, engaged and just as willing to try new things as I am. Where I find I have issues sometimes is with the wineries themselves. Of course they're out to protect their brand, to encourage people like me to pair their wines with the perfect foods and speak in nothing but positive tones about their wine. But I say get real. I appreciate the effort and should I find time to do so and want to, the pairing will be made. But then give me 5, 10 choices. What if I don't like lamb shanks? Then what?

Alright done rant, if it is one. I think it's time to move on to a new colour (red) and a new country (Greece) next. You in?

#82- Grillo

I hate writing about wines that don't have websites. It appears this one did exist at some point but no longer exists. How can a winery in this day and age not have a website? Perhaps there's a new venture there waiting. But I probably have to learn Italian first.

But back to the wine and our camping adventure and drinking 5 Italian wines. This day was a beautiful and perfect day for a nice relaxing walk. Craig and I loaded up our backpacks with sandwiches and wine and headed out and down the Columbia Icefields Parkway to the Athabasca Falls parking lot. It was jammed pack. Parking to be found nowhere. We watched cars go in circles desperate for a spot. We were in that same circle and chose to try the middle lane up the circle instead of being sheep and lo and behold a nice parking spot was waiting for us.

This was Owen's first time at the Falls and being the Aunt and Uncle in this situation, Craig and I were overly prepared in our pep safety talk that morning. Owen is a typical 5 year old- curious, agile and prone to running when given the opportunity. He is also safe, thoughtful when it comes to risky situations and a good listener. We tried to prepare him for the Falls and what he'd see and the dangers that accompany such a wonder. In case you've never been to the Falls (it was Craig's first time too), here is a link to Parks Canada and the Wikipedia entry . Here's also a great Youtube video. I just checked out the official website and it's terrible, almost embarrassing. I really do to make a living making websites. Wait a second....

Anyway, Owen behaved very well and only once tried to climb the fence for a better view but he only got about 0.75 inches off the ground before Craig was grabbing him.

We had a great time walking around the Falls and Owen walked when asked and the point was driven home as we descended the rock staircase to the bottom and witnessed a little girl barreling up the stairs, and not paying attention smacking her head on overhanging rocks at full speed. The crack was deafening. I immediately went over to her aid. Her parents sauntered over, not even bothering to say thanks. I'm guessing she's okay but it still drives the point home that children need to be supervised.

As we headed to the bottom, Owen was hellbent then on being the best behaved 5 year old there and reminded us every few seconds that he indeed was. We threw rocks in the lake and he and Craig built their very own Inukshuk. Very Canadian I'd say.

And then it was off to walk a bit further down the river to a large boulder and surrounding rocks. A perfect spot for our picnic lunch. We whipped out our sandwiches and wine.

The wine is a Noi Negociants Grillo wine from Italy. It is a white wine. The Grillo grape does not appear on the Wine Varietal table. It's also known as the riddu grape and grown in the Sicily. It's often used in Marsala wine which most of us have heard about. It also has a few other names it goes under but Grillo is one of the easier names to remember. Normally Italian wines don't put the name of the grape on the label but this one did (and so nice when you're hunting for varietals).

Of course this is camping and camping means simple foods. Just like the day before, we had packed out sandwiches. This this time it was a nice turkey sandwich on white. A touch of mustard and a handful of nuts and I was in my glory drinking wine, eating sandwiches and looking out at spectacular views of the most beautiful backyard someone could ask for.

Both Craig and I enjoyed this wine and it didn't take us long to nearly finish the bottle back at camp. It was chilled from the night before. The wine is very yellow and it quite minerally. A bit on the sweet side (makes sense with the Marsala connection) and smells grassy. Some say hay. Pick up a bottle and you can decide for yourself. As with the other white wines we've been drinking all weekend, I liked this wine as well and would definitely pick it up again.

I'm thinking upon review that it's time to go on a shopping spree and go and get myself some more Italian wines. But why shop here- back to the source! Wine trip anyone?

#81- Arneis

Old Fort Point in Jasper National Park. That is where we got to drink this bottle of wine. It was Owen's first big hiking trip with Craig and I and we decided to do a short but steep hike with breathtaking views of Jasper and Mount Edith Cavell amongst other beautiful views of the rocky mountains.

