Wine Pick of the Week: July 27, 2015

DaVinci Wines 2013 Chianti

Maybe Chianti isn’t the quintessential summer wine, but this weekend was the local Italian festival, and my friend Diane Conroy took first place in two categories, “Red Sauce” and “Meatballs.”  She’s awesome.

Anyway, I wanted to drink something Italian besides Prosecco and am revisiting this book I read years ago on creative thinking. The DaVinci Chianti was on sale, so there we go.

Chianti is a dry wine produced in central Tuscany, this near the town of Vinci. In the mid-1800s, Baron Bettino Ricasoli, who later became prime minister of the Kingdom of Italy, determined the recipe for Chianti should be 70 percent Sangiovese, 15 percent Canaiolo and 15 percent Malvasia Bianca, but today’s Chianti is made with a far lesser percentage of white grapes, if any at all. It must, however, include at least 80 percent Sangiovese.

This DaVinci (www.davinciwine.com) is made with 90 percent Sangiovese and 10 percent Merlot. The cooperative Cantine Leonardo da Vinci is made up of 200 local growers, many of which are multi-generational farmers. This offering has cherries on the nose, and I get a sense of leather books. Tasting is fruit up front—more cherries, slight tobacco, hint of leather. It’s hearty and ends with plum jam.

While this bottle isn’t the most complex of wines, it’s nice and is meant to stand up to Italian red sauce pasta dishes and pizza and salumi and country stews of the region. Yum. On a cool fall night, I can see myself sipping a glass in a villa den, surrounded by walls of books, curled up in a chair by the fireplace.