Pizza and the Pyramid

An extended family member, my daughter’s boyfriend, came over last night to help me build a desk for my office that I bought over the weekend. And when I say “help me” I mean he did all of the work. I stood around looking like I was helping while listening for the kitchen timer to tell me when the pizza I had made earlier was ready to take out of the oven. As luck would have it, just as we, and by “we” I mean “he,” finished building the desk, the timer beeped. PIZZA! YAY!

I decided to open another bottle of Sardinian wine that I bought at one of the free wine tastings at Esquin (www.esquin.com) where I tasted through several Italian wines that were all extremely delicious. I’ve been eager to open this wine because the two other Sardinian wines I’ve opened have been wonderful and incredible values. You can read about my experience and the other wines on this previous post: http://thewinemuseinseattle.blogspot.com/2009/01/wines-of-sardinia.html

Again, I was amazed at how good this wine was. The wine I opened last night is called, Tanca Farra, is made from two varietals, half Cannonau and half Cabernet Sauvignon, and is a 2002 vintage. The grapes are from the Alghero appellation in Sardinia and it’s a DOC wine. What does all this mean? I knew you’d want to know! Read on if you’re interested in a little wine education.

A little background:

The first real quality system in Italy that set rules to guarantee the quality of wines and their place of origin was introduced in 1963. Above is a nifty picture of the Italian Appellation System pyramid.

Alghero is the appellation, or officially recognized area where the grapes are grown. DOC literally means Denominazione di Origine Controllata or Appellation of Controlled Origin for the non-Italian speaking/reading crowd. As you can see from the pyramid above, the table wines are at the bottom, indicating they have the least amount of rules around quality, and the Tanca Farra is closer to the top, just under DOCG, indicating that it’s higher quality and has more rules about the grapes and how long aging must occur.

Enough wine nerd speak already! How was the wine? Did it go well with the pizza? Would I buy it again?

I pulled out the cork, and pulled, and pulled, and pulled some more. What the frack?! The cork went on and on and on seemingly forever. When I finally got the cork out of the bottle, I held it up next to another cork and it was the longest damn cork I’d ever seen. It was almost twice as long as all of the corks in the bag on my kitchen counter. I’m thinking that the Guinness Book of Records should be notified. The wine was brick red in color and at first I thought this was a bad sign but the wine smelled and tasted great. It tasted like plums and smelled like a breeze blowing off of the Mediterranean Sea. It made my mouth water so I knew it was pretty acidic but it wasn’t so high that it turned me off. The tannins were about medium meaning that I could feel it on my tongue but it wasn’t too overly grippy on my gums. Looking down at the wine in my glass, held a bit sideways, I could see there was a very light rim around the wine indicating that it had some age. It went really well with the pizza, which I hoped it would.

As the pizza passed over our lips and into our hungry mouths, while bits of veggies and sauce fell onto my shirt, and as we sipped the Tanca Farra wine, I couldn’t help to think that it doesn’t get any better than this. And my daughter's boyfriend really enjoyed the wine as well.

The Stats:

What: Red wine – Tanca Farra
Producer: Sella & Mosca
Vintage: 2002
Varietals: 50% cannonau, 50% cabernet sauvignon
Alcohol by volume: 13%
Location: Sardinia, Italy
Appellation: Alghero (DOC)
Cost: $9.00
Location purchased: Esquin Wine Merchants, http://www.esquin.com/ Seattle, WA