It felt so good to get out in the real world as pneumonia really beat me up.   It was seven weeks before I really attempted to join the world again, and did it feel good.  My first stop was at my local wine shop The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan.  Thankfully they still remembered me, and I was able to admire the updates done in the new addition, that we had discussed, it seemed so long ago, before I got sick  I decided to make the trip worthwhile as I was going to pick up my wine club selections and they had contacted me about a wine tasting that  would feature seventeen wines from Italy and two offerings of Extra Virgin Olive Oil from two different wineries. 

The first wine that I picked represented the Old World and it was a bottle of Il Colle Cabernet Sauvignon Veneto IGT NV.  Il Colle was established in 1978 by Fabio Ceshin and his wife Gianna, with the desire to pass on this wine culture to their three children.  The location of the vineyard is in the Hills of Treviso in Veneto, on clay soil, and the vines are ten to fifteen years old.  Prior to veraison, the grapes are thinned out, a process that favors over-ripening of the grapes and adequate phenolic maturity; the fruit is hand-harvested.  Maceration of the skins is for five days, and then a soft pressing, with fermentation for about ten days in Stainless-Steel tanks.  The wine is then racked and left to rest for six months in Stainless-Steel tanks, in the spring the wine is filtered and bottled.   The wine is described as ruby red in color with notes of berries and hay, which evolve over time to more complex scents from ripe fruit to spices.  On the palate the wine is described as full-bodied with supple sweet black and red fruit and a good medium-count finish.

Representing the New World for wines this month is Forlorn Hope Queen of the Sierra White Wine -Rorick Heritage Vineyards Calaveras County 2020.  When I saw Calaveras County, I immediately thought of the short story by Mark Twain written in 1865 called “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” that I probably read in Elementary School when literature and reading were promoted and is probably all but forgotten except perhaps for the named county.  Calaveras County is on of California’s original counties from the time of the Gold Rush of the 1850s and for wine is part of the Sierra Foothills AVA.  The original property was ranched by the Shaw family in 1844, and eventually acquired by Barden Stevenot in the Sixties, and he is deemed the “godfather” of modern Calaveras County winegrowers, when he planted original heritage Wente Chardonnay roots in the Seventies.  Barden eventually grew the property to seventy-five acres and in 2013 Matthew Rorick purchased the property and converted it to organic farming practices.  The estate is 2000 feet in elevation on limestone soil beneath a top layer of schist. The Queen of the Sierra wines is a celebration of the soil, the elevation and the vineyard.  The wines are pure estate grown fruit, hand-harvested, indigenous yeasts, unfiltered and unfined.  The Queen of the Sierra collection is not sold at the winery, but it sold to the trade for retail and restaurant distribution.  The wine is a blend of Chardonnay, Verdelho and Muscat.  The lots were fermented separately due to the different pick dates, then racked and blended together.  The wine is described as a soft yellow in color and offers notes of citrus, white peach and florals.  On the palate, it is described as fresh and crisp, with a touch of minerality and a lively, clean finish.