Matteo Correggia Arneis DOCG 2012 (Piedmont)

Go over the Tanaro River from Barbaresco, or north of Alba, and you are in Roero. As with their Piedmontese neighbours, Arneis, Barbera and Nebbiolo grow across the Roero communes, with a sprinkling of the 'international' varieties. Arneis is grown for sparkling and still white wines here, as well as being used for co-fermentation with Nebbiolo.

Matteo Correggia took over his father's mixed farm in 1985 and until his death in 2001 drove many improvements in the viticulture, winemaking, marketing and reputation of the Roero. Correggia now manage over 20 hectares of vines on mainly sandy soils, with the Arneis and Brachetto grapes given to the sheltered slopes.

Well known as a forward-thinking producer (though no mad modernist), it is not a surprise to see the 2012 Roero Arneis under a Stelvin Lux closure. The packaging looks good and so does the first impression given by this wine. Attractive to smell, this has pear, apple, white blossom and some lime on the nose and these carry through to the mid palate, along with some astringent and slightly bitter characters. This feels a bit too forced, pushing for flavour but copping extracted and boozy character. It holds together, just, on a first day of opening, but the astringency and alcohol dominates and the wine unspools by a second evening open.

Not a convincing argument for Arneis, to my taste, but fair value at $20.

Screwcap, purchase, $20, 13%, brought in by Beaune & Beyond, website here.

Girlan Pinot Bianco 2012 (Südtirol/Alto Adige)

Cantina Girlan is a co-operative established in 1923, working with a wide range of Northern Italian white and red grape varieties as well as making blends of these. This wine is from their "Classici" range.

Ripe, balanced, pleasantly weighty and even-textured along the palate, this is a good value example of what Südtirol and Alto Adige can do with grapes like Pinot Bianco. The fruit is from Cornaiano and the wine is entirely about stainless steel fermentation and some aging in tank on lees. 

Aromatics are subtle, a gentle push up of apple, pear and pome fruit blossom, with most of the action on the front and mid-palate. Not exactly waxy, there is a smooth and silky texture here, more than a straight acid line. Alcohol is nicely folded in to the wine and does not show on the finish at all.

A good option for antipasti, seafood pasta, chicken dishes or roast pork with a potato gratin. I bought this from Prince Wine Store at $22 a bottle, and it is fine value there, but will often be in retail closer to $30 a bottle. 

Also a smart listing at Jamie's Italian in Canberra at $72 a bottle and described as "a favourite for any chardonnay drinker". That might suggest oak treatment (which this has none of) but is not a bad way to introduce new drinkers to the texture and feel on offer here. Quite a few restaurants in Australia listing Italian wines could do with looking to how that list translates Italian grapes and wines for an Australian audience.

Brought in by Bibendum. Purchase, $22, cork, 13% alcohol, website here.

Castellari Bergaglio Gavi 'Fornaci' Cortese 2009 (Piedmont)

Sherried at the front, honey and lemon juice through the middle. Aromatics are quite subtle, lemon, pear and dry hay. Length is good, mostly about a salty, mineral character and the last bits of the mid palate. Like an aged cold and flu remedy, in a way. The kind of wine you like, but are not quite sure why.

Perhaps it is because I like the Cortese grape, something the Lost Valley winery in Victoria provided my introduction to.

This 2009 Gavi (a part of Piedmont close to Liguria) comes from the Castellari Bergaglio winery and the 'Fornaci' is a reference to a brick furnace that used to be found on their site. Tasted over three days, with and without food, and looked best on the second day.

Brought in by Trembath & Taylor.

Cork, purchase, $28-35 for the current vintage which is the 2012 pictured, 13% alcohol, website here.

Peter Zemmer Pinot Bianco 2012 (Alto Adige / Südtirol)

Here's a good example of a flavoursome white from the north of Italy that does not rely on fruit character. The Südtirol / Alto Adige producer Peter Zemmer makes a dozen different whites with an interesting split into two categories: wines with varietal character (like this wine) and wines with regional character. Smart and clear for the market, I suggest.

This Pinot Bianco from the 2012 vintage is ripe and long. Nothing along the line of the wine says any particular fruit character; lemon being as close as you might get. What you have here is some fresh acid and non-fruit flavour, particularly a mineral character that is almost salty (in a good way). Very easy to drink and fair value if you can get it under or about $30 a bottle. Good cork too.

