A new look in Italy

Hi everyone! Tonight we're tasting some Italian wine, and Italian wine is one thing that used to completely confuse me. Like probably many of you, the extent of my Italian wine experience used to be the chianti in the basket (which also made a great candle holder after the wine was gone!). But there's so much more to Italy - there are at least 500 different grape varietals in Italy - most of which we'll never see or hear about. There are a lot of high quality, very expensive wines in Italy (high end Brunellos, Barolos, and Super Tuscans), but that's not who we are. Bryan and I love looking for the great values in Italian wine, wines that are $12 a bottle or less. Our latest find falls into our "Back the Truck Up" category - Tomassi Romeo Rosso della Venezie. It fits in this category based on its quality and price. If you have pizza or pasta night, you should get plenty of this and have a bottle ready for those nights. We bought this wine for $8.99, and it tastes a lot more expensive than that. The Tomassi Romeo is a blend of 3 grapes: Corvina, Rondinella, and Merlot. Most of you probably recognize Merlot, but what about the other two? If you've ever tried a wine called Valpolicella, then you've already had these two grape varieties.

Traditionally, Italian Valpolicella is from the area around Venice, and is made of 3 grape varieties: primarily Corvina, but also Rondinella and Molinara. High end Valpolicellas are at least in the high $20s or $30s. The Romeo substitutes Merlot for Molinara, and as a result, it has a nice round cherry fruit flavor combined with that dryness that you get with northern Italian wines. This is a wine that you could eat with pizza, pasta, a hamburger, or any other casual easy meal.

We broke the "rules" with this one and served it with a Mediterranean/Moroccan risotto with preserved lemons, chicken, kalamata olives and capers. The white wine-white meat, red wine-red meat rule is not necessary, particularly with Italian wines such as the Romeo, which are really food friendly.

As always, drink what you like, like what you drink!

Rachel & Bryan Gavini