Wine - A Love for Italy
My favourite quote from the film Sideways is: “She has the best palate of any woman I've ever known. She could even differentiate Italian wines.”
From the first settlement of Italians in Island Bay in the late 1800s, to the plethora of delis, food warehouses, bars and restaurants today, Wellingtonians have long enjoyed a love affair with Italian culture, food and wine. Italy, as diverse as New Zealand topographically and climatically, has been producing wine from more than 1,000 different native grape varieties since, oh, about 3000bc, so there is much to occupy the palate.
Let’s face it, many of us would be daunted to select an Italian wine from the shelf of our local offy. There are a number of issues to confront: the wine can be named after a place, style or grape (and there are lots of these), and often all three. Not to mention the producer, geographic designation and quality status. It all ends up being even harder to comprehend than French wine.
The good news is that within the nooks and crannies of Wellington, there is a selection of retailers, restaurants and bars with knowledgeable, unpretentious people ready to introduce us to some good Italian wine. One particular area worth exploring (particularly if you are a Pinot-phile like me) is Valpolicella.
Situated in the northeast region of Verona, the viticultural zone of Valpolicella is known for two unique wine styles: Amarone and Ripasso. Both are made predominantly from the native grapes Corvina, Corvone, Rondinella and Molinarra.
In the case of Amarone wines, grapes are harvested late and left to dry for three to four months, causing them to lose a third of their moisture and shrivel to raisins with concentrated acid and sugar levels. Pressed and fermented into wine, then aged for five years in barriques before commercial release, the result is big, rich, porty, complex mocha-toffee-flavoured wine that pairs well with a hard, stinky cheese. Ripasso wines are made by macerating the left-over Amarone skins with fermenting Valpolicella grapes, thereby enhancing the complexity, colour and flavour of the finished wine. This is incredibly aromatic, with a good dose of savoury characters and earthy funk – which is where I draw a comparison to Pinot Noir.
Living out of Wellington city, and even further from Valpolicella, I was brought to my knees with conniptions of vinous delight when offered the opportunity to stretch my otherwise strictly Pinot palate. The Martinborough Wine Centre now imports Italian wine to complement its range of local wine. The making of Amarone and Ripasso wines has been described as a ritual of tradition rather than wine-making, and both styles certainly represent an incredible investment of time, labour and space. With a good 4,970 years on New Zealand in terms of learning which grapes grow well, where and how, you have to give it up to the Italians for developing such a tradition. It certainly tastes damn fine.
Italian wines are not expensive – starting at around $20 retail – but if you are unsure of committing to a whole bottle, many retailers will offer you a taste. Talk to the Italian-loving heroes of places like Wineseeker, Rumbles, La Bella Italia, Vivo Winebar, Fratelli, Zico’s … the list goes on. With the southerlies enveloping us, I suggest you go whisper a little Italian in their ears.