Italian Wine Values

I’m still on the hunt for great values in wine, especially after reviewing my credit card spending for the last two weeks. That’s it, the holidays are over. No more overpriced pinots and bodacious bubbles for me. Just some good straightforward, down-home wines that go well with food and won’t bust my Canadian bank account, please.

Time for a trip to Italy.

The words, “Italian” and “Wine” are so representative of each other as to be practically redundant. Two thousand years ago, Italy more or less invented the winemaking process that we know today, and currently, it is the world’s biggest producer of fermented juice. With million acres of vines growing over 350 different varietals across an area roughly the size of Arizona, no one can say there isn’t enough Italian wine to choose from.

I found two – Cavallina and Canaletto – to satisfy my cash-poor wintry soul and I tried them both at a dinner prepared by my associate Ivana. We were blown away at what matches they made.

Cavallina 2008 Grillo/Pinot Grigio is a wine from Sicily with enough freshness to clean up a hot palate. Case in point, Ivana’s green curry with chicken, prawns, cauliflower and red and yellow bell peppers. Very hot and spicy, but tempered helpfully by the mango and jicama green salad. The Cavallina meshed brilliantly with everything. Its ripe apple, melon and lime flavours provided zesty relief to the curry’s heat and the lively acidity scrubbed our coconut milky tongues clean.

For dessert, we enjoyed my husband’s specialty, Hello Dollies. These are a bar-like concoction with a base of graham cracker crumbs supporting layers of pecan, chocolate chips and coconut shavings. The Cavallina was ok with that, but better yet was the Canaletto 2006 Primitivo, made with Alberello-trained grapes from the boot heel Puglia region.

This primitivo is dark and smoky, more in the style of a Sicilian nero d’avola than an American zinfandel. Purple/black opaque in color, it has deep, ripe black fruit on the nose and palate, plus whiffs of wood smoke and graphite. The blackberries and plums have a dried, burnt quality, like a bottled campfire, and although the mouth is soft, it does not lack acidity. Washing down chocolate-rich Hello Dollys made the fruit jump from the glass, and its lingering woodiness made the coconut shaving taste like a walk in the jungle.

That you can pair Italian wine with Indian curry and American cookie bombs gives me the sense that the food world is a small world indeed.

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