It’s a countdown: five Sangiovese, four terroirs, three producers, two regions, one country, and one importer — Verovino– for this month’s Italian Food Wine Travel group of wine writers! Here’s the invitation from host, Wendy Klik.

Sangiovese is the grape in that ubiquitous Chianti bottle, you know the one in the straw basket. They used those baskets, called fiasco, (seriously!) to help with shipping back in the day. Learn more about Chianti here.

Sangiovese is grown in other areas of Italy in addition to Chianti, with most of it grown in the central parts of Italy and in Sicily. Today we’ll be looking at five wines: two from Tuscany, home of Chianti, and three from neighboring Emilia-Romagna. One is actually from Chianti, and four from other areas worth exploring.

I’ve been on a deep dive into sangiovese this week, starting with sangiovese based blends from the west coast (read it here), then a focused tasting with a vertical from Ranchita Canyon Vineyard (read about it here), and now, back to the homeland with these five from Italy imported by Verovino.

The common denominator for wines imported by Verovino founder Sheila Donahue? Continue reading →