n.d.p. in andalusia: bodegas césar florido, chipiona

I think I know what was going through the Native Companion's mind when she booked us a hotel in Chipiona on our first visit to Andalusia. She likes the beach, and she probably assumed it would be nicer to be 'off the beaten path,' as it were, rather than directly in the sherry town of Sanlucar.

The problem with this reasoning, it turns out, is that Sanlucar, and indeed the whole region, is already rather 'off the beaten path.' If you try to get further out, you wind up conversing with cacti in a ghost town, which is how we spent much of our time in Chipiona. Alone on the beaches, alone on café terraces, alone in the halls of our creepy hotel, surrounded by oil paintings of freshly-killed chickens... The town's geographical proximity to Sanlucar belies its wildly divergent fate vis-à-vis wine production. Chipiona's sandy soils are known for the production of Moscatel, a fortified sweet wine, for which global demand hovers just above nil. Production has dwindled to the extent that Chipiona is now home to just two bodegas, only one of which, Bodegas César Florido, sells any wine for export.

The upswing to all this is that that bodega's current winemaker, César Florido, grandson of the founder, is among the most welcoming personalities in the region. He has a mayoral mien and an infectious enthusiasm for the winemaking tradition he helps to sustain. If he carries on like the fate of the town's wine heritage is on his shoulders, it's because in some sense it is.

n.d.p. in piemonte: alessandro e gian natale fantino, monforte d'alba

On our last night in Monforte, my friends and I revisited Case della Saracca, with the aim of drinking something we hadn't had much of during our stay: mature Barolo.* A late-nineties vertical by Alessandro e Gian Natale Fantino stood out on the bar's list as unmissable bargains, and we recognised the name because every day for the past week we'd been walking by their cellars, which are located right next to the Da Felicin apartments in the old city of Monforte.

If we hadn't yet visited them, it was because the name Fantino is like the Smith of Monforte, making it difficult for first time visitors like ourselves to keep straight which Fantini produce quality wine, and which produce light fluff for cafe consumption. Alessandro e Gian Natale, we learned, fall into the former category.  Alessando Fantino worked ten years for the legendary Bartolo Mascarello, before founding his own organic estate with brother Gian Natale in the early 90's.

The 1999 Barolo "Vigne dei Dardi" we drank at Case della Saracca was in the end so vivid and racy that J and I were inspired to try for an inexcusably last-minute visit before we checked out the next morning. ("Are you free in ten minutes? Yes, ten!") To our delight, winemaker Alessandro Fantino was available to give us a tour. We assured J's wife C and the Native Companion it would be a quick tour, no tasting, since that is what Fantino offered us in Italian over the phone. We probably should have known better, as it happened. C and the NC fell asleep in their hammocks by the packed convertible, and J and I tasted the Fantino range straight through to the Barolo Chinato.