Each month, David Brenner of Villasfor2 in Abruzzo selects a delicious, top-value 'Special Italian Wine' for you to drink and enjoy at home – or on your Abruzzo holiday

Barolo. DOCG. 2004. Fontanafredda

Last month we looked at a Christmas wine to go with the pudding and the mince pies. This month, it's what to drink with the turkey. Barolo ! With turkey ? Are you crazy ?

Still the indignation for a moment and consider that a good turkey – and we're not talking about some deep-frozen supermarket bowling ball here, but a good turkey, which has led a full and blameless life out in the open air – is a bird of richness and flavour.

Then consider some of the powerful tastes you're going to be adding to make your delicious free-range bird even more scrumptious: sausages; bacon; two or even three different sorts of stuffing; a rich gravy. A white wine or an everyday red is simply going to get lost in this heady blend of flavours.

Doubly so if you go ultra-traditional and roast a goose on Christmas Day.

So, Barolo is my choice of Christmas wine. And let's face it, if we're talking 'Special Italian Wine', what could be more special than what for me is unarguably Italy's greatest red ?

If you're a regular on these wine blogs, you'll know I'm a big fan of the producers Fontanafredda. Living proof that in terms of wine production, 'big' doesn't necessarily equal 'bad'.

Taking it as understood that the nosebleed prices you can pay for a single vineyard/single comune Barolo are beyond the scope of probably all our wallets, when searching for a top-quality generic Barolo such as this, you need to tread with a degree of caution. Hence my reliance on a producer I know and trust.

This Barolo is produced from 100% Nebbiolo grapes grown in the 11 comunes that comprise the DOCG area. It's then treated to two years in oak and a further year in bottle before release. (Barolo Riserva gets three years in wood and two years in bottle).

Generally speaking, 'regular' Barolo's reckoned to start hitting its stride five years after its vintage date, so this bottle from the pretty good 2004 vintage – thought it would've kept on improving until around 2012 and still been drinkable for a couple of years after that – seemed a pretty safe bet.

In the glass, a deep, rich ruby and powerful scents of mulberries and liquorice. A taste reveals Barolo's trademark tannins – this isn't really a wine to sip appreciatively on its own – and astonishingly complex flavours: treacle toffee; violets; damsons and even just a hint of roses.

Do please decant this a couple of hours before drinking to give it a chance to flex its muscles and if you don't fancy pairing it up with turkey (or goose), then any rich meaty dish will provide an equal treat.

Diving into the spirit of traditional Italian Christmas food, we enjoyed this bottle with a dish of Zampone, (a stuffed pig's trotter which – trust me – is way better than it sounds), followed by a rather greedy wedge of Taleggio. It was all utterly, sublimely delicious.

Merry Christmas !

At A Glance…
This month's featured wine: Barolo
Vintage: 2004
Designation: DOCG
Grape: 100% Nebbiolo
Strength: 13.5%
Closure: Cork
Producer: Fontanafredda
Website: www.fontanafredda.it
This bottle cost: €17.80

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 7:01 am and is filed under Eating and Drinking, Special Italian Wine, 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.