He only stopped about 100 times but we did make it to the top of Old Fort Point. What a nice little trek. We got to the top and we immediately set out our picnic lunch. The wine was chilled from our cold morning and Owen was all prepared to yet again pour our wine for us.

The wine is from Italy (as it is the Italian wine weekend) and is from Cascina Bongiovanni Winery. I really do need to learn more Italian so I can tell you exactly where this wine is, which upon a little reading- the region is Langhe (Piedmont). The website is only in Italian. The grape is the Arneis grape (and the bottle is called Langhe Arneis). The name Arneis means little rascal.

It's not the easiest grape to grow hence the name. It is also floral and fruity and is a very crisp wine (I'd have to agree with this description). It's a dry wine and the fruit notes are often pear and apricot.

According to some sites, this wine should have been drunk in 2008 or 2009 but I'm guessing it's tough to get this wine into Canada period. Maybe we got the cast offs. When I learn more about vintages, I'll be able to determine if this is a bad year for the Arneis grape.

In any case, I still liked this wine. I loved the richness of this wine. It was a bit smoky but quite aromatic and fruity. It was easy enough for us to enjoy as we sat atop the hill (you can see from our pics what we were looking at) and we whipped out our sandwiches (yes, white bread and lots of meat!). We also had a couple of pieces of fruit, some cheese and mixed nuts.

It's a great wine, regardless of what they say and when they say to drink it. I'd definitely buy it again, hiking or not. Craig agreed that it was a good wine as well so two thumbs up from us.

Owen's a funny man and was constantly making goofy faces so we tried to get him to do his best "mean face" impression. This is what we came up with.

But never one to fake it, he went right back to being good old lovely and loving Owen as we made our way down the hill. That's him and Uncle Craig ahead of me on the trail. Enough said.

#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....

#79- Falanghina

The next five wines are all from a long weekend camping trip taken last week (the order might be slightly skewed so don't judge if the pics appear out of order).

My brother and I both had 4 days off so we decided to take our five year old nephew Owen camping. It happened to be his 5th birthday on the day we left so the whole trip was a sort of birthday weekend for him. We decided to take him to Jasper and do some hiking.

We couldn't have picked a better weekend. Other than the slightly cold and damp weather to start, the weekend was beautiful and hot from start to finish. Craig was responsible for the food, I was responsible for the wine. I brought six bottles with me (one was the Mencia wine that Craig had yet to try and I went out of my way to and buy another bottle only for us to never crack it the entire weekend. Le sigh.).

Craig did a decent job of getting food though typical of the male species-- white bread, white buns and lots of meat. No mill, no eggs and no fruits or vegetables! Ha! Thank goodness I emptied the fridge of my fruits and vegetables before I left!

We set up camp in the Whistlers campground just after 2pm. It didn't take long for us to set up camp and Owen helped as much as he could. We decided to crack open the bottle of wine while we set up and had a snack. I don't recommend this pairing often but when you're camping, you have to sometimes have a "laissez faire" attitude.

Because it was Owen's birthday, he got to choose the snacks and the dinner. For dinner, we had salad and hot dogs (I upgraded and went with a sausage on a bun). I'm not a fan of hot dogs or sausage but hey- it's not my birthday and I'm a team player.

For the snack, it was Joe Louis all the way! I hadn't had one of these in years so I was happy to indulge. It was just the perfect pick me up for us to put up kitchen tents, unload food and build fire.

Owen has been taking it upon himself lately to pour the wine at any and all gatherings he is it. He even knows to twist the bottle to not waste a drop. He still insists on pouring the wine right to the rim so you get to do the good old bring your lips to the stationary wine glass trick before much else. But he does a good job and he is quick to refill when he sees your wine glass is getting low.

So to the wine. The verdict is unanimous- both Craig and I really liked this wine. Like, really really liked it. So much so there wasn't a drop left to be shared with anyone back home. He and I polished the bottle off pretty quick.

