Tag: romagna

Last Thursday (4/24/20), I made my weekly order from my favorite restaurant D.O.C. Wine Bar. Been trying to do the little I can to help my friends and keep our local businesses open during this pandemic. They’re really awesome caring people that I’ve known for years and are truly my friends. Anyway, Claudio Coronas (he and his wife Rossana are owners) added a wonderful present in my delivery of a bottle of Ancarani Romagna Sangiovese Oriolo DOC 2016. Man, did this bottle of wine brighten my night. Wine is always my happy place, but even more so during this lockdown. This bottle took me on a trip outside of the walls of my apartment and all the way to Romagna Italy.

Opened the bottle, poured the first glass and held it up to the light to see a beautiful deep garnet and as I turned the stem little highlights danced on my wall. First whiff was a little diesel (which to me is not a bad thing and I did just open the bottle) but it quickly dissipated. Let it breathe a bit and violet and other delicate flowers pop out. There’s some cherry and toasty warm maybe spice that I can put my finger on scent. It just smells like a warm hug which we all need right now. Seriously, I can’t wait to hug again.

Now back to the wine. Oriolo taste : cherry, a little dried fruit, raspberry, salt, and a little earth, and also a wonderful tang/zip to it. It’s full of fruit with a dry finish. Made me want to be sitting outside by a river with friends having a picnic and sharing this bottle, or even relaxing with my S.O. in front of a fireplace….or it makes me want to travel. This yearning leads me to the Ancarani website. https://viniancarani.it/en/

What a beautiful vineyard! Also not only do they make wine but they also grow wheat, make pasta, and you can contact them about lunches, dinners, and tastings on their sustainable farm. Claudio Ancarani dubs himself the ‘agricolo’ and Rita Babini ‘the energy’. Claudio’s grandfather was the beginning of this venture buying the land in 1934, which is located in Faenza and near Torre de Oriolo. This led me to wonder what is this Torre? First ended up on the Oriolo Dei Fichi wiki page (what an amazing historic structure) and then to Torre Di Oriolo’s Facebook page. Ok, there’s an event with fire listed. I love festivals with fire! Lom a Merz is a festival filled with food, wine, music, games, etc. and a huge bonfire of dry branches, pruning and such; to drive off the winter, welcome the new season and bring on a prosperous one. Sadly, it appears that this year’s had to be cancelled due to the virus, but they had an optimistic note on the event page: “We want to think positive and look beyond the emergency we are experiencing. And so let’s try together to hypothesize a date: Sunday 26 April! When maybe we will already be out of our houses for a few weeks and meet around the fire to burn all the additional effort and difficulties of this longer than usual winter will be even more beautiful! In the meantime, stay at home, take care of yourself: united, respecting the distances, we will do it!” Now this is #romagnastrong

Maybe one day I’ll get to visit Ancarani and hopefully I will find more of your wines, but for now will just have to visit you online. Here’s a little more on Stada della Romagna https://www.stradadellaromagna.it/en/

#wine #DOCwinebar @docwineshop #@ancaranivini #italy #romagna #fire #lockdownwine