You don’t have to go to Europe to explore an Italian castle — just visit Castello di Amorosa in Napa!
I’ve been to Portugal, England, and Wales and visited castles in all three countries, so I figured this Castle in the northern Napa valley was just a tourist attraction — a step below Disneyland.
Well, I was wrong! This is so much better than Disneyland!
While you may never have heard of the wines from Castello di Amorosa because they ONLY sell direct to consumer and to select restaurants, visiting the castle is a MUST SEE experience if you’re in Napa.
Rose is a very good daytime wine. It goes well with picnic food, or what you want to eat at a concert at the bowl: it’s like a symphony wine. The colors are varied but always so beautiful and inviting. And best? Dry rose wines pair so well with food from humous to ham, from salami to sausage.
And that’s why I had Marshall cook us up a ham to pair with our rose because, like rose, ham is a meat that you can eat all day –from breakfast steaks and scrambles to brunch to lunch and dinner grilled cheese, ham sandwiches, and more.
Many years ago, I had a sample rose from Planet Bordeaux and as we had prepared a ham, I gave it a try. The ham was cooked on the grill, smoked with special wood, and covered in cloves as well as other flavors in the rich glaze. It was a match made in heaven and now whenever we have ham, my go to wine is dry rose.
Rose also pairs well with a number of sides making it a versatile choice for holiday meals.
Because we had a number of different rose wines from around the world to sample, and it was a #winestudio Tuesday focused on rose, and #WinePW or Wine Pairing Weekend coming up with a focus on Rose, and we had a friend from far away visiting on her birthday
AND the second Saturday of June, IS NATIONAL ROSE DAY
so we thought it would be fun to do something special so we opened up 5 and did a blind tasting to see if we could guess what country and what grape the rose was made from, and to compare notes. We loved the difference in colors,. That was the first playfully fun thing that we noticed when looking at the glasses as you can see below.
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 