WTN: :-) Refosco, anon fizz, Vietti Barbera

I celebrated my 24th birthday today with my lovely girlfriend Suvi. We met up after my work was finished and went first to a nice enough Italian restaurant for a glass of wine. Terra di Ger Refosco 2003 is a genuinely nice 03 - or then the lovely company just made it seem so. Dark toned, earthy, wet rock scent is perhaps a touch atypical for Refosco in its joyous fruitiness but lovely and savoury and very, very enjoyable indeed. The palate was very sweetly fruity, but had the typical high acidity of the grape intact despite the year. Very savory despite the abundant fruit. Quite lovely.

Then we went to another Italian restaurant, Gastone, for dinner as the first was full - only the bar had space.

We started off with a glass of fizz, (Cinzano?), which was nice enough but a little inelegant. It paired well with my starter of tuna left pink in the middle served with a pesto-like sauce. The dish itself was made to perfection and I'm sorry I can't describe it better. The price of the whole dinner was worth that one dish!

Then we continued with the main courses of veal and lamb which we paired with a guilty pleasure of mine: Vietti Barbera d'Asti La Crena 2001 It is much too full on for most of this crowd, with very ripe fruit and 14,5% abv but for some reason I still love it. It is savory, though fruity, very earthy despite some small hints of spoof. The palate is big, abundantly fruity, yet very savoury, very acidic and very earthy. I like this very much, despite its slight raisiny scents.

We were too full to even have dessert. Besides, to bed now, as tomorrow is a long day at the Turku book fair and Turku Castle (we like castles....)

Cheers,
Otto

First of all, happy birthday! Hope you and Suvi enjoyed the day.

Was the refosco from Friuli? Unsure if it's widespread, that's where only one I ever had was from.

Surprised that you liked a Vietti La Crena, I thought the only ones I ever had kind of were extreme examples of the dangers of oaking Barbera.

Enjoy the book fair and castles.

First of all, happy birthday! Hope you and Suvi enjoyed the day.

Was the refosco from Friuli? Unsure if it's widespread, that's where only one I ever had was from.

Surprised that you liked a Vietti La Crena, I thought the only ones I ever had kind of were extreme examples of the dangers of oaking Barbera.

Enjoy the book fair and castles.

Thanks, very enjoyable it was as was the fair and the castle. The Refosco is indeed from Friuli-Venezia. That I like Vietti's La Crena is always a surprise to me also - hence I wrote it is a guilty pleasure. But I guess spoofulated doesn't always mean bad. This has enough savoury elements, earth and acidity to carry the spoof and keep it within drinkable and even enjoyable limits for me. But granted, I would prefer another style of Barbera, but surprising as it is, this doesn't go over the top for me. But I still don't drink it often. Once or twice a year only.

The book fair was nice enough, though as a part-time antiquarian book seller I wasn't too interested in getting back to work on my day off, but Suvi is a book addict (guess where we met?!?!) so here we went. In case there are any Finnish readers, Turku is dashed expensive for used books. But Suvi did find an Alexandre Dumas book that she didn't have, so it was a successful trip.

The Castle was very nice also. It was started in the 1200, but was gradually expanded gaining its final form only in the 1700s or so. It has a rather nondescript history with no real military victories that could be claimed - only a series of embarassments and fires!

It is a nice place to visit with many corridors to go spelunking in (yes, it's as dark as a cave sometimes). We spent several hours (and several kilometers) exploring the castle, so we were ready for lunch - also it being a 4km walk from the center of Turku increased our hunger. So we went to Turku's Restaurant VIA for a late lunch / early dinner. We had a nice glass of Conti Bernardi Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Spumante Extra Dry NV with our food (pastas with sundry sauces). It was cold and fizzy so did the trick. No real remembrances of it except it was nice and typical. The food of Turku's VIA didn't quite match Helsinki's though, but was nice enough anyway.

We also popped the (dashed annoying and illegalisable) plastic cork of an interesting Loire Gamay I recently purchased: Serge Batard Domaine Les Hautes Noëlles Vin de Pays du Jardin de la France Gamay 2005

Purple but see through. The nose is floral, mineral, bloody, herbal, a little earthy and of course has all the typical Gamay raspberry scents. Very nice! The palate, which has a very, very slight youthful spritz on it still, is very fruity and well structured with both fine tannins and high acidity, but still light bodied with 12% abv, and a very intensely mineral aftertaste almost bordering on metallic! If this were at the rumoured ex-cellar price of about 3€ I would buy a couple cases. At the almost 15€ that it costs here, however, I'll only be buying the odd bottle when I need my Gamay fix.

It was really nice to spend a couple days with Suvi sharing our passion for books, history and the good life. 'Tis a pity she's tomorrow going back to the archaeological digs for a month.

"It was really nice to spend a couple days with Suvi sharing our passion for books, history and the good life. 'Tis a pity she's tomorrow going back to the archaeological digs for a month."

Good to see two people with their passions sorted out!

Oh ...... and a big, slightly belated "Happy Birthday" to you from your bonza cobber from down under. "Hip, hip, hooray" etc ......