Went very well with a spring risotto of peas, asparagus & french tarragon, made with an asparagus stock. Would suit schnitzel, I suspect.

Purchase, cork, 13.5%, $29-$37, website here.

Fattori Roncha 2011 (Veneto)

Continuing my run of northern Italian whites.

Fattori is a family-owned and run producer, operating since the 1970s out of the Veneto. Their white wines come from a mixture of varieties grown on the basalt slopes of the Alpone valley, including the hills of Roncà.

This 'Roncha' white blend starts with 50% Garganega, including 5% of partially-dried grapes. Pinot grigio (picked a little early) and Trebbiano di Soave are 20% each in the blend. The final 10% component comes from the late-ripening, high-acid Durella variety.

The fruit sees a mix of stainless steel and barrels, but the complexity, the sense of 'work' in the wine is quite subtle. The most distinctive feature here is a clean and clear hit of mandarin flavour and mandarin acid. Perhaps this is the Durella influence, but regardless, this is the most mandarin-y wine I can recall having. Tasty, bright and fresh, yet not lacking fruit weight, this was a good fit with a Cantonese meal and I think even better with dishes containing fresh or dried citrus.

$28-$35, cork, purchase, 13% alcohol, website here, imported by Deja Vu Wine Company.

Schiopetto Collio Friulano 2010 (Friuli)

Friuli has been in the news a bit of late, courtesy of Fulvio Bressan, and for attitudes about race rather than their wines. Producers from the region, such as Schiopetto, deserve a different kind of attention.

But 'region' is a bit of a strange notion in this north eastern corner of Italy. Friuli is bound up in a partnership, as Friuli-Venezia Giulia, which in turn is a third of the Tre Venezie 'region', alongside Trentino-Alto Adige/Sudtirol and the Veneto.

There are cultural threads linking these regions, including influences Slavic, Austro-Hungarian and Teutonic, which have had a bearing on the grapes grown and the wines made. Collio, where this Friulano wine from Schiopetto comes, is right up against the Italy-Slovenia border, in the foothills of the alps but with a maritime climate as well, being also close to the Adriatic. There are some red wines made in Collio, but white wines dominate, and white wines of richness, intensity and weight.

This wine is made from the Friulano grape and carries off its ripeness and driving weight well, but blends are common here too. Friulano, chardonnay, malvasia, ribolla gialla, pinot grigio, pinot bianco, sauvignon blanc - it is a rich palette for single variety or blended white wine making.

As complex and balanced as the blends can be, this was attractive drinking as a single-variety bottling, giving pear juice, lemons and an astringent lift on the finish. The 13% alcohol tucked itself in well on the first night, but started to show a little on a second day open as the fruit backed away. Made in stainless steel, the weight and power is pretty much all fruit here. The juice does see a little air early in the winemaking, which shows in the richer-yellow colour of the wine, but fruit wins out over winemaking.

A stirfry of asparagus and mushrooms, steak rested in good soy sauce, and fried rice made with pickled radish & sour-pickled mustard greens was a fair challenge for a wine, but this Friulano was up for it, being the pick of the table over a good 2011 Hunter shiraz. I have another bottle of this, which I reckon might be headed for a crumbed veal cutlet.

Well worth a look if you are interested in rich & full whites that are not reliant on oak input.

Purchase, $45, cork, 13% alcohol, website here, importer Deja vu Wine Company.

Morrisons of Glenrowan Fiano Garganega 2013 (Glenrowan & King Valley)

Earlier this year I spent a bit of time tooling around Glenrowan, checking in to the old vine Trebbiano at Booths Taminick and a quick look at the Bailey's vintage port. Whereas I went to Baileys expecting to buy and left empty handed and disappointed, the punt taken on a first visit to Morrisons came off.

While I often think of Beechworth as the 'higher country' for Rutherglen and Glenrowan, the latter has its own slopes over and up to Mt Glenrowan and the Warby Range. The Morrison's site feels different to other Glenrowan vineyards. It looks like ideas tipped out at random across a hillside. A plot of vines here, a bit of green building over there, a winding track designed to disorient and lift SUV driving blood pressures. You half expect a grove of miniature, chainsaw-carved Ned Kellys or a nudist colony, or some full-beard mix of both.

