The Charleston Enoteca

Oh,
'Tis a beautiful thing!

The Charleston Enoteca is THE place to get wine in Tuscany.
No, really. Wine Spectator says so.

((www.enotecacharleston.com))

We had 3 hours off yesterday afternoon, so a friend and I decided to walk down the the Charleston to check it out. This particular Enoteca, which is the Italian word for a wine shop, was recommended by our philosophy professor, and with good reason. A friendly looking (read well lit and well stocked) shop just outside of the walls of Arezzo, it's manned personally by Paolo and Stefano - the owner's son's, who were eager to help us once they divined that we were there to buy and had no idea what we were doing. (we decided to play the look around in confusion until someone comes over to help you game, which worked quite effectively) Paolo saw knew from the start that we didn't speak Italian, although, I countered when he asked, we do, "ma solo un piu".

What proceeded was a very interesting, is occaisionally over-enthusiastically jovial, lecture on Tuscan wines in a mixture of broken English and Italian (which I am really starting to understand). Here's the skinny as we had it from our new best friend Paolo:

The only real Tuscan wine is red wine.
They COULD make white wine.
They don't.

The good years are 2001 (the best of the bunch, a truly fantastic year here), 2004 (which will start to come into its own in a year or two since red wine should be aged for 5 - 10 years before you drink them), and 2006 (which you shouldn't be drinking yet, but which should be great). A 2003 isn't bad, he sad he didn't know about a 2005, but you should NEVER drink a 2002. Terrible year. Too hot, the wines aren't well balanced.

Now, of course, some grapes are more temperamental than others.

You want to drink a 2002 Super Tuscan? Yeah, alright, because the cabernet sauvignon and merlot grapes they use in these wines don't do as poorly when it's a bad year.
Now, anything which uses strictly the Sangiovese grape - like the Chianti Classico northern Italy is famous for - NIENTE. Never, he says. I trust Paolo.
(Paolo, by the way, does not like Barolos. He told us this about 8 times, because, he said, when we talked to our philosophy prefessor, if we couldn't remember whch brother we'd talked to, we could say, He doesn't like Barolos and Scott would say PAOLO! Of course, what I remember was Paolo's name, and not whether it was actually the Baolo he dislikes, or in fact the Brunella or Barbaresco.... It was one of the big "B" Tuscan wines, made from the Sangiovese grape... I'm sure he'll tell us again when we go back - this seemed to constitute an extremely funny joke.)

So, after he showed us several bottles (none of which were under 18 euros) I decided on a Super Tuscan called Cupinero - a small and relatively new vineyard, he says, with a 14.5 alcohol content and a purely Merlot grape base for 22 euro. Danny already knew that he wanted a Chianti Classico 2001, and Paolo recommended one (I'll put the name up here when I get it) with a smooth, well balanced flavor, and a mellow honey bouquet for 26 euro.

((God, it was good.))

I wanted to look at something frilly - a dessert wine or some champaign - and Danny wanted to get a bottle of Champaign for our wonderful junior administrator Dory's birthday, so Paolo gave us a quick run down on that.
Basically, Champaign here is only the stuff you get from the Champaign region of France (Andre was no where to be found), and is super expensive - like at least 80 euro. Sparkling wine, on the other hand, is the same thing, but produced in Italy, and you can find a good bottle for 22 (apparently), so we picked out a bottle of Castello Di Brolio, which is a big name here but, even though Paolo doesn't like the big farms, is still good and not too expensive.

Then we asked him if they had any cheese, because, surprisingly to me at least, formaggio is not easy to get here. He only had what they use in the store (which is also a cafe, it appears), and he said he couldn't sell it too us in less than a full wheel.
Well, I mean, Tuscany is known for their pecorino (sheep's cheese), and we were already into all of this...
So we bought a kilo of cheese for another 22 euro.
And that's how we spent 90 euros at the Charleston Enoteca for 2 bottles of wine and some cheese.

Although, Danny asked as we were checking out which cork screw was cheapest, and Stefano (the other brother) gave us each a Castello di Brolio corkscrew for free.

So that pretty much balances things out, right?


I mean, we'll totally be back.



And in the mean time, I'm full of pasta, desert wine, and I'm ready for a nice siesta before we go out for Chinese tonight.

D'Accordo?