This Week's Wine: Barbera

Barbera wine was featured in this past Wednesday's New York Times (5/30/07). I am not a wine expert, so it is always interesting to read about recommended wines that are good and don't cost you your paycheck!

The entire article, Summer Breezes in, Sipping Barbera that appeared in the New York Times can be found here.

Barbera is a red wine grape variety that has a medium to heavy body with a ruby red color and flavors of berry. The barbera grape is grown extensively in the Piedmont region of Italy. The wine is characterized by low tannins and high levels of acid. The article mentioned above compares it to a white wine because of the low tannins and structure from acidity. Barbera is one of the most food friendly wines, and matches well with any meal with a tomato sauce. The wine is Italy's most common varietal, but is also widely found in California and Argentina where they use it as a blending agent.

Barbera is found throughout northern Italy, particularly in Piedmont, and to a lesser extent further south. Usually it is blended with other grapes, but some varietal wines are made, the best being Barbera d'Asti, which is made in the district of Asti (see our post on Moscato d'Asti here), the Barbera del Monferrato, which may be slightly sparkling, and Barbera d'Alba, which is made in Alba (see above picture).

Click on the tasting report above to see it larger. Note that Charlottesville is mentioned!