Bob and Dianne Morrison run the place, but there are vines over in the King Valley as well as the art-farm-colony on the hill at Glenrowan. The ideas carry inside their sheds and cellar door, or maybe spilled out from there in the first place. Bob's a gregarious guy - a distracted air about him, a sense it's the women that yoke the ideas to the ground.

The more you talk with the Morrisons, the more you get a sense the whole thing is a blend of the deliberate and the accidental, a pinball rythym of ideas across time and site. Lets try a distinctly lighter style of Durif from a NSW-developed, lower alcohol durif clone, but grow it at Glenrowan? Sounds good. Cock a snoot at that Rutherglen durif. Why not a bit of Glenrowan tempranillo as well?

And then something wilder still. Why not a blend of Fiano and Garganega? But let's turn Soave & Campania inside out and around. Why not ripen the Garganega to a rich texture of pear-juice and apple-candy, but do the Fiano light, bright and lean, then put them together? They won't see that one coming. It'll be a bit Barbie, a bit Bride of Frankenstein, all off to a school dance, corset holding in the pieces.

I didn't see it coming. But I liked it. And did I mention Bob is keen on the Zork closure, so there is no screwcap or cork? A bottle drunk at home in Canberra perked up early and held its own with chicken & pasta. Towards the end of the bottle the air started to show in cut-apple-brown, but in a group on a warm day at lunch, I'd wager this wouldn't last long enough.

I still don't think I completely understand what's going on at that Glenrowan hill, but the distinctive, scatty vision, stitching ideas and places together, experiment piled on... there is a freedom there, a sense of plowing your own road. Worth some attention and regard, for mine.

Website, $18, 12% alcohol, Zork.

Yalumba Y Series Vermentino 2011

Yalumba's work with viognier might offer a path for pushing an Italian white into an Australian mass market. The bet is on with vermentino. It might even pay off.

There is a bit to smell here: citrus blossom & light jasmine. But it's discrete. No hothouse rush up the glass like a malvasia or sauvignon pungency. The palate is even, citrus again, with a bit of citrus pith and a decidedly salty character I find distracting. Just a bit of chalky texture on the way out.

Good value if you get it closer to $10 than the rrp of $14.95. There's refreshment, but that salty note distracts like a skipping track on a compact disc. Screwcap.

Risotto, for dry white wine

I've been trying out some food combinations for the new 2011 Quarry Hill North Block dry white, which is a blend of savagnin and sauvignon blanc. This risotto worked really well - with the wine picking up the pea and pea pod characters in the dish.

Take enough fresh peas, in the pod, to produce about a cup of shelled peas. While shelling, soak a half-handful of dried porcini in hot water. Add the pea pods, the porcini and soaking water to some vegetable stock and simmer. While the stock is simmering, cut some pancetta into small pieces and sweat in olive oil until they have gone half-brown and a little crisp. Add rice (I used carnaroli, but arborio would be fine) and stir over heat for a few minutes until the rice has taken up the oil. Add dry white wine, bubble away and then start to ladle in stock, a ladle at a time, with a bit of stirring and shaking of the pan as you go.

When the rice is about 3/4 done, you'll have used most of the stock and can fish the porcini out and add to the risotto pot (keep the pods for the worm farm). Add the fresh peas for the last couple of minutes of the cooking time, remove from heat, stir in butter and grated parmesan, adjust the seasoning and let stand, covered, for five minutes. Stir and serve with a little more cheese and perhaps some flat-leaf parsley, and white wine.

This is a fairly robust risotto, with some brown colours from the porcini & cooking of the pancetta, that set off well against the green of the fresh peas. While a sangiovese could also pair up, a white wine with a bit of herb or grassy characters can pick up the peas and pea pods, as well as cut against the smooth, rich textures of the rice. A Soave, or other garganega based wine, would also be worth a try.

Picking savagnin at Quarry Hill

Savagnin was planted at Quarry Hill in 2006. Thought at the time to be 'real' albarino, it has since looked well-suited to the site. A tiny amount of fruit was picked in 2009 for a micro-ferment of 27 litres. In 2010, more fruit (most rack-dried to make an experimental dessert wine, some off to Brian Schmidt at Maipenrai).

