When the Moon Hits Your Eye – The Ultimate Guide to Italian Wine

People think I'm Italian. I'm not. I’m something of a global mutt, but I do like to drink and write about Italian wines, and as a wine buyer, I’ve always had some cool Italian wines in my wine departments. For many people Italian wine is a confusing, convoluted subject. Just like France there are a myriad number of rules that govern what wines can be made with which grapes and what percentages, not to mention that some of the names are long, laborious, tongue twisters. Good for us that Dr. Wine has come out with yet another volume, the most comprehensive, about Italian wines. The Ultimate Guide to Italian Wines 2017, authored Daniele Cernilli, AKA Dr. Wine, breaks it all down. I recently had lunch with the Good Doctor in Santa Barbara, tasting through several Italian wines he was showcasing, and I can tell you firsthand, Doc knows his stuff. As a brief side note the eight wines he brought were terrific and I found two of them the 2016 Torre Rosazza Pinot Grigio, and the 2012 Velenosi Roggio del Filare (a blend of 70% Montepulciano and 30% Sangiovese) to both be exceptional.

Dr. Wine

The book is broken down by region, starting with Abruzzo and ending with Veneto. He discusses each region and gives specific detailed info on them, then lists the wineries as well as their best known wines, all rated by points, price and an overall star rating of the winery a, “historical evaluation based on the reliability and prestige of the winery.” As comprehensive as the book is, it is all text; you’re not getting pretty pictures and maps, sidebars of places to eat or anything else. You’re getting Italian wine. This also allows this tome to be so inexpensive for its size (over 500 pages). Every wine lover needs to know and understand the great wine regions of the world. Sure, this won’t make you an expert, but it will give clarity to Italy’s many growing regions and, better still, if you’re traveling in those regions, this will hone your visits to some of the best wineries they offer.

The Ultimate Guide to Italian Wine 2017
Published by MD Communications, Rome
581 pages/$20

Italian and English Versions

"Take wine out to the ballgame..."

So you head to the ballpark, it’s a bright summer day and you have a hankering for wine. Sure, beer is the preferred drink at a baseball game, but regardless, you just want a glass of wine with your hot dog and peanuts. But without the actual glass – too treacherous – you can’t have shards of glass flying when you catch that home run. You can’t BYOB, so what to do? Hold on to your first base. Fetzer winery in Mendocino has saved the day. Actually they, and a company named Zipz have created a new day.

We now have single serve wines in safe, eco-friendly, 100% recyclable durable plastic which are shaped like a real wine glass hold some pretty good wine. Problem solved, crisis averted, and wine to drink. The Red, called Crimson is primarily Zinfandel, Syrah and Cabernet and the taste is clearly Zin-driven. It’s a very pleasant kitchen sink blend, far superior to bag-in-a-box wine, or whatever-in-a-can and frankly, this would make a terrific everyday red wine.  The White, known as Quartz, is a blend of Chardonnay, Riesling, Gewürztraminer and Pinot Grigio – a fine concoction ending up fruity, fresh and slightly sweet. The glasses are sealed and have a lid.

Currently they are available at these ballparks:

Tropicana Field - Tampa Bay Rays

Coors Field - Colorado Rockies

AT & T Park - San Francisco Giants

Safeco Field - Seattle Mariners

Citi Field - New York Mets, and

Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves.

There are plans to roll these out to other ballparks and perhaps even supermarkets, so they will be ideal for picnics, time at the beach, even your own backyard deck. Smart, smartly designed, and we hope successful. It’s a home run.  CRIMSON & QUARTZ

$9-11/ 187 ml – Alc:12 % (White), 13.5% (Red)

BOOZEHOUNDZ RATING: 88 POINTS

Saint Margaret's Juice

The best Pinot Grigios from Italy give off a vibrant acidity, which is why they work so well with food. Pinot Grigio is typically an inexpensive wine, rarely oaked (frankly any oak defeats the point), therefore it pairs well with other foods - cream sauces, grilled fish, even pork. Santa Margherita is the best selling Italian Pinot Grigio in the U.S. and sells 75,000 cases, just under a million bottles, mass produced and delivered to your local grocery store. Sure, other places in the U.S. make it, most notably in California where the “Cal-Ital” varieties (I hate that phrase) do pretty well. The 2010 Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio isn’t a departure from the 2009, or any year for that matter since they aim for a consistent, successive line of palette-numbing identical wines year after year (true farming doesn’t allow this but that’s another story). So is this worth dropping a Jackson on it? Well, it doesn’t do much for a hand crafted true Pinot Grigio which excels at mild citrus and mineral flavors, acidity and a beautiful simplicity. This wine lacks the true expressive nature of what the variety should be, so do not confuse this wine with actual Pinot Grigio. There’s a weird metallic note in the back of this and frankly it doesn’t taste like much. It’s not a bad wine mind you, it’s just not Pinot Grigio.

$19.99/750 ML – 12.5% Alc.

BOOZEHOUNDZ RATING:  79 POINTS