E Wine of the Week

Rosa di Rosa, from Casali Vineyards in Northern Italy
E Wine of the Week
By Bruce Cochran
Hello Everyone,
Finally, my new web site is up and running! The very smart people at Tiger Team Solutions got it going. The new brucecochran.com is much more interactive than the old one. It even has a calendar of upcoming events, which I hope to fill up very quickly, and we’ll roll out more fun features soon.
Happy New Year! And be sure to try a new wine this week!
Bruce

The History of Rosa di Rosa
It isn’t often that a wine changes a person’s life, but this one changed mine. After a week with a small group exploring the foods, wines, history, geography, art and architecture in the nooks and crannies of northern Italy’s “parts less touristed,” Mrs. Cochran and I pushed even farther into this fascinating country to rest.
We wanted a place to relax and read, to burn wood in a fireplace and enjoy the cool October weather. We discovered what became one of our favorite places in the world, a place with fantastic scenic beauty, friendly people, great food and Rosa di Rosa.
This wine is enjoyed mostly in its region of production, the foothills of the Apennine Mountains between Florence and Milan. It’s actually made in very small quantities, only a few thousand cases a year for its growing number of fans. The grapes are grown organically in a series of small, hillside vineyards.
I began taking groups to this area, and so many people loved this wine and asked about getting it back home that I took the hint and got back into the wine business. At that time I was mostly teaching and writing, the travel groups being more or less “mobile food and wine courses.”
From the time the wine arrived in the U.S., a couple of years ago, it became a phenomenon. I now sell a good percentage of the total production and while the winery has been scrambling to find more grapes, there just isn’t much more available. It’s been quite a ride for all of us.
Many of you already know Rosa, with its fresh, berry-like flavors and lively spritz. In Italy this style is called “frizzante” or semi-sparkling, as opposed to “spumante” the term for sparkling wines. It’s a good wine for groups, as I’ve seen this wine appeal to every type of wine fan from grizzled, palate-scarred veterans like myself, to people who’ve never tried wines at all. It’s an especially good wine to introduce white wine lovers to the world of reds. And, it’s really great with chocolate.
Rosa di Rosa retails in the $10-$15 price range and is widely available throughout Arkansas and a few other states.