For vintage 2011, the savagnin vines were cane-pruned back to 6-8 buds per cane, with double or tirple buds flicked out by hand. Later in the season, the vines were shoot-thinned to control yield but also to shape the canopy and ensure good airflow in this wet year.

Picking happened on Monday March 7, along with the sauvignon blanc, and the savagnin plantings provided 2.4 tonnes of good quality fruit. Tasting the fruit at picking, then the juice from the press that evening, the main impressions were of citrus and crunching through a green-skinned apple.

So from planting vines in the winter of 2006, we should have a dry, textural new white wine available around August 2011. It's important not to rush these things.

Octopus, basil & white wine

Excellent fresh octopus are being fished out of Eden on the far south coast at the moment. Light braises and warm salads are some of my favourite late summer cooking and eating, and made with seafood can partner very well with pinot grigio, vermentino or Hunter semillon.

Take one medium-sized fresh whole octopus. Cut between head and legs, push out beak, slit down the side of head, trim membrane to remove guts, cut out the eyes and give everything a good rinse. Take care to not break the ink sack. You will end up with the head in one piece and the legs in another. Add to simmering water in which you have a bay leaf, some peppercorns and seed of wild fennel. Simmer, skimming to remove scum, until the octopus is tender. An hour is often about right.

While the octopus is simmering, finely dice onion and red capsicum. Sweat very slowly in olive oil with a little salt until very soft (as per a Spanish sofrito), adding chopped garlic near the end. When soft, lift the heat and deglaze with white wine, then back to a simmer.

Take the octopus from the water. Remove any skin you don't feel like eating, then cut the head and tentacles into bite sized pieces. Add these to the sauce and stir for a minute or two over low heat to get the octopus to take up some flavour. Add sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar to bring the sauce up to a balance of sweet/sour, check seasoning and remove from heat. Stir in a generous amount of torn fresh basil leaves and serve.

Good with bread and butter, and a glass of something white and fresh.

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/

Italian whites tasting

Throughout the year, the Canberra District Vigneron's Association puts on tastings for members after meetings. Tonight the theme was Italian white wines, mainly from central and southern Italy. The dozen wines, served in two brackets of six wines, had been sourced by Alex McKay from Melbourne importer Enoteca Sileno. I'll write the wines up over the next couple of weeks, but a couple of initial notes:

- for me, trying to pick Italian white grape varieties in a blind tasting is well-nigh impossible. I did pick that the first bracket contained a vermentino and a falanghina, but not the wines I thought were these varieties
- the temptation to focus on fruit description before looking at texture, astringency/bitterness, skin contact, phenolics and oxidation can get these wines back to front
- three of the twelve wines, including the Benanti Pietramarina 2003 (made from carricante), were let down by cork
- lots of genuine interest across the wines, yet not things that would go well in the Australian wine show system (mercaptans and VA especially), which probably says more about the show focus than it does about overall wine quality.

The first wine, from the Marches, was a sparkler made from the Yellow Passerina grape. Not something I'd ever had before, but distinctly different from prosecco. Strawberries, lemon juice, a little cream. Mouthfilling bubbles, some creamy texture, white peach and a little musk show late, plus something a little like a skin contact, slightly herbal character. Not sweet, some lingering flavours but not a wine about piercing acid length. Would be interesting quaffing fizz, a little like prosecco or cava can be. Recommended. Tenuta Cocci Grifoni, Gaudio Magno, Offida Passerina, 2006 is the name to look out for.

Terredura Irpinia Falanghina 2008, Campania

Falanghina is not a grape variety I am familiar with, so when I saw it on the by the glass list at Italian and Sons in Braddon, I gave it a look.

Not quite brassy in colour or flavours, there are aspects of viognier to this wine (in a good way). Served with salt cod fritters (a good match), the colour is around the middle of the yellow spectrum. It had good texture and palate weight, shy of being viscous. The texture balanced well with some crisp acid to avoid any risk of being cloying. It finishes fairly short, but there are some nice, grippy phenolics to give the finish character.

Good to have had, and something to keep a lookout for if you are keen on an Italian white with some texture and palate weight.