David’s ‘Everyday Italian Wine’ - 25
Each Friday, David Brenner of Villasfor2 in Abruzzo selects a delicious, top-value 'Everyday Italian Wine' for you to enjoy at home - or on your Abruzzo vacation !
Gavi. 'Serre di Vallegge'. 2007. Terredavino.
Gavi is the most expensive Italian white wine you can buy in the USA. And therein lies a problem. At its very best, Gavi's worth the premium price it commands, but in a market that has a tendency to equate price with quality, that's resulted in an increase in demand; …and over-production; …and some frankly awful wine carrying the Gavi label; …and people paying inflated prices for an allegedly superior Italian DOCG wine and then either wondering what all the Gavi fuss is about, or feeling just plain cheated.
The consequence is that this is one wine that really does demand - and repay - careful choice. The good news is that this offering from the excellent Terredavino list is a cracker. The grapes for this bottle come from the small village of Valle, in the Comune of Gavi itself - the absolute heart of the production region.
The trademark of a well-made Gavi is the clean, crisp, refreshing acidity you'd get from a perfectly ripe white peach. This acidity comes from Gavi's cortese grape which badly-grown can result in a thin, mean, over-acidic wine - or a wine in which that over-acidity has been compensated by the addition of sugar, resulting in a Gavi that's flat, flabby and dull.
Open this bottle and as you pour yourself a glass, you'll notice a very slight spritz in the glass; a colour of palest gold; and an appetising scent of hay meadows and new-mown grass. Then there's that wonderful zingy acidity that sets the tongue tingling. In addition to white peach, I also found distinct touches of mango and pineapple rather reminiscent of a good NZ SauvBlanc. There's a long finish too as that delicious fruity, sparkly tingle gently fades away.
There's a distinct structure and backbone to this wine too, which comes from taking a leaf out of the Muscadet manual and allowing it to develop sur lie for a couple of months before bottling. (There've also been experiments to give Gavi a bit of time in wood. Not altogether successful). And this Gavi - any Gavi - is a wine to drink young. It doesn't improve with age and if you come across a bottle more than a couple of years old, don't bother. It'll have lost a lot of that crucial early freshness.
Perceived wisdom tells you that Gavi is the wine to drink with fish. Maybe so. But I can tell you that this bottle of Gavi drank beautifully with a Saturday supper of oven-baked Abruzzo scrippelle pancakes, stuffed with spinach and the freshest ricotta made in our little local cheese co-op just down the road from Villasfor2.
At A Glance…
- This week's featured wine: Gavi. 'Serre di Vallegge'
- Vintage: 2007
- Producer: Terredavino
- Designation: DOCG
- Grape: 100% Cortese
- Strength: 12%
- Closure: Cork
- This bottle cost: €7.98
Terredavino
Based in the Piedmont town of Barolo - which is a pretty good place to be based ! - there are a couple of genuinely stellar offerings on a list which - encouragingly - doesn't ignore the basics either. At the very top of the range, there's the the single-vineyard 'Poderi Scarrone' DOCG Barolo and a single-vineyard DOCG Gavi too - 'Masseria dei Carmelitani'. The 'Serre di Villegge' is Terredavino's 'everyday' Gavi, but none the worse for that and still better than many allegedly 'superior' offerings. The full list is on Terredavino's excellent website and provides a pleasantly mouthwatering way to pass the time !
Click on the pictures in the text for larger images - and if you like Italian wine, why not check out last week's 'Everyday Italian wine' and bookmark this site for future weekly wine posts. In response to your requests, I've now moved these from Saturday to Friday, to give you a chance to hunt down a bottle of the featured wine to enjoy over the weekend !
Next Week: We're off to Sardinia to sample a bottle of Vermentino. It's the island's best-known white wine and one you'll enjoy trying at home - or on your Villasfor2 Abruzzo vacation !
Abruzzo vacation, Everyday Italian Wine, Gavi, villasfor2 Abruzzo
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