crowd pleaser wines
-
“Big Fruit” (Exploring Romagna’s Cesena… and One of the World’s Rarest Grape Varieties)
The words that I kept hearing (during a media trip to Italy’s Romagna region in the steamy Summer of 2023) from Cesena’s winemakers were “Big Fruit.” Located just to the south of Bertinoro, along the northern edge of the region, Cesena is dominated by clay…
-
“Burn You Like the Midday Sun, Awwwww!” (Exploring Romagna’s Bertinoro)
When I visited Celli in Italy’s Romagna, for a media tasting of some of the sub-area’s best wines, it was hot. And I don’t mean equatorial-Africa hot (I’ve been there, and it’s pretty hot). I mean more like Houston-in-early-August levels of hot. Like, 3rd ring…
-
Etna Flexes Its Premium Muscles (Palmento Costanzo Recent Releases)
Etna has spent the better part of a decade becoming the wine media’s darling, with many of us waxing poetic about the quality of “volcanic wines” (guilty!). And Etna is finally capitalizing on it. The Consorzio Tutela Vini Etna DOC has (as of early November…
-
Towering Pillars of Fresh (Torre Rosazza Friuli Recent Releases)
You gotta love an Italian’s sense of historical perspective. In the case of Torre Rosazza (whose wares I sampled during a virtual media tasting earlier this year), they’re named after the “Tower of Roses” (Palazzo De Marchi, near Oleis di Manzano), which was originally a…








