Tasting with Giuseppe Vajra of G.D. Vajra

Today I had the opportunity to meet Giuseppe Vajra from the winery G.D. Vajra in Piedmont, Italy. I have been a fan of Vajra wines for sometime so it was a great experience to meet Giuseppe today. For whatever reason, I find it intoxicating when Italian’s speak of their wines, more so than any other region.

My Tasting Notes:

2008 Langhe Bianco – 100% Riesling – floral with light citrus, and apricot notes. Lucious pear combined with great acidity at the back of the palate. Very Austrian in style of texture but the mid – palate is much “fatter”. Extremely nice!

2007 Langhe Rosso – Dolcetto, Barbera, Nebbiolo blend with 5% Pinot Noir and 2% Freisa – lots of red cherry, cola, red currant, leather notes and spice. Medium bodied with velvety tannins.

2007 Dolcetto D’ Alba – light cherry and raspberry notes with the flavor of actually berries. Red currant and cherry predominate the palate with hints of cola. Full bodied, especially for a Dolcetto – smooth tannins.

2007 Langhe Nebbiolo – leather, blackberry and “rum” on the nose. Palate full of black cherry, leather, dry dirt, hints of eucalyptus and cassis. Full body, with great acidity.

2004 Barolo – tomato leaf, rustic red fruit aromas, leather, boysenberry, blackberry and truffle oil on the palate. Fuzzy tannins and full bodied long finish. Still plenty of life, but approachable now. Beautiful!

2005 Langhe Freisa – menthol, leather and slight barnyard notes with fruit start to appear towards the back of the palate. Dark cherry and black currant predominate with some brambly fruit character and black pepper making an appearance. Lively acidity and full bodied. Excellent wine.

I spoke with Giuseppe on the ’09 vintage and he said it was a great, but not excellent one. “Definitely couldn’t close your eyes and sleep through this vintage, we had to do some work.” For most of the harvest it was status quo but some rain in September brought about that question of “pick now or later”. They chose to pick later and after the rain passed, had an incredible week of brilliant sunshine and cooler than normal nights. This helped to raise sugar levels and increase ripeness while maintaining great acidity. “It is an extermely hard thing to watch all of your neighbors bring in their fruit, while you wait out the ‘storm’.”

If you get a chance to try Vajra wines, I insist that you do – they are quite nice, and fairly priced for the region.

Cheers!

Visting Italy in downtown Richmond – via Enoteca Sogno

Most people know that I loved my experience in Piedmont Italy last year. I mean with fabulous wine, excellent food and a beautiful landscape that makes you hope that you never have to go home who wouldn’t love it.  Well Broad Street in downtown Richmond may not all of those, but it has a restaurant that definitely has two.  Enoteca Sogno is a small authentic Italian restaurant that seems to focus on the cuisine and wine of Northern Italy.  We had the pleasure of dining at Enoteca Sogno a couple of weeks ago with our friends Bryon and Leigh and had a quite enjoyable experience. Owner Gary was our server for the evening and knowing that I am a wine geek and thirst for information, was full of detailed explanations of all the wine and food that we enjoyed.

 

We started out with a couple of appetizers and a great Italian Riesling that was bone dry and extremely good. The 2006 Vajra Langhe Bianco paired perfectly with our two apps which were the crostini with white beans and arugula and the roasted red peppers and mozzarella.

 

For entrees we all shared the special ravioli of the day which was pumpkin in a brown butter sauce I believe. Megan and I shared the risotto of the day which is only offered on Tuesday’s and was made with wild mushrooms and truffle oil. Leigh had the whole roasted Braziano and Bryon had the gorgonzola gnocchi that he was gracious enough to share with us. All the dishes were fabulous as we paired them with the 2003 Cantina del Pino Barberesco. The wine had great dark fruit flavors interlaced with aromas of cranberry, toasted oak and mushroom with smooth integrated tannins.

 

After we were done with dinner and the restaurant was pretty much shut down for the evening, Gary shared a couple of bottles of Barolo with us. We enjoyed the 2003 Guido Porro Barolo from two different vineyards, both the Vigna Lazzairasco and the Vigna S. Caterina.  Holy crap these were good, but if I had to choose one the Lazzariasco was my favorite with more earth and mushroom flavors and aromas and slightly smoother tannin structure.

