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Wanted: an unlimited supply of airline tickets to the East Coast, Ireland, and Italy, copious quantities of time off to use said tickets to visit family, and two wine country jobs. Send for our cats and boat, please. The Northern Sonoma Coast just agrees with us.
Off to tour Flowers Vineyards!
Tags: California, Sonoma, Sonoma Coast, Timber Cove, Travel
Oh happy day! It’s Friday! This has been a week, hasn’t it? It’s been incredibly busy with work, but also with some family fun, dinners out, and time outdoors. When it hit 50, it felt like summer. I for one am completely over this wintry weather and ready for running in shorts and boating season. I suppose we do have some nice, summery evening light though, don’t we? I am anticipating working for most of the weekend, but looking forward to doing so in cozy pajamas, keeping warm and enjoying the quiet of home. I am craving quiet.
Today’s guest post from Sarah from Dark Rome Tours, is pretty timely, considering the world’s focus on Rome this week. It covers some lesser-known wine regions of Italy. I only wish I had this post before our last trip to Rome. While in Italy, I tried to drink wines from the region we were in on each stop, but I knew nothing about the wine region surrounding Rome.
Luckily, we have Sarah to shed some light on these wines.
Rome and the Lazio area are not exactly known for being the greatest in terms of Italian wines, but they do have a particular brilliance with white wines and possibly their most famous wine: Frascati. It is so famous in fact that you can find Frascati Wine Tours consistently. But what other vineyards and wineries could you come across in the capital city area?
Slightly south of Rome you can find the collection of vineyards that often are called the Castelli Romani due to that being the type of wine grape they grow in that area. Many of these wines come with some interesting hints of tastes thanks to the volcanic lakes that surface in the same area and the ways these grapes are often used for their wine. Many of the vineyards in this area do produce the Frascati wine, but a select few also provide other forms of dry and sweet white wines like from the grapes Puntinata and Trebbiano.
Heading north of Rome you can find the Orvieto area, which provides another selection of white wines, which are not actually Frascati. In fact this area had become famous with its vineyards for some wines named after the zone. The Orvieto Abboccato and the Dolce are probably the most known wines, but they are also produced in such small quantities that if you manage to get some bottles whisked away from the Roman area, you are probably among the few to do so.
Most of the wines they produce are dry with a lack on the sweet, and utilize Grechetto and Trebbiano grapes commonly; however they have some of the most beautiful golden-yellow colors. Surprisingly this area also manages to produce a few red wines that are blended with some of their white grapes.
Yet another neighbor to the Frascati wines, the hilltop castle town of Marino happens to produce a wine of the town’s name, which utilizes grapes of the Frascati but in a different manner. Due to the other types of crops grown in Marino, this white wine manages to pull in flavors similar to artichokes. It also happens to benefit from the volcanic soil of the area, since it is technically near or sometimes considered in the Castelli Romani.
The greatest spectacle for this town happens to be their grape festival, which has supposedly produced a white wine fountain in the center of town during the festival. It can be one of the most interesting and exciting spots to check out. The Marino wine also happens to hold a slightly sweeter yet also more dry texture than the Frascati, and many people prefer it better due to a greater intensity of flavours that can be found in it.
The Cesanese wine is probably the most famous actual red wine of the Lazio region. This red wine is also quite sweet due to it generally being blended with a mix of the sweet white wines from the Lazio region. This wine happens to be one of the best to have with most normal Roman foods, due to it going well as a pairing to anything with tomatoes in it. This is why the Cesanese wine has managed to obtain the name around Roman locals for being the ‘King of Wines’. The Cesanese is actually grown in a couple of different places across Italy, but usually produced in the Lazio area, and best done there because of the soil and sweet wine grape combinations added to it.
The berries of the Cesanese in the Lazio area happen to come at a rather large size, almost akin to normal edible grapes. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that this Red wine actually manages to maintain a fruity yet spicy smell and taste.
Do not fret if you don’t manage to find a wine suited to your tastes in the Roman area, because they are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the vast amount of Italian wines available. If you don’t enjoy the wines you find from a simple wine tasting of the region, then you can always move further into the areas of Italy that are more known for having some wonderful choices for the most exquisite wines.
Sarah Murphy has worked in Dublin for the last two years as a blogger, web content manager and marketing coordinator. A journalist by training and travel junkie by nature, she regularly travels to Italy for both business and to experience some of the Rome tours where she mostly spends her time in search of the perfect gelato.
Tags: guest post, Italy, tours, Travel, wine, wine tours
What a weekend full of great food and wine! Saturday night we dined with friends at Barbara Lynch’s Menton, and Sunday we made the journey to Mohegan Sun for Sun Winefest. We were fortunate enough to receive trade passes as well as passes to a beer and cheese pairing with Smuttynose, and we thought the event was fantastic.
I hadn’t been to Mohegan Sun since an Aerosmith concert in college, so we were pretty excited about all of the stores, restaurants, and attractions all under one roof. It was definitely the place to be on a freezing cold Sunday afternoon!
