Summer Wine
Wine is an important part of our life in Italy. We live amongst the vines and watch them transform from bare Winter trunks, to Spring canes and shoots, to ripening fruit in Summer. We spend most of our time in Tuscany living in the heart of Chianti Classico. A favorite, drink anytime wine.
Come Summer, we retreat to our mountain home in Abruzzo. As we drive from Tuscany, through Umbria and Marche, the change in landscape is noticeable. Gone are the large swaths of brown, manicured, sunburned fields with evergreen cypress trees punctuating the scenery characteristic of a Tuscan Summer. Arriving in Abruzzo, it is shockingly green. The wine is grown pergola style and the green leaves blanket the landscape, meshing in with olive groves and evergreen forests to create a continuous green vista. The Apennine mountains and the Adriatic sea provide the perfect balance of water and breeze to maintain this lush landscape.
Abruzzo is magical in Summer for many reasons: mountain picnics, seaside naps, village festivals, arrosticini, and of course, wine. If you don’t know about Abruzzo wine, you should. Our friends in Tuscany beg us to bring them Abruzzo’s famous refreshing chilled wines (Cerasuolo is the top request). Naturally we oblige
Abruzzo is known for its Montepulciano d’Abruzzo red wine as it is one of the most exported wines in Italy, but, there is a cult-like following for its chilled summer wines. Cerasuolo, a ‘hot pink’ colored wine served frosty cold, is the perfect wine to accompany BBQ grilled meats, especially the famous Abruzzo arrosticini. This food and wine pairing is unlike anything we have tasted and once you try it, you will no doubt join our little Cerasuolo Cult. Pecorino, is a crisp, fresh, cold white wine that pairs perfectly with Abruzzo’s amazing seafood, as well as cured meats and aged cheeses, is also a favorite wine. And let’s not forget the sparkling, bubbly goodness of brut style wines - both white and rosé - that offer a cold, refreshing pop to a hot summer day and are sublime with summer aperitivo favorites, fried seafood or veggies.
Summer opens our palette to a menagerie of foods thanks to plentiful crops and therefore offers new wine pairings. Cold, crisp and even bubbly wines reign supreme and we have yet to find better wines than Abruzzo to cool us off and make meals magical. Our Abruzzo holds many secrets. If it is any tell that our Tuscany winery friends beg us to bring them wine from Abruzzo, then perhaps you may want to enjoy Abruzzo summer wines with us? Experiencing a summer holiday in Abruzzo promises to be non-touristy, enchanting, and well, delicious. You’ll no doubt join our ‘Cerasuolo Cult’ wholeheartedly.
Salute, Summer!
Visit Abruzzo with us! We are happy to share our local experiences and favorite locales with you. Visit us at The Conciergist to start planning. If traveling isn’t in your budget, we are happy to ship you some of our favorite Summer wines with pairing suggestions. www.theconciergist.com
