Asheville’s Best Free Wine Tasting – Friday, June 19th from 2-7 p.m. – Exploring the Wines of Northern Italy – We’ll kick off our “All Italian Weekend” with a free wine tasting where you’ll get the chance to taste and ask questions about the diverse and delicious wines of Northern Italy. Include this week, we’ll pour the new vintage of the Nals Margreid “Punggl” Pinot Grigio. The last vintage was named the best Pinot Grigio in the world at the International Pinot Grigio Competition, and the new release is just as good. You’ll also have the opportunity to try the vastly different styles of wine that Barbera can produce. We’ll pour you one that is simple, juicy, and delicious followed by one that is deeper, richer, and more complex. Stop by, taste, learn and save up to 20% off all of the tasting wines every Friday at Table Wine.
The Wines
1. 2014 Nals Margreid “Punggl” Pinot Grigio (Alto Adige, Italy) – Located in Northeastern Italy, the Nals Margreid cooperative is one of the best in the region, and this is consistently one of the best Pinot Grigios produced in the entire country. From a single, 80 year old vineyard, this is full bodied, beautifully textured, and abundant in exotic, floral accented peach and tropical fruit nuances. As famed Italian wine expert James Suckling said of this wine, it’s “one of the best Pinot Grigios out there.” We concur!
2. 2013 Bricco dei Tati Barbera (Piemonte, Italy) – Bricco Dei Tati is a small, family-owned wine estate in the heart of the Langhe region of Piemonte, Italy. The estate covers just a little more than three acres on a hillside across the valley from the village of Barbaresco. The husband and wife team of Emanuele and Mary Beth Gaiarin farm organically, harvest and sort by hand, ferment in cement, and use a 100 year old grape press to extract juice from their grapes. This is honest, easy drinking, and budget friendly wine that tastes of fresh cherry, strawberry, and earth. You’ll be hard pressed to find a better red wine in the store for such a small price.
3. 2013 Paolo Conterno Barbera d’Alba “Bricco” (Piemonte, Italy) – A pretty safe bet when shopping for red wines from Italy’s Piemonte zone is to look for a producer with the last name of Conterno — they’re all great! Giorgio Conterno’s 2013 comes from a single parcel of older vines, and it definitely shows the richer, deeper side of Barbera. Juicy and rich, with a nice mix of ripe raspberry, black cherry, and blackberry fruit, it is a wine of great intensity, balance, and complexity.