HEY STELLA!!!! So… turns out that line is a lot more fun to yell at your laptop screen before a Zoom tasting than it is to explain afterwards to your family, who just kind of stare at you instead of responding with the only appropriate reply (“You gonna get the law on you!“). Which, ok,…
Category: crowd pleaser wines
On the Edge (Tenute Tomasella Recent Releases)
Tenute Tomasella—the 2nd generation, family-run winery located in Italy’s Mansuè that’s coming up on its 60th anniversary—has edgy wines. And I mean that both figuratively and literally. Farming about 50 hectares between Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, they are located on the literal edge of two Northern Italian DOCs: Friuli and Prosecco. And they take their…
“Top of the Hill” (100th Anniversary of Giovanni Manzone)
It’s often written that a winery is “perched” somewhere, but in the case of Giovanni Manzone, which celebrates its 100th year of existence in 2025, “perched” is an accurate descriptor of their location. For five generations, the Manzones have been farming 8.5 hectares on the steep hills of Castelletto and Gramolere, in the Langhe’S Monforte…
“From Breakfast to Dinner” (Bersano Recent Releases)
I first visited Piedmont’s Bersano back when I was doing work for the My Name Is Barbera campaign. It’s an impressive operation, with its own intriguing museum (mostly from the collection of Arturo Bersano, who seemingly never met a cool knickknack that he didn’t like), situated just in front of the train station in Nizza…