 

If you are fan of Italian food and great Italian wine, and of course live in the Richmond area, I would definitely recommend checking out Enoteca Sogno. Also I would like to say that Enoteca has some of the best restaurant wine prices I have ever seen with very little markup compared to the 100% plus that you usually see. For example, the 2003 Cantina del Pino Barberesco averages about $50 online and is offered for $70 in the restaurant.

 

Thanks Gary for the brief trip back to Italy, I hope to visit again soon.

Cheers!

 

Enoteca Sogno

2043 West Broad Street

Richmond VA 23220

Tasting Wine in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy

Tasting Wine in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy

In late June, Megan and I went to northern Italy for her sister’s wedding in Valenza, and we could not pass up a chance to do some wine tasting while we were there! We stayed at a bed and breakfast in the small town of Sinio which is right in the heart of the Barolo wine region aptly named Hotel Castello di Sinio. It was fantastic and beautiful as you can see from the picture. One of the proprietors is a chef and she is a fantastic one at that. Our first night there we had an amazing dinner on sight, with a great wine from the winery that we were going to visit the next day, with vineyards that we could see from our dinner table.

Hotel Castello Di Sinio

Just a quick mention of wine tasting in northern Italy. It is slightly different than we are used to here in Virginia and California and so on. Wine tastings are done by appointment only but are very welcome. It is usually done with the winemaker and lasts for over an hour closer to 2, and include touring the winery and vineyard and a fabulous private tasting.

The next morning we made the “long” ten minute drive across the way to our 1st of 2 wineries that we would visit in Piemonte. Rivetto is located in the Barolo wine region of the Piemonte in Northern Italy. The major grape there is Nebbiolo, also grown are Barbera, Dolcetto, Arneis, Moscato to name a few.

Our wine guide through Rivetto was Enrico, one of 2 brothers that currently run winery operations. He started our tour in the vineyard (see pics below), showing us all 90 acres and pointing out each individual lot and what grape variety we were looking at.

(Top photo)Vineyards at Rivetto

(Bottom photo) Dolcetto vines at Rivetto with the town of Seralunga in the distance

Next we headed into the winery, which as you would imagine looks like other wineries you may have visited. One slight difference is that in Piemonte they tend to use large casks in addition to the smaller 60 gallon oak barrels (barriques) that in the US we are used to seeing. In this case, the casks are made of Slovenian oak (see below) which do not impose a huge oak flavor on the wine, they are a more neutral oak, similar to French Oak that has been used for several vintages. They impart the softening characteristics that barrel aging provides but not the wood notes.

Now onto the wine….

The wine tasting was done in the “tasting room” which was really more of a dining room, similar to the tasting room at Caymus for those that have been. Enrico opened 4 bottles for us to try, after a quick rinse of the glass we were on our way. Now, also, these weren’t your normal tasting room ½ ounce tastes, these were good 2+ ounce tastings so that you could really get some wine in your mouth and swirl it around.

Wines Tasted

2005 Dolcetto d’ Alba – very nice, easy drinking red wine with bright raspberry on the nose with a soft cherry finish.

2004 Barbera – (60 year old vines) 1 yr. in bottle – extremely smooth, raspberry, vanilla, strawberry and plum.

2003 Barberesco (I know you are thinking…he said they were in Barolo how can they make Barberesco…they have Nebbiolo vineyards in the Barberesco zone) – strawberry, dirt and earth, anise on the mid palate, long finish. MMMM

2003 Barolo “Leon” – (the Leon is the vineyard designate) – Blackberry, earth, huge tannins, long blueberry finish. This thing rocked!!

Enrico getting our wines ready to taste

Megan tasting some Barberesco..yummy!

The wines were all outstanding, not a bad one in the bunch that is for sure. I am definitely becoming a huge fan of Piemonte wines.

All of this was free, the whole experience lasted about 1 ½ hours, we left with 2 bottles of the Barolo “Leon” and 1 bottle of the Dolcetto. We would have bought more because they were an absolute steal compared to the price that we pay for good Barolos here, but we didn’t have enough room in our bags. The experience was fantastic, very personal, excellent wine, we weren’t rushed and it was Megan and I with the winemaker, free to ask all the questions we wanted to with plenty of time to day dream about having a winery of our own in Piemonte…..

Check back soon for winery number 2 on the trip– Rizzi from Barberesco!