For Father’s Day, I bought my brother-in-law a nice bottle of Chianti (p.s: He didn’t even offer me any – not even a drop. It was all gone by my next visit. A selfish move on his part, but at least I know he must have really liked it!)
He appreciates his Italian wine (maybe a bit too much!) and usually has more than a few bottles stacked up on his wine rack. He also drinks another wine (not Italian) called Monkey Puzzle. It’s a mixture of Sauvignon and Merlot produced by a manufacturer in Chile. I’m tasting it now. The colour is red – seductively rich red. It tastes semi-dry (which is where we part company as I like my wine quite sweet), but I could quite happily sniff it for a while as it smells quite heady and evocative.
Even though one can choose to stick solely to drinking Italian wines as there are so many wonderful varieties we have the pleasure of being blessed with, drinking wines produced by other countries allows you to compare and contrast (widen your experience) while still using Italian wines as a point of reference if you so choose. You could, for instance, compare French Sauvignon with Italian Sauvignon – the colours, the smells, the taste, the texture, the price. And when you’ve done that, you could add another Sauvignon to the mix and compare all three if you’re feeling extra experimental!
AND IN OTHER NEWS…
Alas (sniff, sniff), it doesn’t look like I’ll be going on holiday in October after all, so my attendance to the Wine Show is looking more likely by the day. The event’s not too bad a consolation – however, I was rather looking forward to drinking wine in more unfamiliar (but pleasurable) territory.
Have a good weekend – may Bacchus smile down at you.
Ciao!
(img by: helmet13)