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 !

Terre di Franciacorta. Castel Faglia. 2006

It's quite unusual to find an Italian wine that's such a heady blend of different grapes as this given DOC status. Normally, the elephantine Italian rule'n'regulations that cover these matters would demote a wine like Terre di Franciacorta – however good – to the (theoretically less-good) IGT grade.

It's a problem that besets many a modern Italian wine-maker who tries to break free of the restrictions that don't exactly encourage moves away from making wine with traditional grapes in a traditional manner.

Terre de Franciacorta is a red wine from Lombardy – the region in the north of Italy around Milan. The area where Terre de Franciacorta comes from in Lombardy is a little to the west of Brescia and a little to the south of Lake D'Iseo.

You may have already come across Franciacorta in its DOCG guise reserved only for an astonishingly good methode champenoise sparkler. The humbler DOC label applies only to the area's red and still white.

The red is an absolute mongrel of a wine. Either Cabernet Franc, or Cabernet Sauvignon – or both – are the principal varieties used, along with smaller amounts of Merlot, Barbera and Nebbiolo.

The result in this instance, from the Castel Faglia co-op in the town of Cazzago San Martino, is intensely fruity and mouth-wateringly juicy, but with so many grape varieties to fit into the mix, it takes a wine-maker of rare skill to produce a wine as enjoyable as this. The balance has to be absolutely spot-on.

Here, there's clearly a good, upfront dollop of jammy Merlot with the presence of the CabSauv working away in the background adding structure to the package. This, along with the Nebbiolo also give a little ageing potential. The colour is a cheery cherry-red; the scent is brambly and in the glass it's vice-free and quaffable. Good on its own; good with food.

 Not massively robust, but a terrific wine for pasta and pizza, or to have alongside a bowl of proper minestrone; and it'd be a pretty fine accompaniment to a flame-grilled cheeseburger. Especially if the melted cheese just happened to be a tangily-robust English Cheddar or, perhaps better, a creamy Italian Gorgonzola…

This, if we're talking about reds, is about as good and typical an 'Everyday Italian Wine' as you'll find.

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wine: Terre dei Franciacorta
• Vintage: 2006
• Producer: Castel Faglia
• Designation: DOC
• Grape: Unspecified blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Nebbiolo and Barbera
• Strength: 12.5%
• Closure: Plastic cork
• This bottle cost: €5.60

Next Week: 'Everyday Italian Wine' celebrates its 50th post !

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 3:54 am and is filed under David's 'Everyday Italian Wine', Eating and Drinking, Vineyards. 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.