Saturday I discovered three fun Italian wines in Sonoma…Sonoma Restaurant and Wine Bar in Washington, DC that is.

The first wine was over dinner (very good food by the way) and part of the Tiny Bubbles wine flight, a comparison of sparkling wines. The flights at Sonoma are generous pours so you really get a taste for the wine.

Quattro Mani Franciacorta Brut

• Grape Variety: 80% Chardonnay, 10% Pinot Bianco, 10% Pinot Nero from Lombardy, Italy
• Aroma & Taste: A combination of fruity and slightly yeasty/bready (like you get from Champagne)
• Price: $15
• My thoughts: This was a combination of grapes I hadn’t tried before and in a sparkling wine. It was a combination of a brut sparkling wine and a prosecco. Fun and different!

We served the second and third wines at my birthday party we held here Saturday night.

Terre Grillo IGT Sicilia 2008

• Grape Variety: 100% Grillo, an ancient grape variety from Sicily, estate where the grapes come from founded in 1875
• Aroma: White flowers and tropical fruit
• Taste: Lively, round body, melon and citrus
• Price: $9
• My thoughts: This was my drink of choice at the party! Really great wine … a cross between a Viognier, Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc. Definitely want to find this one for home!

Terre Negroamaro IGT Puglia 2008

• Grape Variety: 100% Negroamaro grown in Lecce in Puglia (the heel of Italy’s boot)
• Aroma: Red fruit with touch of earthiness (my girlfriend said almost mushroomy)
• Taste: Medium bodied with red fruit and spice
• Price: $9
• My thoughts: Another really nice wine at a great price! I discovered this grape on our trip to Puglia last summer. Puglia is Italy’s largest wine producer. Negroamaro means ‘bitter black’ and produces a big wine. This wine wasn’t too big probably due to the fact it is aged in stainless steel tanks. The label has a great illustration of the region’s trulli on it, round limestone buildings with conical grey stone roofs dating back to the Middle Ages that served as peasant homes.

Cheers to new wine discoveries!

Planet Wine, one of my neighborhood wine shops in Alexandria, Virginia, started Wednesday evening wine tastings, in addition to their usual Saturdays. I noticed on Twitter, Siema Wines, a local importer/distributor I like, was going to be featured on Wednesday so I stopped by for what turned out to be a tasting of fun and different Italian discoveries.

La Cappuccina San Brizio Soave

The Tessari family has been growing grapes at La Cappuccina, the site of an ancient chapel of Franciscan friars, for over a century. The vineyards, which surround the family villa, are locaed at Cosalunga, in the Soave DOC production area of Verona in northern Italy. La Cappuccina is a certified organic wine estate.

• Grape Variety: 100% Garganega
• Aroma: Sparkling lemon
• Taste: Creamy lemon curd with touch of spice
• Price: $12.99
• My thoughts: Gorgeous golden color. Not your typical Soave wine…it is still lemony and grassy but also has a spice (due to 7-8 months in barrique barrels), richness and weight to it. As Timothy said at Planet Wine, “This is a good white for red wine lovers.” Bought a bottle of this and enjoying a glass now.

• Grape Variety: 100% Pinot Nero (the name for Pinot Noir in Italian OR Blauburgunder, the name for Pinot Noir in Austrian)
• Aroma: Berry
• Taste: Strawberry and cranberry
• Price: $15.99
• My thoughts: It’s a light bodied Pinot Noir yet long on the finish. You don’t typically find a Pinot Noir grape in Italy. And this one is so far north in Italy, close to the Austrian border, they also use the Austrian grape name.

• Grape Variety: 100% Lacrima
• Aroma: Smells just like a Cru Beaujolais, the French wine, with strawberry and spice
• Taste: Fragrant floral, strawberry, herbal, nice tannin/weight in the mouth feel of the wine
• Price: $17.99
• My thoughts: This is another extremely unique wine in Italy…French yet Italian! Brought home a bottle of this as I’m a Cru Beaujolais fan.

Cheers to new wine discoveries from Italy! Thank you Planet Wine & Siema Wines!

Two new Italian wines exclusively for Disney Parks, Sogno d’Italia, were introduced at this year’s Epcot Food & Wine Festival. Bottled by Placido in Tuscany and imported by Banfi Vintners, these easy drinkable wines will continue to be available after the festival at Enoteca Castello in Epcot’s Italy and begin to be served in many Disney restaurants.

