Lunch: $45 per person, / Lunch & wine tasting $75
September 21st Wine Tasting
Kicking off our fall season of events, we will continue our “tour of Italy” with winemaker and member Ron Fenolio. In past tastings we have “visited” or had tastings of the wines of Sardinia, Sicily, Calabria/Puglia, and Campagna/Basilicata. For this tasting we will jump to Liguria to take advantage of a special opportunity. Occasionally we get to indulge in foods, wines and cheeses that are very special. For this month we are going to have one of those opportunities, an opportunity to taste wines that are in fact truly rare, one could say wines from some grapes that would be or are extinct except for the efforts of one family.
The Punta Crena Winery sits above the small village of Vigarotti. Vigarotti is on the Mediterranean between Genoa and Monte Carlo. One family there, the Ruffino family, has been farming one plot of land for over 500 years. Punta Crena embodies two of the traits that best define Ligurian wine – viticulture on small plots with impossible steepness, and hyper-local grapes of surprising uniqueness. This plot of land sit above the village on steeply sloping cliffs at 300-1000 feet in elevation, not more than a kilometer from the sea. The family has used their 40 acres of land to specialize in keeping alive some varieties of grapes that except for their efforts would be extinct. Their vineyards have Crovino, Mataossu and Barbarossa, grapes that now are entirely unique to them. The Crovino is so low yielding that no one else will will attempt to grow it. The family produces only 4,200 cases, 50,400 bottles, spread among 10 different bottlings, so an average of 5,400 bottles of each wine for not only the whole country of Italy, but the whole world wide consumption.
These wines are not inexpensive, nor are they wildly expensive. We will taste eight of their wines, two frizzante (Low-pressure sparkling wines), four white wines, and two red wines. Due to the cost and uniqueness of these wines, the wine surcharge for this tasting will be $75 ($45 lunch and an additional $30 per person for the tasting). If you do not want to participate in the tasting but are joining us for lunch please RSVP so that we can plan an enjoyable afternoon for all.
For this event email to Ron Derenzi. Include your contact information, the number in your party and how many of you will be enjoying the wine tasting. Bring a check to the event for your meal and wine. This is an in person event only. Thank you.
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