Vino Italiano

Throughout the course of the last two days, I've decided that my life is not complete until I see every region of Italy. I'm currently in the process of assembling what will eventually be an essay on one Italian wine in particular, and as I type I have two glasses of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo sitting on my desk.

That is the wine I'm writing about, after all, and I couldn't write a report on a wine without trying it myself. One of the wines is $20 and the other is $6. Would I buy three of the cheaper wines rather than one of the more expensive? Probably. That's one weird thing about the beverage in general. That almost always holds true.

Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is made from the Montepulciano grape in the Abruzzi region. It has nothing in common with the more expensive Vino Nobile di Montepulciano from Tuscany. The cheaper one came from Trader Joe's and I swear it's a sugar free version of pure black cherry juice. Enough about that. By the way, most red wines have no sugar at all, as they should be. Sugar blows.

It just so happens that we tasted a Barolo in class yesterday. The massiveness of the tannins was enough to suck my saliva out for days to come. It was a 2003, and I now believe all the hype about how super-tannic Barolos can be. Picture this: you're at a bar and a ping pong game erupts into an all out brawl after you knock a the drink out of the bouncer's sister's hand - completely by accident. Before you know it you're knocked unconscious by a scrawny, short white dude. That is this wine and The Green Lantern on November 21 combined.