The Humble Dolcetto

Sure, just what's needed: another restaurant/wine guy waxing poetic about wine descriptions, geographic insights and geological factors affecting the 'minerality' of wine. There are plenty of people that know a great deal more than I about the technical aspects of winemaking and what is precisely happening to the vines in different soil conditions, or what chemical processes are taking place when we in fact 'taste'. Indeed, there are quite a few more people that have a greater command of the English language to explain this, but the thing about wine that is different is that no one can explain my particular experience with wine quite like I can. No matter how ephemeral or permanent, I'm convinced that the memory of wine is tied to an entire experience - the meal, the city, the vacation, the meeting, the date.

A decent ordinary wine can somehow be transformed to an extraordinary memorable event, which happened to me as a 24-year old in Canelli tasting the local cooperative's dolcetto for the first time with a beautifully executed Piedmontese tasting menu in the coop's cellar. The humble dolcetto to this day takes me back to that memory with a fondness and appreciation for the simple.

This is what our restaurant group seeks in our food menus, as well as our wine program - real wines from interesting places with real people behind the process making it all happen. There is room for another wine blog as long as memories are worth sharing. So, in this inaugural attempt at entering the wine blog ether, build your memories one glass at a time.