Dinner with pecorino and barbera

A relaxed dinner with friends at Italian & Sons last night. Trapped into drinking Peroni by asking if it was local or not, but then into good wines and food.

With a dish of sardines marinated in vinegar, onion, pine nuts & sultanas - a glass of 2009 Caldora Colle dei Venti Pecorino. Recommended by the waiter as a good match for the sweet/sour/fish/onion challenge of the sardine dish, this turned out to be a good recommendation. Not overtly fruity of definitive in flavour, the wine's most obvious characteristics were a light gold colour and a line of oxidative flavour (in a good way) that really worked against the fish dish. Somewhat like how the oxidative line and weight of fino or manzanilla sherry is also so good with sardines.

Even better drinking was a bottle of the 2008 Pio Cesare Barbera d'Alba. While the rest of the table had a round of pizza, I had the Thursday night special of White Rocks veal with marsala and king brown mushrooms. Excellent, it was, with the veal tender, the marsala well-judged and the mushrooms inspired. The balance, poise and acid of the barbera sat well against and across the savoury and sweet of the veal dish, as well as the different pizza I may have helped myself to.

So a good, relaxed time of Italian food, wine and conversation. Even if no one agreed with my dislike of Mad Men's version of late-fifties and early sixties America. A good short black and a glass of Nocello get me over these things.

Tenuta Cocci Grifoni, Colle Vecchio, Pecorino 2007 (Le Marche)

Just how many grape varieties are there in Italy? More than 350 varieties have authorised status, and estimates range widely as to how many hundreds (even thousands) there may be in total.

This wine, from the Marches (that coastal and hilly region of the centre, adjoining Umbria and Tuscany), is the first wine I have had from the pecorino grape. Pecorino, grown in Le Marche and a handful of other Italian regions, was a grape 're-discovered' by Guido Cocci Grifoni in the 1980s. An early ripening white grape, pecorino can develop rich flavours, textures and potential alcohol. Low productivity had caused its decline until the recent revival of interest.

This bottle started out showing cheesy characters, with passionfruit and pear carrying through the nose and into the palate. Nice, lingering phenolics, even a bit of tannin, takes you out (along with some oldish, slightly oxidised, citrus notes). Interesting wine, and could go well with antipasti such as grilled marinated vegetables or a seafood salad.

http://www.tenutacoccigrifoni.it/