Sunday 18 July 2010

Italian Wine and Cheese Tasting

This was one of the wine and cheese tastings at VB. I just made notes on the wines.

1. Pra, Soave Classico, 2008 (Veneto)
Crisp, fruity (stone fruit). Good wine but a bit thin to stand up to the very creamy cheese it was paired with.

2. Ciu' Ciu' Pecorino 2008, "Le Merlettaie" (Marche)
Good balance and length. Fruity, exuberant nose. Excellent. Paired with a pecorino fresco cheese.

3. Ascheri, Dolcetto d'Alba, "Vigna Nirane" (Piedmont)
Medium-high intensity cherry on the nose. Very acidic. Very Italian. Good length. Maybe seen some carbonic maceration. A good pairing with the insane red wine-washed cheese.

4. Villa Tonino, Nero d'Avola "Baglio Curatolo" (Sicily)
Black fruit, Intense flavour. A little 1-dimensional but should develop more complexity over time. Good, but a little short. Paired with Parmiggiano (a famously hard cheese to pair with wine) and it stood up to it.

5. G D Vajra, Moscato d'Asti 2009 (Piedmont)
Gently sparkling with residual sugar. Works very well with cheese. A much-maligned type of sparkling wine, this definitely has its place in situations such as this.