The wine is from Villa Matilde in Italy (the second time I've reviewed one of their wines and the first time I've had a repeat winery). The first thing Craig noted about this wine was the very strong smell of peaches and he was right- it is very strong but extremely pleasant to drink. I couldn't taste much else but the description of the wine sounds wonderful (hints of almonds, grapefruits, sage)- yummy. Trust me, this is a great wine to drink.

It is a middleweight wine, very yellow in colour and more acidic than not. If you like a Pinot Blanc, you should like the Falanghina. I can't wait to try another one that's for sure. The Falanghina wine also goes very well with seafood (it's grown in the Campania region of Italy, around Naples).

And as far as I can remember, it went just perfectly with hot dogs!

#77- Aglianico

Another Greek wine. Another great win for a country I can not wait to visit. If you remember my earlier posts, you'll note that the Greek wines were not off to a great start but they have made up for it lately. Except it's not Greek really- it originated in Greece but is actually an Italian wine. Maybe that's why this wine is a win! Ah, who I am kidding, I have no idea...but we'll give them all credit- yay Italy and Greece!

I picked up a bunch of wine at Aristocrat Liquor in Edmonton and again, was pleasantly surprised by their selection (I'll be popping in there from time to time to check out their selection).

Aglianico is a red wine and is pretty heavy and acidic.I haven't really had much like it, the closest being a Zinfandel (same but different). it is very intense and has a lot of impact in the mouth. It's very dark, almost black in colour. The winery is the Villa Matilde in the Campania region of Italy. Their wine is very fruity and you can really taste the blackberries. While it is quite heavy, it has that velvety smooth feel to it. It's an immediate impact on your mouth and if you enjoy red wines, this wine will be a delight to drink.

I paired the wine with a red meat- hamburger meat of all things. I tend to mix up my countries together because I'm just not that organized but it seems to work out. That night I made a plate of soft tacos with a great salsa and lots of vegetables. I found it to be a great combination and I would actually pair this up again. Sometimes playing outside the rules is the best way to find a good pairing. So yes, try it with tacos or spicy food.

I very much recommend this wine and again, still waiting from Craig to hear about this wine (I have a feeling he'll like it though....I'm starting to figure out his tastes).

I'd like to try more Aglianico wines and see if it was just a fluke (hint, I don't think so as I review another of this winey's white wines....and I liked it...stay tuned) or if the Aglianico is one heck of a grape.

Until tomorrow...

#70- Inzolia

Another day of camping, another day of drinking wine.

After a great day of hiking 8 km roundtrip in bear country, we were ready for some wine.

But I do have to mention that I had a great time hiking with my parents. I know that they sometimes think they're too slow and hold me up on hikes but one thing I learned from the Everest trek is that the hike is about the journey, not the finish line. I had a great time with them, with or without the bears. In fact, we didn't see any wildlife at all on the hike.

So back at the campsite, we started up our fire and started to prep the food for dinner. Now remember, we're cooking over open flame so the simpler the better. This evening's food du jour- hamburgers! And the hamburgers were delicious! We piled on the vegetables between the nicely toasted buns and dug in. Now I suppose I should have had a red wine with this meal but I had two whites so white wine it was.

The wine we had is the Contempo Inzolia from Sicily, Italy. The Contempo name means "at the same time" and is supposed to represent the winery's past to future- or something like that. The winery is the Abbazia Santa Anastasia Winery (note to the winery- your site takes way too long to upload). I'd like to talk a little more about the winery but it's all in Italian and their English site is not up yet. But I do like the violin music (er...)

The Inzolia wine is a very fragrant grape and was a very easy wine to drink. At first, I didn't like this wine at all but it did grow on me as the night grew on and the wine settled a bit. Even in the silver tumblers, the bright yellow colour of the wine was unmistakable. I'd have to say though I was pretty neutral on it as it was very reminiscent of the other white wine I had just tried- the tocai fruilano. It's not a wine I'd go out of my way to go and buy but if I was offered another glass of it, I wouldn't pass it up.

The Inzolia grape is also known as the Ansonica grape (sounds dangerous).There's not much else to tell you except that I'd recommend you go and try the Inzolia grape yourself. Craig is going a big wine catch up this weekend so I'll actually  be able to give you his opinions. By the way, mom liked it...