This week it’s all about elevating the everyday. The Barbera grape is the daily sip of much of northern Italy, normally making a simple and enjoyable wine with great structure for food pairing. This week’s wine gives Barbera a serious spotlight: The 2017 Vite Colte La Luna e i Falὸ (The Moon and Bonfires) Barbera d’Asti Superiore is dense and layered, while maintaining freshness and the grape’s signature versatility with food. It’s a great way to elevate any night of the week.
Tasting Notes: Pure Barbera, La Luna e i Falὸ opens with an expressive nose of dark cherry, baking spices and toasty oak. The palate adds plum, blackberry, vanilla and a touch of mocha to the experience, lingering through the long finish.
Enjoy With: All the staples of Italian cuisine: pasta dishes and lasagna, pizza, grilled sausage, steak Florentine and polenta, aged cheeses, and salty charcuterie.
Style: A dry, medium-bodied, smooth red wine.
Terroir / Region: Barbera is the go-to red grape of Piedmont, where some of Italy’s most legendary wines are sourced. The sub-region of Asti counts Barbera as one of its specialties, making a range of wines from fresh and fruity, to wines that see periods in oak barrels like La Luna e i Falὸ Barbera, which gain notes of tobacco and spice as they gracefully age.
Producer: As a co-op, Vite Colte sources the fruit for this wine from 44 of its growers in Asti, blending from these different sources to create a full expression of Asti Barbera and the most balanced wine possible.
Availability: Vite Colte La Luna e i Falὸ Barbera d’Asti Superiore will be available online and in the Vintages section of your local LCBO on June 26, but a few stores may already have it on the shelf.
Check LCBO store inventory
Price: $19.95
LCBO#: 627901
Size: 750mL
Alcohol Content: 13.5% alc./vol.