Sogno d’Italia means dream of Italy. “When we dream of Italy, we dream not only of its noble traditions but of its appealingly easygoing lifestyle. These wines embody both of those ideas,” says Placido winemaker Paolo Benassi.

I really enjoyed these wines and they are great examples of wine from Tuscany.

Chianti, DOCG

• Like most Chianti, this wine is made of predominantly the region’s native Sangiovese grape.
• Aroma: Classic violet.
• Taste: Soft round plum and cherry with hints of spice.

Pinot Grigio, Toscana IGT

• This wine is unique in that typical Pinot Grigio comes from cooler northern Italy. This one from warmer Tuscany so the grape variety has slightly different characteristics.
• Aroma: Fragrant white flowers.
• Taste: Crisp freshness yet pear forward.

Each bottle costs $16.95 or $6 for a glass. For more fun wine photos from the festival, visit the gallery.

Salute to dreams of Italy!

On a flight now to Orlando for this 16th annual food and wine lovers dream festival! Our first visit last year was a blast and this year I’m looking forward to new experiences including:

• Epcot Wine School: I’m attending one of the five wine schools offered during the festival. Sunday’s school is ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Italian Wine’ with Sharron McCarthy, CSW of Castello Banfi Wines.
• French Regional Lunch: Friday I’ll be dining at Bistro de Paris featuring the Champagne region with Nicolas Feuillate Champagne and their sales director Pascal Boye.
• Disney Wines: Debuting at this year’s festival are two new Disney wines Sogno d’Italia wines, a Pinot Grigio and a Chianti, developed exclusively for Disney in partnership with Banfi.
• 25 international kiosks of food and beverage including new this year Portugal, Caribbean and Hawaii.

Follow me on Twitter (@GrapeOccasions) the next few days for updates then I’ll have lots to share on my website next week.

Cheers!

Giampaolo could not be missed at the tasting table…his enthusiastic tastings of his family’s Tabarrini wines filled the 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference Meet the Sponsor room. You couldn’t resist stopping by to enjoy his wines and listen to tasting notes and stories of his winery and hometown in Montefalco, Italy (province of Perugia in Umbria region).

Four generations of the Tabarrini Family have tended to these vines… then in the late ’90′s, Giampaolo decided to continue the tradition in a new way by bottling their own wine. The results are fantastic!

If you don’t know much about Umbria wine, here are a few facts.

• Umbria is the region sitting next to Tuscany to the southwest.
• Wine regions include Orvieto, Torgiano and Montefalco Sagrantino.
• 850,000 hectoliters of wine produced each year…only a small percent of Italy’s production.
• Grechetto is the top white grape producing a full bodied white wine.
• Sagrantino, the typical red grape from the Montefalco area, is the hero of this region first appearing at the end of the 19th century. Traditionally this grape was only made in a sweet version and Sagrantino Passito DOC was authorized in 1977.
• In 1992 Montefalco Sagrantino Secco and Passito became the 12th Italian wine to be designated a DOCG (a controlled and guaranteed demonination of origin). This designation requires a minimum aging of 30 months before release.

Tabarrini is a leading producer of Montefalco Sagrantino. Half of their twenty-two hectares of vineyards are dedicated to the Sagrantino grape, used in five of the six wines they produce. The wine I’ve sampled the most, thanks to the Live Wine Blogging Session at the Conference and the gift bottle in our Welcome Bag, is their Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG. This wine is one of three under their Colle Grimadesco trademark used for their highest quality wines.

Montefalco Sagrantino, Colle Grimaldesco, DOCG 2004 & 2005

• 100% Sangrantino grapes
• 10-15 year old vineyards with sandy, muddy soil mixed with some clay and river pebbles
• Wine is soaked on the skins for over a month, aged 30 months in French oak then 6 months in bottle.
• Deep ruby red color
• Aroma is fragrant of blackberries and cassis
• BIG red full of berry flavor and spice… uniqueness and complexity of this wine comes through in every sip.
• Pair with roasts, braised meats, mature cheeses
• 14% alcohol.

Visit Tabarrini’s website for a look at their full wine line-up then buy them on line here. You can also ‘Like’ them on Facebook and follow Giampolo on Twitter.

And when you’re in Umbria, visit their cantina on the property. It represents Tabarrini’s innovation and tradition…three floors including one for fermentation, one for barrels and a cellar completely underground. On the first floor you can see the ritual drying of the Sagrantino grapes.

You don’t want to miss a chance to taste these special wines with Giampaolo himself!