A Passion for Piedmont, Part 1 (Recession Wine!)

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This post is a little late, but for Wine Blogging Wednesday the theme was Passionate Piedmont – wines from the Piedmont area of Italy. This is the first of two entries. (The other will go up rather late this evening.)

Beni di Batasiolo 2006 Barbera d'Alba

We started out with a Barbera, a very common grape in Piedmont. The Beni di Batasiolo is a 100% Barbera wine from the Alba area in Piedmont. I think I paid $8.99 (on sale from $9.99) for this bottle at Liqour Direct. For an $8.99 bottle, it's our Recession Wine of the week.

The color is a nice dark ruby. On the nose, we got a lot of blackberry. Kevin also got cedar, and I agree. I also got some cinnamon on there. These scents carried through on the tongue too. There was a lot of wood – but not really oak: more cedar and hickory. Those woody flavors were intermingled with dark berries, including a bit of sour blackberry on the finish. (That tastes better than it sounds.) I also found a lot of fun spices, first some cinnamon, but then a bit of oriental-style spices as well. Finally, there were nice, gentle tannins and as the wine opened up a bit, I even got a bit of chocolate in there.

For less than $10, this is a nice full red – I'd call it a steal.

Our rating:

Thanks to McDuff's Food & Wine Trail for hosting this edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday!

Part 2: Once Upon a Time (Principessa Gavia Gavi)

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Posted by Michelle at 5:24 pm in Recession Wine, Tastings, WBW, Wine Notes | Permalink | Comments (1)

One Response to “A Passion for Piedmont, Part 1 (Recession Wine!)”

David McDuff says:

February 20, 2009 at 12:05 am

Hi Michelle,
Thanks for participating. It brings things full circle in a way as, if I’m not mistaken, you were the host of the first WBW in which I participated (cheapies from Spain).
cheers,
David