![]() Umbrian wines, as WMG members discovered at their lunch, match comfortably with all sorts of food – and that doesn’t mean just Italian food. They have developed together over the centuries to mesh seamlessly. The importance of that rich cuisine is precisely its interaction with Umbrian wines. The Umbrian menu uses more game, has more truffles (three seasons out of the year!), and is famous throughout Italy for the quality of its sausages and salume – so much so that in Rome, pork butchers are called Norcerie, after Norcia, the town that is the Umbrian epicenter of salume and the site of an annual truffle fair. “Burnt meat and baby food” is the way food writer Fred Plotkin once described Tuscan cooking to me. ![]() ![]() Moreover – I speak as one whose dinner is always important to him – its cuisine is far more interesting and varied than Tuscany’s, despite the totally inflated reputation of Tuscan cooking in this country. It’s less wild and rugged than Tuscany, more mellow and gentler, and it has its full share of castellated hills, artistic treasures (Assisi, for one), and classical and Etruscan antiquities (Perugia still boasts an Etruscan city gate). That’s a shame, because in many respects Umbria is the handsomer region. To tourists – wine tourists included – Umbria remains a territory far less known and travelled than Tuscany. His white Torre di Giano Vigna Il Pino and red Rubesco Riserva Vigna Monticchio are still the firm’s flagship wines, even though the line has expanded and the firm now also produces wine in the Sagrantino DOC and other parts of Umbria, as well in its home base of Torgiano. He also blazed the trail for single-vineyard wines, at a time when, for Italy, that was a daring novelty. Back in the ‘60s, his Rubesco won the first DOC for Umbria (Torgiano Rosso), only the fifth in all of Italy. NOTE: Some content is property of Vinous and Garagiste.To make clear why that was so, Chiara, the young CEO of the historic Lungarotti firm, presented WMG members with an assortment of Umbrian wines that embraced not just Lungarotti’s bottlings but examples from most of Umbria’s now numerous DOC zones – a very impressive lineup, in both variety and quality.Ĭhiara’s father, the near-legendary Giorgio Lungarotti, was the great pioneer of Umbrian wine. Top-flight on all accounts and (for some reason) quite hard to find (usually this wine is fairly well distributed but a 94pt rating from Galloni changes that in a hurry): HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - this parcel is NOT VIA THE GREY MARKET - it is directly from the winery cellar with perfect provenance: ONE PARCEL ONLY at this price: 2004 Sportoletti “Villa Fidelia” FIRST COME FIRST SERVED up to 12/person until we run out Thank you, Jon Rimmerman Garagiste Seattle, WA Italy7559 Compare this wine to some of your $100+ 2005 Bordeaux and I think you will be shocked by how good it is. Look up whatever you need to but (for the investment) this wine has to represent one of the finest high-end bargains remaining in Tuscany/Umbria. (VILLA FIDELIA Sportoletti) Fidelia Dear Friends, There have been very good versions of this wine in the past but the 2004 takes the Villa Fidelia into the big leagues (as it seems many 2004s have done across central and coastal Italy). (Sportoletti Villa Fidelia) Login and sign up and see review text. The Best of Central and Southern Italy (Feb 2008), ( See more on Vinous.)
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