By Matthew DeBord
HQ 56 | SUMMER 2005
The results are in: Americans love Italian food. No, they really love Italian food. Year after year, the cuisine of Italy finishes at the top of surveys of what Americans like to eat. Outside of hamburgers and hot dogs, it’s probably the closet thing many Americans have to a national way of dining.
Which is not say that there isn’t a true American cuisine – there is. It’s just that it’s not easy to nail down exactly what it is.
Italian, on the other hand, is centuries old. All anyone needs to do is drop by The Olive Garden to acquaint themselves with it. Or, in a far more pleasing manner, Rocco’s in Ceredo, where they’ve been cranking out wonderful Italian food for 28 years now.
Italian wine is a little trickier. A big reason for this is that, while Americans are both insecure and, in some cases, aggressively overconfident when it comes to what they drink, Italians are extremely comfortable taking wine with nearly every meal. However, the Italian tradition is to drink simple, inexpensive wines most of the time. The country produces some truly spectacular bottlings, on par with the best France has to offer (more on these later), but your standard-issue Italian usually settles down to nice plate of pasta accompanied by an innocuous vino di tavola (table wine). Americans feel pressure to drink good wines, usually from California; an Italian feels no such pressure.
For decades, this meant that Italy’s wine industry generated a few jewels and a vast amount of that was nothing to write home about – unless you happened to be writing home from Tuscany, in which case the setting largely excused the wines’ inferiority.
Fortunately, Italian wine has improved greatly since the 1960s. Nowadays, most wine stores and many restaurants carry beautiful, inexpensive Italian wines that hail from all over the Boot.
There are some basic stylistic differences among them. Northern Italian wines are usually lighter and more acidic than wines from central Italy, especially the reds. Southern Italian wines – most of them reds – are robust and a tad rustic. Rough around the edges, but delicious in a husky way.
Northern Italy’s prime region is Piedmont; here, the Nebiolo grape goes into an incredible red wine called Barolo, which is pretty much undrinkable in its youth. With some age on it, however (say 10-15 years), a great Barolo takes on all sorts of funky, spectacular aromas and flavors: loam, truffles, herbs.
Central Italy’s most famous region is Tuscany. Here you’ll find Brunello di Montalcino, Italy’s other great ageworthy (and expensive) red wine, as well as Chianti. These wines are made from the Sangiovese grape, which can take on a perfect balance of fruit and acidity.
In southern Italy, you’ll run into numerous grapes you’ve never heard of, but the basic principle is one of richness. Because it’s so hot, the grapes yield wines that are dense and luscious, sometimes even a little roasty tasting. As for whites, in Italy the most famous is of course Pinot Grigio, popular around Venice – and in America. But there are also Chardonnnays, Sauvignon Blancs, and many of the other white styles that Americans know and love. By and larger, however, Italy is more about red wine.
The best strategy to adopt when buying Italian wines at wine stores is to pick a price point and a general style. If you dislike lighter wines, focus on Chiantis, at around $10-15 a bottle. If you want to go a bit more upscale, sample a Rosso di Montalcino; these are the wines that Brunello producers release sooner, so that they can keep themselves in business while waiting to release the Brunellos, which are required to spend more time in oak barrels. If you fancy yourself a connoisseur, make the move to Barolo, but don’t be cheap – inexpensive examples can disappoint. Better to try Barolo’s little brother, Barbaresco.
Huntingtonians are lucky in that Rocco’s wine list is pretty sharp. Even better, you’ll get to drink your wine with food, which is absolutely the Italian way. And if you want to spend some money and sample the most contemporary wines that Italy has to offer, you can give something known as a “Super Tuscan” a try. These are wines that were invented in the 1970s by a few visionary Tuscan vintners; they brought more international grapes into Italian winemaking, such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. They also pioneered a bigger, richer style. Rocco’s has the two most famous on its list: Sassicaia and Ornellaia. Both are priced at over $200 a bottle, but if you’re curious, they’re worth it. And if you’re disinclined to spend so freely, Rocco’s has a number of good bottles in the $30-40 range, as well as generous offerings from California. I recommend a 2001 Rosso di Montalcino from Carpozo, a good deal at $40.
Most people I talk with about wine find Italy significantly easier to understand than France, as Europe goes. I’m not sure why this is, exactly, because France is much better organized. I suspect it has something to do with the link that Italian’s have established between the joys of the table and the joys of the bottle. My Italian-American in-laws, for example, wouldn’t think of eating dinner without wine. In fact, most Italian Americans have a story about a relative who made his own wine, back when wine was harder to come by in the U.S. than it is now.
Personally, what I like about Italian wine is that is so unpretentious. You don’t have to talk about it, because you’re supposed to be chewing while you drink it. There’s an offhanded, easygoing quality to it. Interestingly enough, it was Italian Americans – Mondavi, the Gallos – who created the American wine industry. Makes perfect sense that, of all the wines Europe has to offer, we’d like Italian the most.
