My motto is “discover the world and savor the classics.”  But when it comes to learning about wine, I believe in starting with the classics, and that applies to wine regions, specific appellations and producers.  With Italian wines, it can be a daunting exercise simply because of the sheer numbers:  Twenty official wine regions, 370 controlled appellations (48 Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita  and 322 Denominazione di Orgine Controllata), about 2,000 grape varieties of which most are indigenous to Italy, and a span of vineyards covering over 1.75 million …

Dining at Osteria Fontanina in Verona

Dining in new cities is always an exciting adventure, but its particularly exciting when you’re in the midst of several great wine appellations.  The Veneto is home to classic dry whites made of garganega such as Soave and Custoza, sparkling Prosecco made of, well, prosecco, and classic red blends based on cherry-licious corvina such as Valpolicella and Bardolino.  These wines pair perfectly with the diversity of foods you will find in the Veneto.

Classic dishes in the Veneto include risotto made with Amarone wine, chewy bigoli pasta, horsemeat (stewed, smoked, even tartare), pasta e fagioli …

No, I’m not in Hawaii, this is San Giuseppe al Lago in the southern Alto Adige.  The Bassa Atesina is the largest and warmest of Alto Adige’s seven viticultural zones.  It seems incongruous that we would be eating lunch outside in the foothills of the Alps, but the region gets warm influences from warm winds coming off Lake Garda to the southwest.  As the crow flies, it is about 40 miles away. 
In the morning, we stopped in Termeno, the home of the aromatic gewürztraminer.  In the Alto Adige, gewürztraminer is …

The Trentino Alto Adige covers 13,500 hectares, 11,100 of which are controlled quality (DOC) wines.  On the way north from Verona to Trentino, one is struck by the steeply rising Dolomite mountains on both sides of the highway along the Adige River.  Only about 15% of the land is cultivable, most of it to grapevines and fruit trees. 
The region produces about 1.2 million hectoliters of wine, 70% of which are red wines such as the light-bodied Lagrein and Teroldego.  Whites consist of  aromatic varieties gewurztraminer, sylvaner, muller thurgau and moscato, and …

Verona 77 degrees, Napa, California 78 degrees forecast.  I love travelling to Europe in the spring, volcanos notwithstanding.  The weather is glorious and last night, warm enough to dine comfortably outside at 9:00 pm.
Veneto is known for its ancient cities of Venice to the east and Verona to the west.  It is the largest region for controlled origin (Denominazione di Origine Controllata/ e Garantita aka DOC or DOCG) wines in Italy by volume with about 1.7 million hectoliters produced annually.  Its famous appellations include the white Soave, Italy’s most exported white wine, the …

 
While one can get chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and riesling wines from most wine regions around the world these days, there are only a handful of regions that specialize in the classic varietals of pinot blanc, pinot grigio, gewurztraminer and muscat.  One of the regions is Alsace and then neighboring Pfalz Germany which share the same mountain range the Vosges to the Haardt.  A classic area and in fact the home to the gewurztraminer grape is the Alto Adige, the northernmost vineyards in Italy with the highest percentage of controlled quality (DOC) wines.   …