Close your eyes and visualize rolling hills, with rows and rows of grape vines trellaced up and down those hills. Picture happy people, skin bronzed by the late summer sun, working in the vineyards picking by hand the fruits of this year’s harvest.  Breath in deeply and imagine the smells coming from the kitchens of the homes in those vineyards and villages; as owners, growers, pickers, and winemakers alike sit down together for a dinner of traditional local fare and seasonal produce as they lift their glasses of wine in a toast to another year of toil and success.  You are in Italy.  This month we travel over from France to the villages and towns of Italy, a country with as much gastronomic and viticultural beauty and prowess as its landscape. 
           
2007 Bucci Verdicchio Classico Marches, Italy

The impressive 990 acre property has been in the Bucci family since the 1700s, producing wheat, sugar beets, sunflower, peas, wine and extra virgin olive oil.  It owns 51 acres of Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi vineyards and 12 acres of Montepulciano and Sangiovese grapes. In the 1800s, the name Verdicchio (referring to the greenish color of the grapes) was given to the Marches’ leading white varietal, whose 2000-year history makes it one of the oldest wines in the world still in existence.

This 100% Verdicchio is a light yellow straw color with characteristics of green apple, pineapple, lemon custard, dry hay, white lily, ginger, fresh green herbs and a slightly biting and chalky minerality balanced out with a delicate creaminess in the finish.  An excellent wine to pair with seafood, sautéed mushrooms, lighter cheeses such as an aged Asiago and olive oil tossed pastas.
 
 
 

2006 La Spinetta Langhe Nebbiolo, Piedmont, Italy

The color of this wine is classic to Nebbiolo; dark garnet hues with bright precious stone highlights reaching out to a slightly orange rim.  Dried fruit aromas of black and red cherries, strawberries, prune, orange rind, and blueberries.  Dry black earth and herbs, rose petals, rhubarb, chocolate shavings, lavender, graphite, vanilla, and baking spices round out the nose.  This wine is very tannic on the palate with more flavors of dried cherry and orange as well as red and black licorice and a hint of blackberry seed in the finish.

A few hours of air contact helps open up this wine, in doing so making it more approachable.  A few years in your cellar will do the same thing. (Nebbiolo is notorious for being one of the most tannic grapes in existence and for needing time in the cellar as well as time with air contact, in other words…DECANT IT!)  This wine will be great with rustic and rich dishes such as Osso Bucco or a grilled lamb shank with a coffee coco rub.