Nick Buttitta has a theory, one developed from a combination of experience, hearsay and a little guesswork.
It involves table wine, bottles often snubbed by aficionados versed in varietal, vintage and vineyard. Few American diners ask sommeliers to pour the humble house wine. In France and Italy, however, it’s common outside of Michelin Star establishments for guests to simply order red or white.
Buttitta suggests that, over the centuries, Italian villagers learned to blend local grapes into everyday wines that paired well with seasonal fare. Instead of doleful and sedentary, their table wines find favor with any meal, revel in friendly conversation and roll with every celebration.
“The Italian table wine matches the cuisine,” Rosa d’Oro’s winemaker said. “People who have been to Italy almost always say ‘We had the house wine and it was perfect.’”
And so he willingly ignores American winemaking convention, producing a table wine — one that even those who scorn the term would set before friends.
Rosa d’Oro’s non-vintage Omaggio is a white table wine blended from staggered percentages of Tocai Friulano, Riesling, Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc. The result is a friendly wine blooming with aromas of freshly cut peaches and pears, white flowers, exotic fruits and marble slab.
The Italian varietal — 40 percent of the blend — provides much of the fresh orchard scent. Riesling sets you under the trees themselves, lending hints of orange blossom, along with that earthier, mineralic note. The Chardonnay offers up a tropical breeze.
“The Chenin Blanc adds body,” Buttitta observed.
On the palate the wine is indeed smooth and sultry in body. Yet there is a bright, crisp edge that speaks of summer days. Ripe Granny Smith apple and fresh pear flow from the glass briskly, as heartier notes — stewed quince, apple peel, dried grass and melon rinds — struggle to keep pace.
The wine appears both light and dense, until the rich aspect feathers away at the finish, leaving only smiling reminders of ripe stonefruits, dry heather and warm stone.
All of this from a daily drinker, a table wine.
Buttitta credits his son, Pietro, for the concept. Rosa d’Oro had 2013 Tocai Friulano waiting in stock. They harvested the Chardonnay in 2014 and brought in the other varietals, also of 2014 vintage.
“His idea was to make it like a wine you’d find in a restaurant in Friuli,” Buttitta said. “I think he did a pretty good job with it.”
Good enough to stir some passion for table wine in this country, as well.
Dave Faries can be reached at 900-2016
