Foodie & Friuli

 
Last night HOFWs was lucky enough to partake in Foodie's wine tasting in association with Amorosso Fine Wines. 30 of us shuffled into Graze in Sheung Wan for what turned out to be a fantastic evening of wine, food, and new friends.

Amorosso put on this tasting because Giorgio Badin, winemaker of Ronso del Gelso wines, was in town for the week.  Amorosso has been importing Giorgio's wines for three years now and features them in the Ritz among other hotels and restaurants in town.

Giogio has only been to Hong Kong three times, including this trip, and was so kind and generous to spend one of his only nights with us!  Today he's off to Ocean Park :)

About the wines.  

We were informed that these grapes were grown in the Friuli-Venezia appellation of Italy.  This is in the  North Eastern most corner.  See below:

Wines from this region are unique in that they get the effects from the Adriatic Sea and protection from the Alps.  Similar to Burgundy, the grapes are super sensitive and indicitive of the part of the slope they were grown on.  Higher on the slope, riper, fuller-bodied wines.   There is also an incredibly high diurnal range (learned this from my WSET book. Somebody's been studying) resulting in very aromatic wines. 

We started with Isonzo Toc Bas Doc 2010.  Giorgio explained to us that this Tocai grape is indigineous to Italy, but in 2007 the European Court of Justice prohibited Italy from using this name, and as such, it is now referred to exlusively as Friuliano. This was done to please Hungary who wanted to Tokaji name even though the grape is in no way related to Friuliano.  Politics.  

From Wikipedia:

Hungary did not want anyone confusing the dry and aromatic Italian Tocai Friulano (which is a unique wine in and of itself) with their special sweet style wine called Tokaji. 

My favorite

This was definitely my favorite wine of the night!  Totally aromatic and really hard to describe. It was fruity, but unlike any fruit I know.  Kind of tropical and fresh, with flavors of dried fruit.  It packs a punch too with its14% booziness.

 

Then we moved onto another full bodied white, Chardonnay.  Everyone one of the wines we tried has spent time in oak.  At Ronco del Gelso they ferment all of their wines in LARGE oak barrels.  

Third was the final white, Malvasia.  This was probably my second favorite as it was reminiscent of the first wine.  This had a salty acidity, big fruit flavors, and a tad on the sweet side.  Delish.  I should mention that not one of these wines was below 13%.  Nice-uh. 

The we moved to a refreshing Merlot rose, a spicy/peppery Cabernet Franc, and finally a 65% Merlot 35% Pignolo that really opened up the longer it sat.  

All in all some really nice wines, with the whites totally outshining the reds.  Reminds me of Wednesday night during the Burgundy tasting...

Delicious Shrimp and Avocado

And this would not be complete without me mentioning the food. Graze graciously betowed hors d'oeuvres all evening.  There was tomato on bread, a shrimp with avocado which was amazing, spicy pork, roasted veggies, all of which popped with the wines!

What's on tap for this weekend???


Well be at the Better Living Expo at the Asia World Expo.  Come say hi!