A Little Bit of an Italy Recap

Over the next few months I'll be detailing our visit to Italy, where we were invited to pour at Vino!Vino!Vino!, Wine by Second Nature, a wine expo of naturally grown/made wines held in Cerea simultaneously as VinItaly in Verona. This was an amazing event, it was held over 3 days, from 10 to 6. It completely wiped us out! This was a serious wine-drinking crowd that was nonstop: importers, distributors, restaurateurs, wine bar owners, journalists, etc. As the days and hours waned on, the crowd did not thin or become obnoxious, hardly was a drunk patron seen! It was invigorating to see and experience. There were 130 producers present, the majority of them owners/winemakers; Phillip made his way around the exhibition hall every day, yet he still wasn't able to taste all of the wines present. We made excellent contacts and discovered beautiful wines, ever heard of Schioppettino...well, neither had we!



Our wines were well received, we poured our white, Priscus (Grenache Blanc/Viognier/Roussanne/Marsanne), Venustas (cheeky bugger Phillip is, taking a Sangiovese blend to Italy), 100% Grenache and ReVera (Mourvedre blend). Everything (36 bottles) was carried over in our suitcases, and surprisingly, the Grenache showed the best--which was our No Added Sulfite wine. We guess it liked the travel! (Although, we were concerned how it would hold up after being subjected to extreme temperature changes, being man-handled, etc.) Everyone there was skeptical about our wine, in a sense that they expected the big, fruit forward, high alcohol California wine. But once they tasted, they knew we were more European in our style. Many winemakers visited our tasting table, and they even enjoyed the Sangiovese!