So, what Venetians like most? For sure they’re crazy about Prosecco, the best sparkling wine locally produced, and among the whites, Pinot Grigio, Incrocio Manzoni and Ribolla Gialla, this one very requested in restaurants too. The king of the red wines is definately Cabernet Franc, while Merlot, Valpolicella and Chianti dropped. This is the city with the second wholesale Fish Market in the whole country, maybe aged red wines don’t feel at home in Venice………..

Mauro’s personal suggestions?

Let’s go with the Treviso province, and with the tasty red young wines such as Cabernet Franc and Raboso by Cecchetto, who also produces a fresh Incorcio Manzoni at 6,30 E. For the same price you can find good value Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio at the Nardin estate, and a dry Prosecco at Barichel winery, 8,70 E. Moving east, in Friuli, it is worthy trying a red Refosco -6,50 E- or a Refosco Superiore -9,50 E- by Valpanera Estate or Linda Ua by Jacuss, an excellent aged blend of Refosco, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot which costs 12 E, a real treat.

Finally, to pay tribute to Venice, a good choice for a Raw fish dish is the Lugana at 8,50 E, a white dry and sapid wine produced by Zenato and Ca’ dei Frati, both of them in the Verona area.

What about foreigners? Over the years the Bottiglieria was mentioned in Venice guidebooks, such as Hachette, Frommers, Gallimard and was featured in the magazine “Travel and Leisure”. About 5-6 years ago the demand was focussed on Amarone, Sassicaia, Brunello di Montalcino and some other Tuscan wines, or Supertuscans. No hope for the local ones, until in the last two years a larger number of people started to ask for wines from indigenous grapes, particularly Europeans, from France, Spain, Germany, while now Americans are a bit frustrated by the expensive Euro.

These wine lovers have become more familiar with foreign wines, due to the globalization and the marketing of the Veneto and Friuli wines, with an improvement of the whole image and importance of genuine “terroir” products.

Bottiglieria Colonna
Castello, San Lio 5595
30122 Venezia
e-mail: botcol@libero.it
tel. & fax +39-041-5285137

Tags: Drink, Taste, Venice, wine

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 at 10:02 am and is filed under Wines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.