It was this statement by Jancis Robinson that encouraged me to put this theme out there;
"Light, tart Barbera was the everyday drinking wine on Piemontese tables, something to wash down the wondrous local cuisine and its succession of courses, paving the way on special occasions for a bottle of a serious red wine made from Nebbiolo."
So as for the food, I think a good quality Italian putting out traditional style Italian pizza with a decent menu of traditional Italian entrees and pasta in a not too formal setting, kind of like a local pizzeria in Italy but as close as we can achieve here.
As rooman mentioned a while back in another thread that he had been interested in exploring local Italian white varieties I have found myself enjoying the same exploration too, however with such little experience in this category of wine what better way to accelerate that exploration by incorporating that component into this offline to balance the line up with whites.
Venue: Love Supreme on Oxford St maybe? We always BYO there and never been charged corkage. I would encourage bringing our own glasses but for those that can't they actually have 2 Types of glassware, the standard which is a bit average but a burgundy style glass that is quite impressive and would hold the wines of the night more than adequately.
Rules of theme: all wines must be Italian including the whites and the whites must be Italian grape varieties. Blends are cool but preferably the blend is just a small percentage added to the theme grape. bear in mind the Nebbiolo's are going to generally be more expensive than the Barberas so aim to impress and surprise with the quality of the Barbera if you decide to bring that.
Numbers: 12 max
Finalised date: Thursday, 29th September, 6.15pm
Finalised venue: Love Supreme, Oxford St, Paddington
Attendees:
1) bobthebuilder
2) barbthebuilder
3) TiggerK
4) Dingozegan
5) Polymer
6) Hacker
7) winetastic
winetastic +1
.