A Wine Lover's Weekly Guide Southern Italian Basic Red

You may know that I am a fan of fine Italian wines, and has managed to taste and review at least one wine from each of Italy's twenty regions. This column has investigated several bargain Italian wines. Today we will look at a red wine from Puglia, also known as Puglia. This mostly flat region is second in the Italian wine production in Sicily. Both regions have made great efforts to upgrade their wine quality in general, Sicily has been more successful.

This red wine is based on Public’s most popular grape, Negroamaro, which means black and bitter. It is one of the ten most cultivated grapes in Italy. The wine reviewed below is distributed by a high volume exporter. We are talking about an annual volume of 25 million bottles and over 4 million 3-liter bag in a box wine. This may explain the price. What about quality? Keep reading.

Our wine review policy All wines that we taste and review are purchased at full retail price.

Wine Review Mezzomondo Negroamaro Silent, in 2007 13.5% alcohol about $ 7.50

Let us start with the marketing materials. Tasting Note: Deep ruby color scent of green leaves and cherry, smooth texture with ripe cherry, plum and woody flavors long cherry finish. Serving Suggestions: Pizza, pasta, or burgers. And now for my review.

At the first tasting of the wine had great length and a mass extract. It was not complicated, but it was definitely tough. The original meal involved slow cooked beef stew with potatoes. The wine was strong and well balanced. Caramel flavor was dominant. The side dish was the eggplant with its skin on fried in lots of oil with onion and red pepper. The Negroamaro tasted of dark fruits and was pretty long. Adding green jalapeno pepper sauce to the meat intensified caramel taste and the wine seemed sweet.

The second meal was a packed vegetable lasagna doused with grated parmesan cheese. The wine actually thinned out. There were some dark fruits and virtually no tannin.

The final meal was based on fried chicken livers with lots of black pepper. The Negroamaro tasted of dark cherry and its tannins were round, but not so much absent. The entire combo was not bad. All these cherries made me think of Valpolicella. The relatively spicy lime and garlic tomato salsa subdued this wine a bit. So I tried something unusual. Fresh pineapple goes well with maraschino cherries. But not with cherries in this wine.

I finished the tasting with two cheeses. The first was a cheese Provolone. The wine was a little too sour and went on to taste of dark cherries. With a Swiss cheese (Emmenthaler) wine started slowly but got better and fruitier over time. It was really not up to the quality of cheese.

Final Judgement. In many ways it is a good wine for the price. If I was a fan of cherries in my wine, I'd buy it again.