Wine For Your Meatballs

How many times a year do you eat pasta w/ red sauce for dinner? If you ask my girlfriend the answer would be 359. Every day except for Passover. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the stuff, but how good can pasta w/ red sauce really get? You can go to Whole Foods(aka Whole Paycheck) and pay an arm, a leg, an elbow, and trip kings for the freshest ingredients to make your own pasta and sauce from scratch. But then that really kinda defeats the point. We make pasta w/ red sauce because its easy. So, on to the question...

How can we make pasta w/ red sauce better? Emerils Lagasse's Caijun Seasoning perhaps? I say NOT!!!! Wine, my friends. Wine makes everything better.

A couple great wines from Italy that many people don't know about are Barbera and Dolcetto. These are wines from the Piemonte Region(the most north western part of the boot), which is most famous for their production of Barolo (made from the Nebbiolo Grape). Barbera and Dolcetto are 2 grape varietals that can quench your Italian thirst without busting your Italian purse (wow!). Chianti has always been the not-too-expensive-go-to Italian wine to throw on the table to go with your spagetti and Meatballs. But even good chianti comes with a price on it these days, and who doesn't want variety.

What do they taste like you ask?

Well Barbera has the big juice going on. It is a medium to full bodied wine that has big fresh red and black fruits aplenty. Like most Italian wine it has great acidity, which is what makes it go great with red sauces and other Italian dishes. It usually is low in tannin and is not a wine that needs aging. Pop and drink.

Dolcetto makes lighter bodied wines. Fresh red fruits that tend to have spicy and herbal notes. While not having the acidity Barbera has, it is still great with Italian meats and cheeses.

Something to be aware of. Both of these grape varietals are being produced in California. Not that they aren’t good wines there, but they are not the same. In California they tend to have higher alcohol, less acid, and a much sweeter fruit profile. This does not lend them to food as well as the ones from Italy.

You should easily be able to find these wines for under 20$. If you are on a search for these wines in a store, one thing to help you find a good one is when they are made in either of the two famous towns of Asti and Alba. So when looking for them, look for wines that say "Barbera d' Asti" or "Dolcetto d' Alba" This means they are from these towns and will definitely be at a higher quality.

MMM...Love me some Italian. The wine is good too.


Wine Tidbit: The US imports around 14% of the worlds wine production. Italy, as of the last few years, produces the most wine in the world.