T-Day with two odd Italians

What better to drink with a Romanesque holiday feast than wines that look and taste much like they did during the reign of Augustus? While I roasted up the nerf-sized turkey breast and whipped up wacky ancho-bock beer mashers, the hub and I popped a couple of obscure Italians that only a true geek would love.

I found these two bottles on a lark; the likelihood of my finding and being able to afford such an eccentric luxury would otherwise be jack-squat. They sat on the shelves of the retail store for which I slave, having been completely ignored, for years, finally ending up drastically discounted. I'm sure a previous buyer thought there would be that one guy or gal for whom obscure Italian wine is an obsession, who had searched hi and lo for them and would be thrilled that we, of all stores, carried a bottle. As it turns out, it was a major score for me.

Looook at that krazy color! That's the color of uber-natural, ancient juice; unfiltered, according to Gravner, "to preserve the soul of the wine."

1997 Gravner Ribolla Gialla

Josko Gravner received little attention for his wines prior to 1997, when he began experimenting with terracotta amphora, lined with beeswax, as fermentation containers. He did three wines thusly, including the otherwise often dull, lo-alcohol ribolla gialla grape that is found only in the little coastal crescent of Collio, in Friuli.
I searched the web over for notes about this wine, but what few notes on the ribolla I found were all subsequent vintages.

This kind of wine was meant to age, but perhaps not too much longer than ten years. I don't have a lot of experience with deciding when strange Italian whites are losing it, but this wine seemed to me to be a stout pube away from showing oxidation. Nevertheless, the aromas were heady and rich, full of honey, smoke, and nutmeg. On the palate, the flavors of cream, lanolin, almonds and honey, and a baby-ass soft texture, finishing with a red clay minerality.


Around the time my sprouts were just about brusseled, we popped the next odd little princess. Who pays eighty bucks for a 6 year- old, weirdo Rose from Abruzzo? Me! When it's 75% off, that is.

Not the kind of bottle you'd expect to be filled with Rose...it sat in with the red M. D' Abruzzos forever until one of us remembered what it was.

1999 Valentini 'Cerasuolo' Montepulciano D'Abruzzo Rose

Edoardo Valentini, known as 'The Lord of the Vines' among his best pals, is another avant-garde producer, this time in the Abruzzo area. I hate, by the way, when people talk about the "average plonk" from Abruzzo; there are some really fantastic bottles that come from this area that soar far above the Citras and the Dario D'Angelos (neither of which suck for quaffer wines, by the way).
This wine is lauded as one of Italy's finest roses. The nose on this wine is beautiful and complex: little pink blossoms and wee shreds of orange peel, dusted with meditteranean spices. It had that mineral activity that seems almost like a hint of a fizz, and a distinct coppery note that I found very strange. To be honest, I wasn't sure what to make of this wine, but it paired just fine with ripped-off bits of ham.

Mmm. Salmony.

Uta Hagen, the famous author and actress, once told Terry Gross that she ought not to question the craft of acting, but just enjoy the mystery. Both Terry Gross and I disagreed. Knowing a bit about the craft itself is best. When it comes to winemaking, your pleasure and interest is increased by knowing what kind of person the winemaker was, the story of the wine, and how it was made. So if you ever chance across these strange, beautiful vinos, you'll totally wanna look that stuff up.

Being just the two of us, starving and a little tipsy, we dispensed with presentation and globbed on the grub. Aw, Yeah.

Clinkies.