Wannabe Wino

The wine was a 2005 Siema Rosso Vino da Tavola by Lodali Winery from Piedmont. Sorry, I seem to have not taken a picture of this one. The wine clocked in at 12% alcohol by volume and cost me $8!!!! at The Winery in Old Town Alexandria. It's a blend of 50% Barbera and 50% Dolcetto. I believe I took more notes on this wine than almost any other red wine I've had in recent memory. I'm still shocked at the layers and depth in this little $8 bottle of wine. What I should have done was go buy the rest that The Winery had because this was simply an amazing value.

The nose showed smoke, leather, a little barnyard, red berries, and red currants. It kept opening up as the night progressed and the smell was amazing. In the mouth the wine was red and earthy. I found red berries, red currants, earth, leather, a smoky characteristic, and more red fruit.

This was just an absolutely fabulous deep wine with layers of flavors. Everyone loved this one at our dinner party. I served it with homemade pizza, and in addition to everything else, the wine was wonderful with pizza! The smoky flavors were perfect for the cheese and pepperoni covering the pizza.

In some other year we will do the whole Champagne thing, but since I figured we had done a fair amount of Champagne lately with the new house thing and we had been saving this bottle for the occasion, a bottle of 2005 Brutocao Feliz Vineyard Dolcetto was used to toast the evening.

We were given this bottle by our excellent server at the Lion's Den Bistro where we dined one Friday evening on our honeymoon. It was our favorite over the 4 course food and wine pairing meal and our server had indicated he would give us the remainder of the bottle to take back to our B&B. When we arrived back at the B&B we went to drink it and discovered he had kindly given us a brand new bottle and we decided to save it for our first anniversary. A little reminder of our honeymoon since we weren't going to be able to make it back out to Sonoma for the occasion.

So with that said, the wine was free, had a real cork closure and clocked in at 13.8% alcohol by volume. We decided to eat in our dining room with all the fancy crystal and china and I served a meal of parmasean/honey dijon/breadcrumb encrusted rack of lamb with blue cheese polenta and green beans. It was a good match to the dinner, though the rack of lamb could have easily stood up to a really big wine. But I thought this was a good choice as the lamb with the crust and fresh herbs and such is really flavorful and I didn't want a wine that was going to take away from those flavors.

Anywho, the wine. On the nose I found plums and sweet candy. I couldn't quite put a finger on it, but I would describe it as a sweet candied aroma. In the mouth the wine was fruity and had a medium-light body. Mostly sweet plums in the mouth. Overall, a nice, lighter red wine that was easy drinking on a warm summer night. And a bottle with really great memories.