First up was the Sun Winefest Grand Tasting. Trade hour is always the best as it’s not crowded and people pouring the wine have a real chance to talk with tasters. I was incredibly impressed at how organized Sun Winefest was as well as the amount of space between booths. Even when the masses arrived, it didn’t feel too crowded.
One of my favorite things about events like this wine festival is discovering new wines and re-tasting old favorites. After Sun Winefest, I definitely have a list of must-adds to our wine collection.
J. Lohr Riesling – beautiful, bright and citrusy with a mouth feel that reminded me of a Viognier. Despite the weather, I am loving white wine right now, and this one was a treat.
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Anna Codorniu Brut and Rose Cavas – I had my first taste of Anna Codorniu at Post 390’s Farm to Post dinner; I didn’t need to taste it again to know that I love it. It was fun to also taste the Brut and to learn that these delicious sparkling wines retail for around $12.00. There’s not excuse to save bubbly for special occasions!
Another wine I revisited was a Gruner Veltliner from Fred Loimer. I have loved his Lois for a long time; you really can not go wrong with Gruner.
We spent quite a bit of time at the Cannonball table. First drawn in by the label, which is adorable, as well as the fact that these wines are from my favorite place on earth, Healdsburg, we ended up falling in love with the wines as well. The Cannonball Merlot is heaven; lots of spice and dark berry flavors. People need to start drinking Merlot again, and Cannonball is a great place to start.
California definitely represented with some gorgeous Chardonnays like the above from Robledo and Sparrow Hawk. I love a hint of vanilla and butterscotch in Chardonnays, and both of these had the acidity to balance it all out.
In addition to the above, we tasted a few Italian wines we loved, including a bubbly, fun pink wine called Rosa Regale. I could picture myself sitting in the sun on a comfy lounge chair sipping a flute of it. We really enjoyed all of the wines at the Banfi Vintners table because they were great, but also because the representative pouring was so knowledgeable.
One of the highlights of the festival for me was meeting one of the winemakers from Gloria Ferrer, another favorite place of mine.
The Sun Winefest also features an extensive beer tasting on a separate floor from the wine. I loved the way the wine and beer were divided; I think it helped to thin out the crowds. I can’t say enough about this great event. One of our favorites was a Kona Brewing Company coconut beer; it was rich, smooth and offered some delicious tropical flavors.
The real reason we were at Mohegan Sun was for a Smuttynose beer and cheese pairing at Todd English’s Tuscany.
Heading up the event were a dynamic duo with a great knowledge and passion for beer and beer pairings. Ken from Pete & Gerry’s Organic Eggs is someone I met at a pizza and beer event last year, and he was joined by Smuttynose executive brewer, David Yarrington. The cheese pairings were brought to us by iGourmet.com, and they were absolutely amazing. We consumed a LOT of cheese at this event.
We went through each of the beers and paired them with a recommended cheese, but David also suggested we try all of the cheeses with each beer to decide on what worked and what didn’t. My thoughts? All of the cheeses went really well with all of the beers.
Here’s what we tasted:
| Smuttynose Beer | Cheese Pairing |
| ParadoX | Pierre Robert Triple Crème Brie |
| IPA | Quebec 7 year Vintage Cheddar |
| OBD | Red Dragon Cheddar (with Welsh Brown Ale & Mustard Seed) |
| Gravitation | Beemster X.O. Extra Double Aged Gouda |
| Zinneke | Rogue River Blue by Rogue Creamery |
ParadoX was a beer brewed especially for Sun Winefest. Since it was an IPA, I wasn’t sure I would like it, but rather than being too hoppy, it was fresh, aromatic, and balanced.
From Boston.com:
Yarrington brewed ParadoX, an aromatic, session IPA, with experimental hop 02120. He travels to Washington state yearly to hand-select his hops, and he chose this one because of it’s lemony qualities. With Citra hops being all the rage, brewers are constantly looking for something similar, and experimental hop 02120 — called the lemon drop hop — comes pretty close.
Overall, though, I have to say my favorite beer was the Zinneke, a nice dark beer that paired perfectly with Rogue River Blue. Old Brown Dog was another favorite, and true to suggestion, it went well with the Red Dragon Cheddar, which had a nice kick from mustard seeds. The most indulgent-tasting cheese of the afternoon, the Pierre Robert, was absolutely heavenly, soft, gooey, and amazing and truly tasted great with all of the Smuttynose beers, the beers cutting through some of the delectable butter fat, just as Champagne or sparkling wine would. The pairing actually reminded me a lot of pairing Champagne with food; beer is a pretty great beverage for pairing with food and I hope to pay a little more attention to this in the future.
I have always enjoyed Smuttynose beers, and I can’t believe I have not visited their brewery for a tour and tasting. We’ve been wanting to spend a weekend in Portsmouth, and this might have given us the kick we needed!
Overall I would definitely recommend Sun Winefest’s Grand Tasting and the available seminars. When you go this route, you get the best of both worlds, a big, busy tasting, followed by a more educational, slower-paced tasting event.
Do you have a favorite wine/beer tasting event? As you likely know, mine is the Newport Mansions Wine and Food Festival, but the Sun Winefest is definitely close!
Tags: beer, cheese, cocktails, events, Travel, wine, wine tasting
