Truffels and Wine

It's raining again this AM, and no one is picking grapes. They might pick grapes this afternoon, but we wont know until after lunch. Bo.





So woe is us. We just had a wine tasting at 10:30 am, because were not up to much perque piova continuamente qui. Can I just tell you it was the most informative tasting I've ever had. We compared the Barbaresco and the Barolo. SO INCREDIBLY DIFFERENT. I guess I'm behind the times, because I did not know that Barolo typically smells of tartufo. As soon as our new roommate told me how much she could smell the tartufo, it literally jumped out of the glass and smacked me in the face.





Barolo and Barbaresco are composed of the same type of grape. Nebbiolo. So I asked Claudia how two wines could taste so different if they were made from the same grape. She said that it's totally dependent on the terrior, and clima (climate). There are designated Barolo plots, which are raised higher than the Barbaresco plots. The slope of the Barolo plots face towards the South West. It's a very hill-y region.





There is such a deviation in flavor between these two wines. The Barolo has a 1% higher amount of alcohol than the Barbaresco (14% versus 13%). And you can really taste it. Very bold, full bodied.

Here's a really interesting fact. The grapes perform better when the weather is super hot and sunny. Adversely, the truffles perform better when the weather is foggy, humid, and wet. Isn't that fascinating?

So pretty much this year, the truffle peeps are rejoicing, while the winemakers are anticipating a difficult harvest.

Also, they no longer use pigs to search for truffle because they cannot stop the pigs from eating them once they have found them!!! Instead they use dogs, and they don't feed them for a week so they will be super eager to find the truffles. Enrique, who bears characteristics that are more similar to a pig than a dog, would probably not make for a very good truffle hunter.