Wine News - January 2008

Emporio Italia
Quality Italian wines from small and boutique producers
selected by WineCountry.IT, are on sale in the US for your pleasure!

As of 2008, consumers will note that all ingredients are listed in two sections on the back label of each bottle of Bonny Doon wine.

The first section highlights the wine's basic ingredients, i.e. grapes and sulfur dioxide, a preservative, found in the wine. The second section will point out ingredients used in the production of the wine such as bentonite, (a type of clay used to clarify wine prior to bottling) that essentially no longer remains in the wine. The first Bonny Doon Vineyard wines featuring the new ingredient labeling are the Demeter certified Biodynamic® 2007 Ca' del Solo Albariño and 2007 Ca' del Solo Muscat, slated for a February 2008 release.
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Viticulture, or the growing of grapes (Vitis Vinifera) chiefly to make wine, is an ancient form of agriculture, evidence of which has been found from the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages. We have a detailed understanding of how nurture affects the qualities of a grape harvest leading to the concept of terroir (the range of local influences that carry over into a wine). The nature of the grapes themselves has been less well understood, but our knowledge of this is substantially increased by the publication of a high quality draft genome sequence of a Pinot Noir grape by an Italian-based multinational consortium.
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We have received and published the December 2007 issue of Moletto News, the periodic Azienda Agricola Moletto newsletter.

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'Tis the season. The Enthusiast 100, or the Top 100 wines of 2007 according to the Wine Enthusiast magazine, have been published too, after the release of the Top 100 according to the competing Wine Spectator magazines.

As usual, the two selections are very different, and only 9 Italian wines made the list, not one of which made both lists.
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The over 100 Tuscan wine producers who obtained 4- and 5-bunch awards by the Italian sommelier wine guide, DUEMILAVINI 2007, poured their wines, which are among the most prestigious produced in Tuscany, for over 1500 guests, among them sommeliers, professional wine buyers and wine lovers.
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If the recent projections come true, by 2020 Prosecco will be the most drunk bubbly in the world. In the meantime, the global market seems to be headed in that direction with around 50 million Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOC bottles sold in 2007. As usual, many of these bottles were popped during the upcoming holiday season, but Prosecco is becoming more and more a year-round wine all around the world.
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ComScore Inc., a Virginia-based company which maintains massive, proprietary databases that provide a continuous, real-time Internet measurement, revealed on December 16 that from November 1, through December 14, 2007, online sales in the US totaled $22.7 billion. Between now and the end of the year, the sales increase for November and December may raise to 20%, marking a record low for a two-month period, and lower than the 26% gain made in 2006.
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The research of the Science department of the university analyzed 13 wines from different Italian regions, focusing on how it may affect the Helicobacter Pylori and free radicals. The results show that all the wines tested are active in fighting the Helicobacter, a bacterium which causes ulcers and represents a risk factor for gastric carcinoma and lymphoma. The wines from Sicily turned out to be the most effective against the bacterium. The free radicals of the stomach, which are responsible for a variety of pathologies, are effectively fought by all the wines analyzed.
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The top 100 wines in the world according to the Wine Spectator are out.

With 12 labels in the list, the Italian wines have fared fairly well, as would be expected from the top wine importer to the US.

The Italian wines are found in fourth, seventh, thirteenth, 36th, 50th, 55th, 56th, 59th, 63rd, 74th, 75th and 98th places.
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Paris Hilton has launched a new venture and poses naked for the advertising campaign that launches her 'luxury' Prosecco sparkling wine in a can.

Hilton appears nude, completely painted gold, while crawling across a desert, to advertise her new line of bubbly drink, called Rich Prosecco.
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Fifty stem glasses. Fifty metaphorical toasts. Fifty profiles of liquors and distilled spirits, with some excursions into 'bitters' (herb liqueurs), sparklers and fortified wines.

Why fifty? Because this is the year of my 50th birthday, good gracious. Some folks may present themselves a 50-rose bouquet, or a jewel worth 50,000 euros, or a 50-day trip around the world, instead, I dedicated fifty written pieces to myself.
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The European Union's top agriculture official said Tuesday that a planned blanket ban on adding sugar to wine, a key part of the planned reforms to the EU wine sector, may be amended after strong opposition by many EU members.

EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said she was well aware of the concerns voiced by countries with a cooler climate, such as Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic, where vintners use sugar to boost alcohol content in mass-market wines.
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The Campania region counts on the largest heritage of native vines among the Italian regions. This characteristic inspired the first volume of the new book series launched by Città del Vino, which will review all the Italian regions and the City of Wines.

The credit for this new series goes to the Regional Coordination of the organization Città del Vino of the Campania region, headed by Raffaele Ferraioli, president of the Comunità Montana Penisola Amalfitana (Mountain Community of the Amalfi Coast), and mayor of the small town of Furore.
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The new project for the Strada del Vino e dell'Olio Chianti Classico (Road of the Chianti Classico Wine and Oil), presented toward the end of November 2007 at Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, has the potential to start a great economic development for the area between Siena and Florence. This new Strada, created with the support of the Consortiums of the Chianti Classico DOCG Wines and the Chianti Classico DOP Olive Oil, will be the 22nd in Tuscany, and will include nine municipalities, eight of which are Città del Vino (City of Wine), and the provinces of Florence and Siena, both associated with the Città del Vino organization as well.
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After the success of last year, the local radicchio is once again celebrated along the streets and in the piazzas of the two centers. The red radicchio variety from Treviso, and the variegated variety from Castelfranco Veneto, transform Treviso and Castelfranco Veneto in one great, open air market filled with gazebos and stalls offering aperitifs and tasting, as well as competitions among products, producers and students, conferences, with menus and recipes created especially for the occasion by local restaurants, pizzerias and enoteche. In addition, various side activities, such as the usual parade of vintage cars, will take place. The event includes highlights of the many other Treviso specialties, which will be available for tasting combined with the celebrated vegetable.
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In addition to more common theme spas, this facility offers a view of Mount Fuji and very unusual baths, such as the Japanese Sake Spa, with a constant dripping from a huge cask filled with real Japanese Sake, the Green Tea Spa, whith real green tea and an overhanging huge tea pot 2 meters (6.56 feet) tall, the Coffee Spa, which contains real coffee made with hot spring water, and, most importantly for us, the Wine Spa, sporting a 3.6 meters (11.81 feet) tall wine bottle and, of course, the spa contains real red wine.
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After close to three hours of animated technical debate, the production rules for the new DOC wines Colline Joniche Tarantine were agreed upon, thus completing the first relevant step toward the official recognition of the new DOC zone. The disciplinare, which is the set of strict rules which define how the wines using the denomination must be produced, was approved with two small amendments to the original document, whose preparation took four years.

The assembly of around 60 wine professionals debated and accepted the inclusion of the Grottaglie hills in the new DOC zone, since the terroir and climate are much the same as the rest of the wine zone originally included in the proposal.
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The Tenuta Carlina S.a.s., owned by the Italian lawyer Danilo Tonon, is a small estate in the municipality of Montalcino, in the province of Siena, in Tuscany. The property includes a country home dating back to the 17th century which was originally part of the land owned by the lords of the Castello di Argiano (Argiano Castle), and 16 hectares (around 40 acres) of land cultivated with vines and olive trees.

The wines currently produced by Tenuta La Carlina include Brunello di Montalcino La Togata DOCG Riserva 2001, which was awarded 96 points by the Wine Spectator; Brunello di Montalcino La Togata DOCG 2002; Rosso di Montalcino DOC 2005; Toscana IGT La Togata Azzurreta 2005, which was awarded 96 points by the Wine Spectator; and Toscana IGT La Togata Barengo 2005.
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• Introduction

This month we present a grain from Garfagnana, an area in the northwest of Tuscany, in the province of Lucca: the Wheat Berries from Garfagnana IGP.

In times past, this product used to be a staple of the Mediterranean diet, and its flour was used to make polenta and buns. Then, new wheat varieties took over and the emmer wheat disappeared almost completely from the Italian fields, except in Garfagnana, where the cultivation of the local strain of farro has been grown all along.
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"Strong, genuine flavors, recipes and cooking methods which haven't changed over time, land and sea products which produce inimitable dishes".

These are but a few observations which can be made about the cuisine from Marche, a region where northern and southern traditions melt into one another, giving way to an original regional gastronomy which can satisfy the most demanding palates and the most varied tastes.
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