October 19, 2005
The Bolla winery, founded in 1883 in the Romeo and Juliet city of Verona in northern Italy, is identified with a big red wine called Amarone.
This is a powerful red made by a laborious method: the ripest berries from the sun-bathed tops of bunches of Valpolicella grapes are picked, dried in baskets for up to six months and then pressed. This concentrates the flavours of the juice and raises the alcohol levels. Bolla, which has some claim on creating this technique, ages its wines about four years before releasing them.
Amarone is an ager, capable of developing in the bottle for 10 or 20 years. It is a special occasion red (have it with a chunk of fresh Parmesan). The wines are priced to reflect the work that goes into them. The 2001 Bolla Amarone in the British Columbia liquor stores lists for $47.99.
Evidently, there is a limited market for wines at that price because Bolla recently has introduced two $12 wines from Sicily. Not only are these wines popularly priced but they are packaged in electric blue bottles. In design, these bottles are as far as one can get from traditional Amarone bottles, which usually are dark brown and heavy. But the twins from Sicily are hard to miss on the liquor store shelf.
In its accompanying literature, the winery says: “No one can resist the lure of Sicilian moonlight.” It might be more apt to say that no major northern Italian winery can resist Sicilian sunlight. Many of the big names (such as Frescobaldi) also have discovered Sicily and southern Italy, the source of big wines at modest prices.
In a launch across Canada, Bolla is offering both a white and a red and both are in similar blue bottles. A traditional company, Bolla still closes these bottles with corks when screw caps would be the better option.
Bolla 2004 Sicilia Vino Bianco is blended with equal parts of Chardonnay and Grillo, an Italian vine primarily limited to Sicily. The result is a crisp wine with flinty mineral notes and flavours of nuts and apples. My score: 85 points. With its dry finish, this is a good wine with seafood and poultry.
Bolla 2003 Sicilia Vino Rosso is a blend of 60% Shiraz and 40% Nero d’Avola, another Italian varietal. When you see a European wine claiming to contain Shiraz, not Syrah, you can expect a wine that reminds you of Australian reds. And this one is full-bodied, with soft tannins and flavours of stewed prunes. It is a hearty red, just what you would drink with meat loaf or with cheese beside the fire on a rainy winter evening. 86 points.
One commendable feature of both these wines is that the alcohol levels are under control, about 13% in each wine. Many wines coming from the hot Sicilian vineyards have significantly higher alcohol.
It is so warm in Sicily that Bolla prefers to have its grapes picked at night. This ensures the grapes arrive at the winery reasonably cool and don’t ferment prematurely. The practice of night picking is what inspired the slogan about the lure of Sicilian moonlight. That’s more romantic than disclosing (which is probably what really happens) that the pickers really have their work illuminated by tractor lights. Whatever the source of illumination, the idea is sound.
goodgrog@shaw.ca
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