I don't blog enough (about wine). So let's do something about that.
Wijnkennis (WineKnowledge)12 years ago, in 1998, I started enjoying and learning more about wine. I'm still not a big fan of 'old world wines', but I have to admit I have tasted some excellent French and Italian wines. Wines from France are rather 'known' territory, but Italy remains somewhat blurred. My biggest problems with Italian wines are the enormous variety of indigenous grapes, the plethora of IGT/DOC/DOCGs and the complex labels.
So I enrolled in a wine course, given by my good friend Wim of Wijnkennis.
Today was the first 'introductory' lesson. A nice small group of 13 wannabee Italophiles learned about the history, the 20 different regions, the Italian wine-laws, closing the 'theoretical' part with some myth-busting.
Then we got to the more 'juicy' part: wine-tasting :-)
All wines were tasted blind, evaluated and then revealed. As this was the first lesson, we got wines from all over Italy. The following lessons will cover specific regions more in depth.
These are the wines we tasted:


A lame 'bubble' Pinot Nero from Parma

A weak Sicilian from the Catarratto varietal

A nice fresh Friuli

A great mineral Riesling from Alto Adige

A modest Barbera d'Asti From Piemonte

A simple but correct Sangiovese from Toscana

A super (really) Aglianico from Campania but too expensive (50 EUR)

An OK sweet Veneto wine from the Garganega grape


Wim finished the evening with some typical Italian (food) specialties. Nice touch.
Looking forward to the next sessions. I'll keep you posted.

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