I read a great article in Food & Wine about a new restaurant opening up in San Francisco called A16. The restaurant only stocks and serves Southern Italian wines. Borderline sacrilege with Napa only 45 minutes up the street. Evidently, Southern Italian wine has come a long way from what it used to be. Headaches and a big jug with a juice-like liquid containing twigs and bark was normally associated with the region.

After reading the article, I put the Southern Italians on my list to look into. Accidentally, I picked one out at Giant Eagle of all places. I was just looking for some inexpensive white to cook with when I grabbed a bottle that cost a whopping $7.99. It was called MandraRossa and the type is Fiano similar in my opinion to a Sauvignon Blanc.

I cooled the bottle down, prepped dinner and as I was close to incorporating the wine into my recipe when I poured myself a glass. I was completely surprised! I was expecting a dry Pinot Grigio of some type and instead I was enjoying a bright, floral and lively citrus tasting wine that immediately made me think of dining al fresco even though it was thirty degrees and dark by five.

Fianos are typically a dull yellow even slightly greenish wine color. They’re from Campania and in the case of this particular bottle, Sicily. It tastes of green apples, pears and honey and the high acid content would lend itself well to creamy cheeses and salami antipasto or even would work well in some salad dressings. It would be a great way to start an evening and is a perfect drinking wine just by itself.

I can’t wait for summer to come and to serve this outside when guests arrive for dinner. Bring on the sun and salute!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 7:05 pm and is filed under Wine Whine. 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.